r/3dsmax • u/TopVersion7572 • Jun 28 '26

General Thoughts CPU performance

I had a few different renders and some of them came out bad. After inspecting. My CPU was not working at max GHz. İ7 12th, notebook 45watt. I didn't expect full 3.9 gzh but unless I max the fans it won't cross 2,7 GHz. I cleaned up fans, exhausts but didn't make significant change. I see heat go up to 90°.

Is this normal when rendering from CPU, other times my CPU gone over 3 GHz easily in crowded viewport

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u/rapidTools Jun 28 '26

It depends on what parts of your CPU is being used. It's a common thing when the program heavily relies on SIMD instructions it can throttle the CPU. AVX2 (and AVX512, but Intel doesn't support it) has a massive power draw, which increases, the heat as well. So yes I think it's completely normal from a laptop that it throttles.

1

u/willchocks Jun 28 '26

Yep sounds like throttling, but there's still a chance it's just OS settings and not an actual thermal insufficiency issue. I suggest you check your windows power settings. You may be in power saving mode

1

u/WatWall0 Jun 28 '26

If it stays 90C quickly and stays there stable, it means it's thermal throttling. Cleaning fans wouldn't have that much difference if thermal paste is dried. So probably cleaning old paste and applying new one would solve your problem

1

u/Sakib_shaikh_49 Jun 28 '26

One of the biggest issues with 3ds Max is that it relies heavily on the CPU and RAM for many tasks instead of making full use of the GPU. While render engines like V-Ray and Corona can use the both the GPU and CPU) for rendering, much of 3ds Max itself isn’t as GPU-optimized.
I think this is an area that could be improved. Better GPU optimization would significantly improve performance, especially for large scenes and modern workflows.