Hey everyone! I’ve been wondering this for a while, but what piece of hardware would speed up blender’s viewport? I usually get a terrible amount of 5 FPS when I have a medium to big scene. My current PC uses a I5 2320 with integrated graphics. Would buying a beefy graphics card such as the Asus Gtx 960 2GB help speed up my viewports performance. I am certainly going to build a new computer with a new cpu AMD FX-8320 Octa-core Clocked at 3.5ghz. Here is a link to my to my build: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/zJg7qs
Please answer soon. I’m really urgent to buy and build my PC, but I don’t won’t to rush into something and buy to much of something that won’t speed up my viewport.
get a SSD for System only ( also handy if you have a physics cache - for example fluids there - blazingly fast frame switches ).
the rest can be on the slow 1TB HDD
Get more Ram! For a actual System today if you want to do renderings get at least 8gb since it costs nothing at the moment.
Regarding Memory: Remember on AMD you SHOULD use FAST Memory not DDR 1600 - i recommend DDR 2133 ( 2400 eventually gives some troubles in some mobo / CPU combos. ). AMD has more real cores and less cache than Intel. To utilize the full CPU Throughput fast Memory is NECESSAIRY. Something alot people forget on AMD builds.
If you want a single GPU Build. Get a 970 instead. It can utilize 2 Blocks of Memory a 3.5 GB Block and a 512 GB Block. which with latest drivers get assigned nicely. Also helps on big scenes. Also the display if the geometry is not too complex resides in the 512 MB mem area leaving you 3.5 to fill with Renderdata.
You might also get a 600 Watt PSU since your using a 125 Watt CPU + 55 Watt Mainboard + 225 Watt Peak GPU load (+40 Watt dvd burner etc.) with Margin ( since you probably might want to let your system chew savely on renderings overnight). That way you still can add a few things without the PSU getting too hot over time.
Also make sure your case fans and air circulation is allright. Having one fan sucking air from front into the case and 2 on the back and top plate to blow it out. This, especially in summer will make sure your system survives. I had builds shut down on me while rendering which were not properly fit with PSU reserves / bad circulation due to overheat. Rendering takes a different Toll on Hardware than even most games - and that probably over a long period of time, keep that in mind.