well, since benchmarking as such is not my hobby, my interest is not in the detailed figures but in the final conclusions that can be drawn from them. Details even depend on the temperature control in my box, and eventual other processes running too.

Is Octane 2 slower than 1.5?
yes, 15% on the same settings, but v1.5 became 30% faster than v1.2 before.

Is that so for elaborate scenes only?
no, my scene is not that sophisticated

Although v2.0 is slower, you can stop at a lower s/p limit since it converges faster to to required low-noise result.
Not found real proof for that.

Unbiased renderers are (much) slower than biased ones.
Luxrender is slower than Firefly and Octane is slower than Vue (both 2x to 8x depending on scene, settings etc), but Octane is quite faster than Firefly (4x to 16x).

Where does Vue stand as a renderer alternative?
We've seen that one above, surprise to me ! Vue is a known snail in scenes with light scattering in clouds and rich vegetation, but since all that is out in a "standard" Poser scene where Firefly, Octane or Lux can perform to any extend, it's blazing fast for that purpose.

And so on, take your pick. I've left Blender, PoseRay/POVray and more alternatievs out of the loop as well.

- - - - - 

Usually I'm wrong. But to be effective and efficient, I don't need to be correct or accurate.

visit www.aRtBeeWeb.nl (works) or Missing Manuals (tutorials & reviews) - both need an update though