I am getting more and more into modeling and animation. I am new to Blender, but not 3D modeling (Fusion, Inventor, Solid Edge, SolidWorks). My current computer is really starting to show its age (i7-4790K, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 960). I use this computer for everything from day-to-day office and database work, some gaming, and everything graphics (2D vector and raster, and 3D modeling, texturing, rendering).
For my new build, I am lean towards AMD, considering the difficulty getting 3080ti or 3090 GPUs (and the price gouging).
Threadripper 3990X or 3970X
Radeon Pro W6800
64GB RAM
There is a lot of…fanboy and gaming comparisons between Nvidia and AMD (and Intel vs. AMD). I know that Bender 3.0 has support for AMD Pro GPUs, but will Blender make the most of my build? OR am I better off going with something like an i7 (11000 or 12000 series) and an RTX 3070ti?
Is all of the extra money going to provide excellent (even if not superior) performance for at least the couple of years? Just looking for some insight from experienced workstation users vs gaming rig users.
Your current intel CPU has acceptable single thread speed, and is relatively similar to those Threadripper CPUs. In other words, with Threadripper in many areas of Blender you will have similar performance to the one you currently have. Due to many more CPU threads, with Threadripper you would get much better performance for example in Cycles renders with CPU and physics simulation processing. But If you have in mind to buy an nvidia RTX card for rendering, perhaps you should go for a CPU with much better single threaded performance than Threadripper (16 to 32 threads). Much faster single thread speed will compensate in part for less thread count compared to Threadripper:
The best combination of hardware parts for Blender users (and many other 3d apps) at the moment we speak would be an Intel 12000 series cpu with the best possible nvidia gpu one’s money can buy.
If you give us a budget we’ll be able to put together a high-end system for your needs. It would cost slightly more than the 3990X alone, and it would perform much better in every field.
My budget is $6-8k. My original plan was to go with a 12000 series and an RTX 3080ti or 3090. However, most sources say availability for upper end RTX GPUs will not improve until late 2022. I just didn’t want to wait that long. Likewise, I am not keen on paying 3x MSRP or more for a gaming card, if I can spend a little more and get a workstation card with a lot more VRAM.
You’re right about the prices, but they are high for a reason. They’re good gpus. This budget is more than enough for a dream build for blender.
Get in this site and search and compare all the available gpus
What you’ll see is that GeForce cards are still better in the performance/$ ratio. Ex. the RTX A6000 costs in EU ~5K€ and performs slightly worse than a 3080 which, even though prices are inflated, costs almost the 1/3 of the A6000 price.
One more question. Where are you located? Just to know which part-configuration app to use.
Edit: As for availability, yes, there are issues, but you can find gpus at certain stores, they just are too expensive compared to their MSRP of course. Nevertheless, they’re worth the extra $ if we’re talking about productivity apps.
And just for the sake of completeness a dual 3090 build right at the edge of 8K budget (and some small compromises of course) PCPartPicker Part List
All parts available. In theory, you could add up the gpu’s Vram with a nvlink and have a total of 48gb, which is equal to what an A6000 gives, but with way, way faster rendering times.
Thank you very much for all of the information. I think I am going to go with the 12000/RTX build. One question for Birdnamnam. I have zero experience in multi-GPU systems. If I wanted to build the dual 3090, could I start with one and add the other 3090 later? If I did this, should I stick with the Ryzen 7 5800X or do to the Ryzen 9 5900X?
By the way, I am in the US.
Of course you can start with one GPU and add the 2nd one whenever you want. This might be the best approach in your case, imo.
The AMD based system was made with some compromises in order to fit in the two GPUs. I’ll post an other alternative with more freedom in part-picking. PCPartPicker Part List
The 2nd nvme comes with a cooler because this motherboard provides cooling for only one nvme, the primary one.
This rig is by all means top-notch. The new Intel 12000 cpus took a small head in STP (Single Threaded Performance) which is paramount for 3d apps, but it’s hard to configure a system with these cpus because ddr5 RAM is nowhere to be found (availability is 0 in most regions) and the ddr4 motherboards are more stripped-down and not single one of them is appropriate for dual GPU setups. So, weigh your options and move accordingly.