Best computer for game dev and rendering?
- Thread starter bxIvan
- Start date
- Oct 26, 2017
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- 3,253
Depends on what you want to do and your budget, but brand name says absolutely nothing and to get most bang for the buck it's better to build one yourself.
There should be plenty of topics around, here are a few.
https://f95zone.to/threads/building-a-pc-for-3d-rendering-and-development-on-1300eur-range.33363/
https://f95zone.to/threads/what-sho...-if-i-plan-to-build-a-pc-for-rendering.28894/
There should be plenty of topics around, here are a few.
https://f95zone.to/threads/building-a-pc-for-3d-rendering-and-development-on-1300eur-range.33363/
https://f95zone.to/threads/what-sho...-if-i-plan-to-build-a-pc-for-rendering.28894/
How much money do you have. That is literally the only relevant question. BOTTOM end.. build a pre ryzen system (i have one im giving a way to my niece) with FUCKTONS of ram.. say $200. Will handle daz etc fine. Better than a ryzen 7 with less ram. Then buy the most expensive graphics cards you can afford to fill out your budget . Buy it all used . a 1070 is the sweet spot moneywise.
Ultimate system.. a 4 gpu motherboard. 64gb ram + highest core count threadripper available (youre actually buying this for the faster PCI lanes... it gives you one more lane which is a big deal). Then 4 2080ti's. Or if you want to get stupid on money.. 4x tesla m60 gpu's.. the equivalent of 8 stupid fast pro graphics cards. M2 drives of course. cost you around 26 grand for the cards so.. $30,000 system? OR .. built a $1000 workstation and clone it til you run out of money and turn all the other systems into a renderfarm.... you can quite literally spend as much money on this as you HAVE money
And as he said NEVER EVER buy brand names in computes. The biggest brand name in computers is DELL and they literally sell garbage for twice the price of a BETTER system.
Ultimate system.. a 4 gpu motherboard. 64gb ram + highest core count threadripper available (youre actually buying this for the faster PCI lanes... it gives you one more lane which is a big deal). Then 4 2080ti's. Or if you want to get stupid on money.. 4x tesla m60 gpu's.. the equivalent of 8 stupid fast pro graphics cards. M2 drives of course. cost you around 26 grand for the cards so.. $30,000 system? OR .. built a $1000 workstation and clone it til you run out of money and turn all the other systems into a renderfarm.... you can quite literally spend as much money on this as you HAVE money
And as he said NEVER EVER buy brand names in computes. The biggest brand name in computers is DELL and they literally sell garbage for twice the price of a BETTER system.
- Apr 27, 2017
- 1,004
- 1,141
Priority list is this:
GPU cuda cores (nvidia cards only, since iray is an nvidia engine it needs to be an nvidia card) (faster renders, never too many cores)
GPU Vram for dealing with larger scenes at a faster pace(there is a certain point where more Vram doesn't benifit you much)
on the whole the GPU is the most important thing, it must be nvidia, it must have a decent amount of Vram and as many cores as your budget can buy you, the GTX 1060 (6GB) of mine is nice but ultimately showing it's age a little, it is perfectly fine for dipping your toe but a more committed dev needs better, currently i don't believe there is any benefit to RTX, so no specific need to go for RTX rather than an older higher tier card.
CPU speed (not as important as GPU cores but similarly the more the merrier)
Ram for dealing with larger scenes, 24 GB is enough, you could get by with 16 but more the merrier till a point, i run 32 and rarely do i ever feel like i need more but i don't render huge crowds with HD hair props, so if that's your bag you will need loads of ram, IMO more than 64 is total overkill and 32 is more than sufficient for most people
Drive space is no joke, get a beefy HDD on the cheap and load all you daz shit into it, 4-6Tb is advisable, daz gets fat faster than you'd think possible.
What a lot of people also fail to mention is a decent monitor, 4K isn't necessary nor is high refresh rate but a decent mid range colour true monitor is pretty nice to have, you don't need a full pro photo edit type screen but something that is gonna give decent contrast and colour fidelity for post work in PS ect. is helpful.
There is no "best PC", just best bang for buck at each price point.
GPU cuda cores (nvidia cards only, since iray is an nvidia engine it needs to be an nvidia card) (faster renders, never too many cores)
GPU Vram for dealing with larger scenes at a faster pace(there is a certain point where more Vram doesn't benifit you much)
on the whole the GPU is the most important thing, it must be nvidia, it must have a decent amount of Vram and as many cores as your budget can buy you, the GTX 1060 (6GB) of mine is nice but ultimately showing it's age a little, it is perfectly fine for dipping your toe but a more committed dev needs better, currently i don't believe there is any benefit to RTX, so no specific need to go for RTX rather than an older higher tier card.
