PC Build For Blender

So I am planning on building a pc specifically for intense blender use. So far the best computer I have ever owned is a mid 2012 macbook air which has a dual core i5 processor and 8 gb of ram. I have no experience with building a pc but my brother in law knows how to put it together but his knowledge is limited to gaming machines not one geared towards 3D work. In the end I just want a machine that performs well and is reliable. I was planning on getting a Mac Pro ( Late 2013 ) but I couldn’t justify the price tag for old hardware plus from what I gathered it doesn’t have much driver support and isn’t the best for Blender. I am considering waiting for the new Mac Pro for 2019 but most likely just going to do my own custom build.
Here is the build I have put together so far, let me know if it has any issues or possibly some advice on it: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/RhCLNQ

Processor: Intel Core i9-9900k 3.6ghz 8-core
Cpu Cooler: [Asus - ROG RYUJIN 360 121.8 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler]
Motherboard: [Asus - ROG STRIX Z390-E GAMING ATX LGA1151 Motherboard]
Memory: 2x [Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-2666 Memory] (Total of 64gb Ram)
Storage: [Samsung - 970 Evo 1 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive]
GPU: [Sapphire - Radeon RX VEGA 64 8 GB Video Card]
Case: [NZXT - H700i ATX Mid Tower Case]
System Power Supply: [Corsair - CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply]

So it’s PC all the way

1 Like

Could you give us a budget? What other software are you currently using, or plan to use in the future?

OpenGL is dead, did not have a new release for almost 2 years now(on any platform). Android has moved to Vulkan (which is moving forward fast). Vulkan has been ported to macos via MoltenVK(runs on top of Metal). On top of MotlenVK, GLOVE bring back support for OpenGL ES on macs an ios devices.

Blender most likely will move to Vulkan anyway, so the deprecation of OpenGL is insignificant. Deprecation does not mean that next version of MacOS won’t include OpenGL, just means that it wont be updated. Of course its removal is a matter of time with the vast majority of apps moving/moved to Metal/Vulkan.

On the matter of mac , you can go for it , you don’t need to throw a lot of money at it, you can also add an egpu. MacOS does support all its graphic cards as egpus on macos and of course you can take advantage of all other gpus on windows via bootcamp. Egpus has the advantage of allowing you to upgrade whenever you want and of course use more than one GPU inside the same egpu box.

Egpus can be used with both macs and macbooks.

Cheapest solution of course remains the PC.

Also note that Eevee is a real time render engine that can combine with Cycles and greatly accelerating rending times so you don’t need to go for the most expensive pc/mac. Far better value for money, to save that money and upgrade more frequently.

1 Like

I recently switched from a Mac to a PC after discovering that Cycles doesn’t support OpenCL anymore in Blender macOS, so you can only render using the CPU on a Mac. Eevee uses OpenGL, and Apple has also abandoned that. :neutral_face:

Your PC rig sounds good, @Samuel_le3. I’d go for an NVidia GPU though, such as a GeForce GTX 1080 Ti. Macs only have AMD GPUs, but when you’re building a PC, you’ve got a choice, and to my experience Cycles runs better on CUDA than OpenCL.

3 Likes

Well I am looking for something around $2000. Mainly I want it to run Blender but also do some stuff with video editing ( Like Premiere Pro ) and some photoshop.

Thanks, I will definitely look more into Nvidia GPU’s! I mainly looked into AMD since that was what was supported on the mac platform. Generally I saw AMD outperforming when it came to productivity centered tasks like 3D modelling and rendering while Nvidia beat AMD in gaming tasks. However I will do more research into which is the best option. Also the 1080’s seem to be incredibly expensive right now but I will continue to watch the prices.

1 Like

Okay thanks for your reply! I definitely prefer the mac platform so I appreciate your thumbs up for that as most users are biased towards Windows and never consider mac. However apple doesn’t offer much currently for what I need with Blender, perhaps soon though. Originally I planned on getting a mac mini with an egpu but found I was going to be spending about $2600 so I figured to go elsewhere because it seemed too expensive for what I was getting. As to the price, I mainly want something that just works and is reliable, hence greatly considering mac. So for me I’m not necessarily trying to get as close to that “bang for the buck”. I am willing to spend a lot on something I know will work and won’t be inconsistent due to errors and possibly just hardware that doesn’t work well together. So I am making sure to view all my options and see what would work best.

1 Like

Thanks for this. I think right now I will go with building my own PC and I will just do whatever things I want to on Mac with the system I already have. I will probably end up having a dual boot on my PC with Windows and Linux, I’ll get Windows first and possibly spend time learning Linux as I have heard its a much more stable OS.

well you can always install hackintosh on pc if you prefer working with macos as I do. But other than that you will be fine with a pc.

