Building PC for Blender

Support Technical Support
1

My daughter and I are building a PC for her to use Blender. It will be running Linux (my way of forcing her to learn Linux). I understand that an Intel processor would be better but as for value… Is it better to go with the higher end AMD processor ie
AMD FX-8350 Black Edition Vishera 8-Core 4.0GHz (4.2GHz Turbo) Socket AM3+ 125W Desktop Processor FD8350FRHKBOX

Or

Intel Core i5-4440 Haswell Quad-Core 3.1GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) LGA 1150 84W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600 BX80646I54440 Intel Core i5-4440 Haswell Quad-Core 3.1GHz (3.3GHz Turbo) LGA 1150 84W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4600 BX80646I54440

for approximately the same price?

My daughter will be paying for this system (through doing diagrams and 3d modelling for my company) so the total price is important. We will be upgrading a 2 year old system so we don’t need a case, pwr supply nor HDD. We will be buying a GPU, SSD and Ram so keep this in mind. Also, a second GPU will eventually be installed.

Thanks in advance for any feedback you can give me.

Bob McDowell

2

Are you going to use Cycles for rendering, then a good GPU is what I should put my money on. Rendering with the CPU is far to slow.

3

And if you run out of memory on the GPU, you can solved it by doing this:

4

I’ve been using an 8350 in my work PC for two years, it has proven to be an excellent choice. Of course not the most powerful CPU on the planet, but for this price it’s really good, even if it’s not overclocked (mine is a bit). The only downside I can mention is the factory heating - you will want to change it. Noisy and weak, but for 25-30$ you can get a decent quite aftermarket one. For overclocking I use a compact water cooling system but if your daughter would use it @ factory settings (which I suspect) water cooling would be overkill.

I’m sure the 4440 is a really good CPU as well and since it’s Haswell, it’s much more future-proof (I mean the MoBo).

As I understand she is buying a GPU as well, so she’ll render on GPU. In that case CPU choice is much less important.