So I used to use blender back when it still had the attached game engine. At the time I had a decent machine for the job. I just started jumping back into it with 2.93 and overheated my CPU rendering the displacement node on the donut tutorial . . . so I guess it’s time to upgrade equipment. I have an AMD GPU and don’t see a way to use GPU render unless I have NVIDIA’s cuda cores.
Since then I understand a lot of advancements have been made in the rendering techniques and the hardware and pathways that are utilized especially when deciding between budgeting for a better GPU or CPU.
My question is when budgeting for hardware am I better off with a ryzen 9 5900X and an RTX 3060, or ryzen 5 5600x and an rtx 3080, or some variation in between?
Of course 16GB + of ram and a TB of disk space for either. And is there any other substantial performance component I am missing?
Thanks for the input, it is greatly appreciated.
I’d say that from a CPU perspective my minimum choice would be either an AMD 5800X (8 cores) or an Intel 11700K (8 cores). They come roughly at the same price (~around 360-370€ in EU). 32gb of RAM is minimum in my opinion for 3d apps these days. As for the GPU, since we’re talking about Blender and Cycles, put your money on the best graphics card you can afford. A 3080 or a 3080 ti would be excellent choices. The latter has 12gb of Vram and gives a larger headroom for heavier scenes. If this card is too difficult to afford, then the next best option is the 3070/3070ti.
I’v been getting by fine with a Ryzen 5 3600, 2070 Super and 16GB of ram. Fairly mid/budget spec.
The difference in performance compared to top range cards and cpu’s is relatively small if you’re just a hobbyist. More worth it if you go the pro route and you have the money to burn.
Thank you both for your input. so it seems the consensus, for rendering that is, is to focus more budget on the GPU rather than CPU. Your video shows in that render it is an average of 20s difference from 2080 to 3080.
So I would be good with a 16core Ryzen 7 3.8ghz and an RTX 30XX?
Now when it comes to D Ram DDR4 is top of the line. I’ve read that the actual ram speed is not too important or that for blender there is not much of a difference between 32 gB of DDR4 2800 and 32Gb of DDR4 4500.
Where does that ram speed affect performance?
Thank you again
It’s more important with Ryzen processors in a general use scenario (not restricted to Blender). You can find many articles and reviews about this. The minimum frequency is considered to be 3200MHz and the sweet spot for many is 3600. The tighter the cache latency the better (for a 3600MHz RAM kit the optimal is CL16).
If you go more budget (still pretty much though), the 2070 Super is still a very good card, and arguably exceeds the 3060 too. At another price level you find the 3070 and 3080 cards, which are excellent indeed, however, for a little less, you might get a better AMD one. How about the RX 6800 XT?
The benchmarks and gaming performance really vary between the 6800 cards and the 3070-3080 cards and not so decisive as I saw. The Nvidia cards are better for ray tracing, but the AMD does a decent job too, and if that aspect is not paramount, the 16 gb 6800 XT might be a much better choice, compared to a 10 gb Nvidia, and the considerable difference in the price could go into the CPU or other stuff 