CPU speed (not as important as GPU cores but similarly the more the merrier)
Ram for dealing with larger scenes, 24 GB is enough, you could get by with 16 but more the merrier till a point, i run 32 and rarely do i ever feel like i need more but i don't render huge crowds with HD hair props, so if that's your bag you will need loads of ram, IMO more than 64 is total overkill and 32 is more than sufficient for most people
Drive space is no joke, get a beefy HDD on the cheap and load all you daz shit into it, 4-6Tb is advisable, daz gets fat faster than you'd think possible.
What a lot of people also fail to mention is a decent monitor, 4K isn't necessary nor is high refresh rate but a decent mid range colour true monitor is pretty nice to have, you don't need a full pro photo edit type screen but something that is gonna give decent contrast and colour fidelity for post work in PS ect. is helpful.
There is no "best PC", just best bang for buck at each price point.
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Volta is right. Don't use AMD for 3D development or rendering. Nobody really supports AMD when it comes to development.
I dont know about that.. usually when you buy the parts individually, you endup with a larger price.
You might find what you want in an existing configuration and it will be in most cases - cheaper.
My laptop is dying - is a Lenovo W520 top spec 9 years ago
Can still be considered decent today i7 and stuff.
But I will have to think at an option soon.
- Oct 26, 2017
- 889
- 3,253
It's not as bad as it used to be I think, but to cut costs, complete PC's were often sold with crappy power supplies, basic motherboards, pc case made out of tin can steel, stock or cheap cooling, etc.
Sure, on paper it might be the same, but...
- Apr 27, 2017
- 1,004
- 1,141
As someone who recently built/rebuilt a PC from the top down (mid range ryzen 2600 build with ram headroom for Daz) it isn't cheap but you get significantly more bang for buck buying parts, yes it appears more expensive but you get three important things that most prebuilds never have.
1:Full control of parts you buy, no compromises on PSU or expansion slots, get the exact GPU you want, the mobo you want ect., i can't stress how important it is to have the room to expand, even having room in the case for extra HDD's matters a lot more than you'd think and pre builds tend to cheap out on at least one of these things.
2: Prebuilds are "time locked", they are put together and shipped and priced as such, a self build isn't, you can order a part when it's cheap or you find a deal and progressively collect parts, i did this and saved probably around £100, mainly on ram (£30 off due to a deal, making 32GB significantly better £/GB than the 16 i was considering, and at 3200 speed to boot rather than 2600)
3: you can reuse your old parts where possible saving decent money, network cards, old HDD's, optical drives, case fans, hell the case itself, all are small change individually but they add up pretty quick, save your money for the GPU and CPU that are the real cash holes.
I know self building is intimidating but really it's not that bad, i'm no pro, I've mainly been a part switcher but the step up from that to a full build isn't as much as you'd think, if you've ever switched a cpu/cpu cooler then your good for at least a try as there isn't much more taxing than that to do. There are countless decent build guides out there to watch and read as well so you're not going be coming at it cold and without any idea what to do.
1:Full control of parts you buy, no compromises on PSU or expansion slots, get the exact GPU you want, the mobo you want ect., i can't stress how important it is to have the room to expand, even having room in the case for extra HDD's matters a lot more than you'd think and pre builds tend to cheap out on at least one of these things.
2: Prebuilds are "time locked", they are put together and shipped and priced as such, a self build isn't, you can order a part when it's cheap or you find a deal and progressively collect parts, i did this and saved probably around £100, mainly on ram (£30 off due to a deal, making 32GB significantly better £/GB than the 16 i was considering, and at 3200 speed to boot rather than 2600)
3: you can reuse your old parts where possible saving decent money, network cards, old HDD's, optical drives, case fans, hell the case itself, all are small change individually but they add up pretty quick, save your money for the GPU and CPU that are the real cash holes.
I know self building is intimidating but really it's not that bad, i'm no pro, I've mainly been a part switcher but the step up from that to a full build isn't as much as you'd think, if you've ever switched a cpu/cpu cooler then your good for at least a try as there isn't much more taxing than that to do. There are countless decent build guides out there to watch and read as well so you're not going be coming at it cold and without any idea what to do.