I have a late 2013 27’’ iMac with 8GB ram and NVIDIA 755m GT 1 GB and so far I have been happy with it. But I mostly use Eevee.

1 Like

Yeah I’ve also considered hackintosh. The one problem I have heard from the hackintosh community is its hard to get it to be stable so its better as a hobby than anything else, I’m still going to look into it though since I like MacOS so much.

1 Like

Unless you know you need the 64GB you could start with 32 for now and save a little money and always add more later. I agree with the Nvidia advice. While AMD is getting better and can be more value for money now in some cases, Nvidia is still the first thing that people support, so having CUDA means you can run anything. I would look at the new RTX 2060 cards.

But AMD is also actively paying the Blender Foundation to improve Blender support for AMD cards, so from a purely Blender point of view AMD is probably not a bad choice at all.

1 Like

Yeah I heard about AMD doing that which I think is awesome! I may start with just 32GB of Ram but as far as I know you can never really have enough. I may opt for less ram and buy a better gpu and later get my ram to 64gb once I need it. I’ll definitely look at the RTX 2060 cards and see if it would be a better option.

the risk friendliness and forgiveness of OpenCL put aside.
I would choose 2x Vega 64 for the price of one 1080ti any day of the week and lower rendering times (well perhaps on the back of power consumption, haha)

1 Like

You’re clearly biased toward Apple.

That would mean Blender supporting Vulkan. It’s a lot of shaders to be rewritten. Who is gonna pay for this? Apple customers?

On what you base your certainties? faith?

GLOVE only builds for Linux and Android. No sign of Apple support.

Would you spend your money on the basis of a promise? Worst yet, would you set a production pipeline on something you cannot fully trust?

Oh that is interesting. Let’s see… Let’s suppose, a day, someone will make the whole pipeline work… So I finally will be able to run my old Carmageddon copy on top of nGlide on top of Glide DX on top of DirectX on top of OpenGL on top of Glove on top of MoltenVK on top of Vulkan on top of Metal on top of an eGpu on top of my Mac Os late 2013 on top on my desk. I really like to see that.
:wink:

You make some very good points, I considered these which is why I decided on building my own pc for blender. I do think mac will continue to be supported, however we shall see. I’ll invest my money where I know its going to work for blender. Currently I am doing more research into Nvidia cards as well as Linux OS as potential. It seems MacOS is heading away from Blender support so we shall see what actually happens there. Also, he based his certainties on Blender moving to Vulkan since OpenGL is dying out and everyone else is switching. I think it will take Blender a while to switch but its going to have to switch to something eventually. He only pointed to egpu’s as having an advantage with Mac or laptop users that can’t upgrade their gpu internally. Simply providing a solution for a Mac user who needs a good gpu. Plus at the end of the day everyone has their biases, whether you try to have an unbiased opinion or not. For me, I like the mac platform and have had my issues with windows but I am setting that aside for Blender since thats really where my interests lie. He informed me that mac is not an entirely bad option so I wouldn’t feel forced onto a platform I don’t want to be on. In the end, both of you brought up very good points and I will let you know that I am definitely building my own pc to run blender. I can’t wait to finally fulfill my dreams of not being limited by my hardware to learn blender as that has been the case for years. I found Blender on my own about 9 years ago and just haven’t had the opportunity to invest in it. However I am very happy I am able to right when 2.8 is supposed to be released. Thanks for all your informative replies, especially how quickly people replied really showed me how active the community is. Thanks for answering my questions I tried answering for many hours with Google, but never got a clear cut answer from Google.

With the crash of bitcoin mining, you can pick up used GPU’s for a song and a dance off of ebay, but I would use a desktop that you don’t love to test them in (the one I’m using I parted together off of amazon for about 40 dollars, it is kinda sucky but meh if it dies well…you know, no tears)

But other than that, I would either go with a threadripper or a used dual processor server.

For this budget I would make some changes (you’ve put a lot of money on cooling and case, while you can get by with much less). I would start with this PCPartPicker part list
and add a used 1080ti.
For Blender and Adobe apps a Nvidia gpu would be my personal choice (nothing against AMD, just more convinced by Nvidia in professional apps, due to wider adaptation of cuda technology in this field).

1 Like

Thanks man! I’ll start looking for some 1080’s!

Metin bey, hayırlı günler
Bende blender ile bir süredir uğraşıyorum. Blender için bir bilgisayar toplamak istesek nasıl bir donanım önerirsiniz. Şimdiden teşekkürler

1 Like