I timed the same scene on CPU (Intel Core 2 Duo, 3 GHz) at 1 minute 6.6 seconds. So the GPU was actually slower. But that may reverse with more complicated scenes.
I wish there were a way to use both on the same image (cutting render time essentially in half!)
Rendering this more complex image took 6 minutes 21.94 seconds on CPU and then crashed the GPU. I suppose it is still in development!
I hope they will allow incremental (unlimited till you stop rendering) passes, like Luxrender. This way you just let it render until the noise is gone, contrary to experimenting (and wasting time) testing the amount of passes.
The viewport does this. Leave it running overnight and you’ve got a completely noise-free image by morning.
he meant for an entire frame set… it’s common in fprime and in lux, render 10 passes for each frame then start over adding more passes and so on
either that or he just failed to discover interactive mode 
@skycooler,
Ah, ok, that explains why the setting didn’t have any effect on the viewport. However, this would also be nice for Still-rendering. Screenshotting the viewport is not really ideal :]
(It would even work for animations though, rendering every frame, starting again with a new pass)
I don’t follow you completely. Doing 10 passes and then doing 10 more is effectively the same as constantly doing 1 pass and then another, etc, etc.
I call it “Leaves at Night” aka test of alphamaps + bump
Just downloaded the Windows 32 version, I will edit this post later to add some results from a slow computer (4 year old Core2Duo laptop with 2GB RAM) And the current windows build doesn’t have GPU support yet so that won’t be a factor.
Can’t wait to see the speeds everybody has been talking about…
EDIT: RESULTS!!! Although a bit slow in the viewport (remember, laptop) It performs really well.
Quite a few fireflies around, which is a bit annoying. But other than that fantastic results for only 10 minutes. (sorry about tiny size on the image, computer isn’t exactly…good)
If I where back at home (1 month, 2 weeks) I would be able to get much better results much faster. But this is a restriction I must deal with, or cry.
Much more realistic results than BI definately, but it is virtually impossible to get a noiseless result (without spending a whole day rendering, that is)
Soon I will be trying out more complex scenes along with textures ect. implemented.
Maybe a re-render of my Guitar model from a while back would be in order, maybe.
Anyway, really impressed, incredible results, with very little effort.
PS: Anyone with more experience with nodes materials, please PM me. Because I am a nodes n00b
My first test with Cycles:
2 minutes, 100 passes, Max Bounces: 4, Min Bounces: 1, AMD Athlon II 3.0 Ghz X 4 cores, 16 GBs of RAM. Looking forward to try with GPU…
Here are some more tests:
This one shows how you can combine multiple materials with a texture:
This one shows more combining and also uses the bump map.
Here I’m using particles, instancing, transparent/glossy/bump map textures (thank you ZanQdo for your example.) The scene is ~235000 faces. There are all kinds of problems with the scene though… hahaha And, I can’t seem to get the shadows to use transparent consistently.
Cool scene! I must say my alphamap setup is probably the most inefficient way there could be but it’s all there is for now I think
Alpha maps have been a continuous issue of late with BI. So I am not surprised that after this early stage of development that it hasn’t been considered.
BTW, been doing some tests, and Cycles is great for outside rendering in particular (atleast of my finds, that is) But I will be converting my Guitar from a while ago tonight (hopefully) to get it ready for Cycles. Wish me luck 
Hmm… So now we have pointlessly complicated textures? I guess these problems will get worked out in time right?
Of course it will… It is ultra-WIP :rolleyes:
Very nice !
My Q6600 (windows build) is just stong enough to run a small 300×300 3D window in interactive mode. But that is very enjoyable: instant-feedback ! It is like having a fresh pair of eyes !
Here are my tries: the ever-returning chess-set (Bauhaus style)
I couldn’t make the defocus node work though…
Second one with tron-like lighting :eyebrowlift2:
This is everyone’s new favoutite toy 
Ready-to-render blend of the tower: [link]
Edit:
Rendertimes:
Clacktower: 27 minutes (mostly clear after just a few passes)
Skeleton: 2 minutes
System:
OS: ArchLinux 64bit - self compiled cycles branch (with -march=native) (rev 36414)
CPU rendering on a Phenom 9950BE Quad
If you want to compare speed/look: Note that the tower image is slightly gimped. (colorcorrection and glow)
What kind of setup are you using (computerwise) and OS too. I think right now We need a proper test “Level” for the OS’ and Scenes. Just to see the real differences between particular setups.
Looking much better than 27 minutes on my computer, trust me.
Added my systemconfig.
The OP didn’t mention that others can also post test here, but he did not complained when they did, so here is my render. I did not measure the time, but it was about 1-2 hours per view, and some post-work to reduce noise in PS.
Well, as a newer test (that can also be found on the Main Cycles page) I rerendered my guitar! (as I promised)
As I said over there, This isn’t at full res. It took exactly 55:01.06.
