I believe that to make it a fair fight you need several things: 
1) Learn  both packages well first. Its advantages and disadvantages. Obviously speed goes to iclone, while render accuracy goes to octane. 
2) What is your goal? true photorealism or stylized look?
3) when it comes to skin iclone is missing subsurface , there are trick you can use to simulate this but you really need to customize it to the lighting conditions in the scene, while octane will do this automatically. 

Bottom line, it depends on the project you have in mind. You can do amazing things in iclone 7 , certainly pushing photoreal or stylized photoreal. Like Shrek movies. 

Cheers,

Stuckon3d

PS: example: render a similar image in octane, and tell me how long it took.  iClone did it in 1.5 seconds at 4k full quality.  :)





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Is the girl on the bed a scene that could be shared with the community as a lighting exercise? Might be interesting to see other people's versions of it as well.

iClone 7 PBR vs Export out to Maya and rendered with Octane Render.  
What is the deal with PBR, can it match Traditional higher end rendering solutions if mastered, or is it a stretch yet?  
iClone almost looks like a cartoon compared to a plastic doll in Octane.... (I certainly don't have the lighting down yet...in either!...Also background came over offset in the Octane, I think I messed up something, didn't happen in other scenes..)
Well, as far as PBR goes, what do you think?...

iClone 7
 
Octane Render




iClone7


Octane Render



iClone 7




Octane Render