Hey all! Sorry if this thread has been done to death… I’m looking for help building a computer for Unreal 4 dev. My budget is about £700-£1100. I currently have a Windows 7 license, so I can provide the OS, and I also have a sound card, but I need everything else (excluding keys,mouse, monitor etc). One of the problems I’m having is distinguishing between the value in buying any of the following: A ‘gaming PC’, a ‘graphics workstation’, or a complete custom build with super high spec parts on paper, but potentially with compatibility issues I wouldnt be aware of. Additionally, I’m pretty clueless when it comes to graphics cards - I haven’t a clue whether I need higher than 4Gb?
To be clear, I’d appreciate any advice here, however, I’m mainly wondering whether these built for purpose graphics workstations are a safer bet than a custom build. They seem to have lower specs on paper, but perhaps there’s something about them I’m missing?
Is this what you are after? Or are you more of a programmer? Because if you are a coder, I think you would be better off getting a less specialist machine. From what I know about specialist kit like this, they are rock solid with a good warranty, so that is what you are paying for. However, do your research!
If you’re not doing cad and such stuff I see no reason to buy a machine like that. You’re better off building a custom machine with “gaming” parts for game development.
I’ve put together a really good machine for both gaming and game development and didn’t go cheap at all with pcpartpicket set to only check stores in the UK: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PqnXzy
Final price is: £908.22 but could be significantly lower if you want to go cheaper. This is along the lines of what I would build if I had to build a machine with that budget.
All those parts are of course compatible, so you won’t have any compatibility issues or anything. It’ll also run all current games at highest settings with nice frame rate at 1080p.
I did choose a more powerful PSU than needed so you have room for upgrading later along the lines if you want to go SLI or something. You can save a bit on going with a 450 or 500W. Also you might not need two harddrives, but it’s always nice to have an SSD for OS and installing softwares on and a storage drive for other stuff.
That’s about £400-500 cheaper than building a similar machine with the link you provided to http://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/, don’t bother with these stores offering to build “custom” or even the pre-built machines they sell, they charge such overprices that it’s not even funny.
You can probably find someone to build it for you if you don’t dare to, but just know that if you can build a lego model, you can build a computer, it’s easy.
A Quadro GPU is great for 3D modeling, video editing, etc… But will give you horrible performance for gaming (and testing UE4 games). A 4GB GPU will be more than enough for UE4, I have a GTX 960 2GB, and it works fantastic for UE4, though I will be upgrading to a GTX 970 4GB soon.
As far as compatibility goes, here are the basics:
Motherboard: Needs to have a CPU socket that is compatible with your CPU (AM3, LGA 2011-3, etc…), needs to support RAM frequency of your RAM, it also needs enough RAM slots for how many sticks you have.
CPU: Needs to have a socket compatible with your motherboard.
GPU:You need to have a PSU that provides enough power for your GPU’s recommended usage, you also need available MOBO slots
RAM: You need to have frequencies supported by the MOBO
PSU: You need to have a PSU that supplies enough power, 800W is probably more than enough for overclocking and only 1 GPU
Case: You’ll probably want a case with at least 4 fans, or water cooled. I have 4 fans & a top of the line CPU cooler, and still mildly worry about the heat blown out during full load
Thanks folks! I’ll try a general reply to everything said so far, but first…
So I see. That setup looks awesome and is way cheaper than what I’ve been looking at. Would this setup support upgrades to 32GB RAM? Also, is it compatible with a soundblaster Z5 card? If so, thread closed.
To everything else:
I specialize in audio, but you could say in this case that I’m much more about programming than about graphics. I will be using Visual Studio with Unreal, and I’m thinking about how I can minimize compile times, and enhance multi-tasking for processes. Many a computer has died because it couldn’t do as many things as I needed it to at once. It does sound from what one of you said that I don’t need an insane GPU or anything. I’m planning on sticking to 2D games for the projects I’m serious about, but it’d be nice to have the ability to run anything UE4 could throw up. I will require multiple hard drives for audio work to minimize bottlenecks. It’s ideal to have one drive for assets, one drive for storage, and one drive for OS/software. I plan on using an SSD for software, but it doesnt need too much space either.
I’m trying to make something that’s built to last, so in other words it must be up-gradable long term. While a cheaper power supply might seem like a good idea now, I though I’d better prepare for the future. I actually have a GTX 260 that my friend gave me. Dunno if it would be worth using that in conjunction with another card and a big power supply…
EDIT: Oh, I do love a good warranty. The ultimate trade-off.
Another question - how much does RAM frequency matter? I noticed the board is compatible with much higher frequencies than the 1600 you recommended. If I was going to go all out on anything, it would be on RAM.
In my experience, RAM frequency makes very little difference. Yes, there is the potential question of bandwidth (not that you will ever be bottle-necked by it), but if you are not going completely SSD, SATA3, etc, then you have other bottlenecks that make a much bigger difference.
The difference between normal RAM and faster (but probably higher latency) RAM is lots of money, but also only 1 FPS. Amount of RAM is more important than speed here, I think.
Cool, thanks! I’ll probably have at least another week or two before I commit to anything, so I’ll keep checking here if any more suggestions come in. Sitrec’s setup suggestion looks good to me, so this is pretty much where we’re at: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/p/PqnXzy . Might go for 32Gb RAM though.
