Hardware Benchmarks Running UCSF Chimera

These scores measure the graphics card and CPU performance using Chimera to render volume data and molecular models. The benchmarks are run using Chimera menu entry Tools / Utilities / Benchmark.

Volume benchmarks

The volume scores (Surface, Mesh, Contour, Solid, Recolor) give the edge size of a cube shaped volume data array such that rendering or contouring or recoloring can be performed 10 times per second. Data of this size can be easily manipulated in Chimera.

Doubling a surface or mesh rendering score means rendering 4 times as many triangles or lines per second. Doubling a contouring, solid rendering or solid recoloring score means processing 8 times as many data points per second.

Molecule benchmarks

The molecule scores (Wire, Stick, BStick, Ribbon, Sphere, Ops) give the frames-per-second for molecule 1F4H in different display styles.

Results

This table includes Chimera versions 1.2509 (May 5, 2008) and later. Older scores.

Volume ScoresMolecule Scores
Graphics Graphics Memory (Mb) OS Type Surface Mesh Contour Solid Recolor Wire Stick BStick Ribbon Sphere Ops Notes Test Date Chimera Version Machine Processor Clock (GHz) Main Memory (Gb) OS Version Driver Version Host name
GeForce 9800 GTX 512 Windows 755 606 171 291 132 60 13.6 13.5 36.8 28.8 37.4 5680 (1,2) 5/08 2509 Cyberpower Athlon 64 X2 5200+ 3.12 3 Windows XP Home SP2 2.1.2 from Sacha De Carlo
Quadro FX 5600 1536 Mac 570 568 185 406 152 168 4.5 4.6 7.9 6.7 40.9 5669 5/08 2509 Mac Pro Dual Intel Xeon Quad-Core 2.8 10 Mac OS 10.5.2 2.0 nvidia 1.5.24 strawson.cgl.ucsf.edu
Radeon X1600 256 Mac 425 426 156 256 97 140 3.6 3.6 9.0 5.8 27.2 5667 5/08 2509 iMac Intel Core Duo 2 2 Mac OS 10.4.11 2.0 ATI 1.4.56 oscar.cgl.ucsf.edu
Quadro FX 3400 Windows 402 592 151 203 121 59.8 11.0 10.9 23.2 23.9 23.0 5676 5/08 2509 HP xw6200 2 Windows XP Pro SP2 2.0.3 huck.cgl.ucsf.edu
GeForce 6800 Ultra 256 Mac 347 300 155 289 77 104 4.7 4.8 11.2 7.9 18.1 5675 5/08 2509 Power Mac G5 Dual PowerPC G5 (3.1) 2.7 2 Mac OS 10.4.11 1.5 ATI 1.4.18 twain.cgl.ucsf.edu
Radeon X1600 256 Mac 344 343 170 256 86 165 5.1 5.7 12.8 5.1 32.2 5649 5/08 2509 MacBook Pro Intel Core 2 Duo 2.33 2 Mac OS 10.4.11 2.0 ATI 1.4.56 Tom Goddard's laptop
Radeon 9800 Pro 128 Mac 323 323 146 256 109 89.1 3.4 3.7 9.9 6.2 14.1 5668 5/08 2509 Power Mac G5 Dual PowerPC 970 (2.2) 2 2.5 Mac OS 10.5.2 2.0 ATI 1.5.24 mach.cgl.ucsf.edu
Quadro4 980 XGL Windows 289 296 156 71 128 60.0 12.1 12.0 30.0 20.0 23.7 5677 5/08 2509 HP xw4100 1 Windows XP Pro SP2 1.5.3 exhibitus.cgl.ucsf.edu
Quadro4 900 XGL Linux 281 289 156 73 113 85.2 8.5 8.4 21.0 17.1 17.7 5671 5/08 2509 Linux 2.6.23.15-80.fc7 i686 1.5.8 nvidia 96.43.01 buckley.cgl.ucsf.edu
Quadro4 980 XGL Windows 240 262 158 152 114 100 14.1 14.2 31.4 22.2 25.0 5670 5/08 2509 HP xw4100 2 Windows XP Pro SP2 1.5.3 dali.cgl.ucsf.edu
VPro B 128 128 IRIX 157 150 70 128 63 20.1 1.0 1.0 2.4 1.8 2.3 5672 5/08 2509 SGI Octane IRIX 6.5.24m IP30 1.2 euler.cgl.ucsf.edu

Notes

(1) Peak frame rate is limited in molecule benchmarks to 60 frames per second because of synchronization to the display refresh rate.

(2) CPU and graphics both overclocked.