I’m going to be building a computer this summer for gaming/rendering. I’m looking for suggestions for what components will matter more vs less for rendering. I’ve primarily used cycles for renders so far and would liek to be able to GPU render.
I feel like I have a decent handle on what I need but wanted to get some other opinions.
I’m looking at
GTX 970 with 4GB of ram
Intel i7 3.6 Quad core
8 GB(2x4) DDR3 ram
SSD to work off of and a standard 7200 rpm for storage.
use the 2011 cpu socket and go for a 6core CPU. it will make a huge difference in rendering time and realtime preformance.
this means you also get a next gen Motherboard due to the CPU socket support, witch means you have to go for DDR4 RAM, witch at this point is not really too expensive.
also, i would recomend 16GB of ram rather than 8. having 8 will cause trouble when working with massive projects or complex stuff.
i considered 32GB for my rig, but went for 16 and it has been working fine so far.
also, unless you are planning on doing GPU rendering i dont think you need the 970. i chose the 970 for my rig for gaming preformance cause i like playing videogames aswell, but i mainly use CPU for 3d stuff.
if you need that gaming preformance, or plan on using the GPU for rendering then go for it, otherwise the 960 is enough.
PyroGXPilot: I didn’t see one it would fit in. I probably just missed it though. Link me to the right section and I’ll repost it there.
finalbarrage: Thanks for the cpu suggestions. The 970 is for the gaming as well as GPU rendering. I’m going to check out the board and CPU options you suggested now.
the 5820k is the one i got, and it was also recomended by Linus Media Group, they suggested it after i chose it myself so that just confirms that i made a good choice
go with a LG2011-v3 socket. go with a X99 mother board, ive got one of those. the one you pick depends on your other needs.
i fyou use windows, check the memory limits on it; i have teh Home Prem version of Win7 and the 64bit has a memory cap of 16gb, which REALLY annoys me; for some reason they arbitrarily decided a 64bit system should be capped, unless you forked out for the more expensive Ultimate versions.
1 x ($219.99) MSI X99A Raider LGA 2011-v3 Intel X99 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.1 USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
1 x ($199.99) G.SKILL Ripjaws 4 Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) 288-Pin DDR4 SDRAM DDR4 2400 (PC4 19200) Desktop Memory Model F4-2400C15Q-32GRR
1 x ($30.99) Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO - CPU Cooler with 120 mm PWM Fan
With shipping it ended up being $871.00.
Although I moved many parts over from my old system to the new one (power supply, monitors, GPUs, disks, etc). I purchased the motherboard because it supports three GPUs so I have some room to expand. It also supports up to 128 Gbytes of memory, which is an insane amount. The cooler is awesome, but it needs a large case, mine is a Cooler Master HAF XB EVO, which isn’t too expensive at around $100. The CPU never gets above 65C even though I have mildly overclocked it to 3.8 Ghz. The GPUs never get above 70C in the system which is very nice as well. Currently I have a 750W power supply, but if I put in three GPUs I will probably bump that up to 850 or 900W to cover the power needs. Good luck on your build.
Cycles has two GPU rendering modes: CUDA, which is the preferred method for NVIDIA graphics cards; and OpenCL, which supports rendering on AMD graphics cards.
-Blender Reference Manual
I didn’t know that either…thought it was just for preview rendering.
