Choosing a Mid-Tier GPU for UE5.5 Development – Need Guidance

Development Getting Started & Setup
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Hi everyone,

Apologies for bringing up the classic “which GPU to buy” debate again — but I’m feeling a bit lost and hoping for some developer-focused guidance.

I have decent experience building gaming PCs, but this will be my first dive into actual game development, and I’m not entirely sure what to prioritize when it comes to choosing a GPU for Unreal Engine 5.5.

I’ve seen a lot of praise for the RTX 4070 Super (594€ / ~$675), especially for its DLSS and ray tracing capabilities. On the other hand, many devs stress that VRAM is king, which leads me to consider AMD cards like the RX 7800 XT (520€ / ~$590) or even the RX 7900 XT (682€ / ~$775). To add to the confusion, the new NVIDIA 5000 series and AMD 9000 series are emerging — but I can’t find much solid info on how well they perform in UE5.5 yet.

I’m aiming for a mid-tier GPU in the 680€ / ~$770 range that can handle UE5.5 features like Lumen, Nanite, and potentially ray tracing down the line — though I’m still new to using those features hands-on.

For the CPU, I was leaning toward the Ryzen 7 7800X3D, but then came across the Intel i7-14700K, which also looks like a strong contender, especially for multitasking and shader compile speeds.

For what I’m planning: I’d like to build a 3D first-person or third-person shooter (not 4K) using UE5.5. I’m still learning how features like Lumen, Nanite, and MegaAssemblies work — but they sound fantastic and I definitely want to leverage them. That’s part of why I want hardware that won’t limit me too soon.

I’m not anti-AMD at all — I know they’ve come a long way and offer excellent value — but I do appreciate NVIDIA’s more mature and stable ecosystem, especially for dev tools and plugins.

Any advice from UE5.5 users — particularly solo devs or small teams — on how these cards are holding up in real-world development would be hugely appreciated!

Quick thought: 4070 Super has 12GB, but 5070 has the same + GDDR7 and a bit cheaper! Then there is 5060TI which has 16GB AND is much cheaper. :confused:

Thanks in advance!

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Hello there @tgTosters!

From what can be gathered from the community, and comparing benchmarks from your listed models, the most balanced choice between RTX capacity and VRAM is indeed RTX 4070 Super. Now, if you are worried about the VRAM more than anything, there’s an alternative choice, the 4060 Ti 16GB, which a bit less raw power compared to the 4070, but it has a definitive edge on memory, and still supports RTX.

As for the CPU, the Intel i7-14700K is better overall for UE development (specially for compilinmg), it’s only disadvantage being a bit demanding on cooling, but as long as you have a good cooler setup, it should work just fine.

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the issue i see with these topics is that it’s actually really hard to recommend something. and it really depends on your needs.
but then it’s totally fine to ask for help. im sure many devs here will love to help.

vram is truly important for ue. specially for lumen, vsm, and nanite.
i have a rtx 3060ti and it serves me to work professionally. i don’t use it to do AAA work, but for regular work is fine. it could be better though. so i wouldn’t worry TOO much.
it struggles with lumen, and 4k, but works. so anything above that is great.

i have a ryzen 9 something 16 cores. i love it.
but to take advantage of the speed you need to have a lot of ram too. i would not recommend less than 32gb of system ram. 64 is ideal basic.

i personally don’t go for “the best hardware” unless i have a specific need, i usually try to go for “the best value”. so, for example, if i can find a card in discount, i will get that, and use the money to boost another part of the system.

what i do try to do, is i try to go for stable hardware, nothing too new.
also i usually don’t go for “High-end”. mid-range seems to be the sweet spot of quality/cost for me.
since it has more buyers, it tends to have better price for the bang. also problems seems to be solved quicker and easier to find help.

amd is pretty good, it has good drivers for linux. i used to use amd. but got an nvidia because my job send it.
nvidia is good too.

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one important caveat in terms of vram.
i’m not up to the very latest, but some time ago, some cards use to do this:

  • they give you less powerful hardware, with slower vram, for a bit of edge in capacity.
    sometimes they lack certain optional hard optimization, for example they might lack support for hardware decoding of X codec (just to say).

i personally would not go for those. vram is important but not THAT important. i rather faster vram and faster gpu for a decent size vram.
mine is about 8g i think. so 12 to 16 is pretty ok i’d say.
specially if you don’t do 3A.
but i’m not entirely sure this is still the case, so please check. I don’t know the diff between super and ti tbh.

also a rule of life that helped me: “the first time it’s going to suck”. so don’t worry too much.
it helps to get a not-so-spectacular machine the first time, just because you’re trying, and testing.
then a couple of years later you can upgrade the part that you need.
it’s always a good idea (for me) to not spend 100% of your budget. go for … 80% and save some for later adjustments.

also, top of the line hardware is sometimes harder to sell (as 2nd hand).
so a technique is selling your midrange hard in a couple of years to buy new one.

pd:
don’t worry too much about shader compilation, you don’t do it that often.
and cpu power is only important is you do cpp programming. not bp.
and also you don’t use it that often.
ue is for most of the time, quite low in threads, so 16 cores like mine is actually a ton for daily usage.
also shader gets compiled on the cpu not gpu.
for cpu i’d go for a ryzen 9 (or i7 if you want) no more than 16 cores (32 threads).
and a nice cooler, i dont use watercooling is a hassle. i use a noctua something 15 i think. a bit large, but really quiet.
if you could go for higher clock speed instead of higher threadcount, i’d do that.

i tend to check stuff like this (with a grain of salt) GPU Benchmarks Hierarchy 2025 - Graphics Card Rankings | Tom's Hardware

i usually go for the best “value”.
also another technique i use is to not buy latest hardware, but 6 months to 1 year old. as the price is disproportionate. a 6 months old hard (that has a newer version available) is far cheaper for a good performance. latest hardware as well as high end tends to have more cost (and overhype), and be more expensive for the bang. imho.

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Yeah! I saw the 4060 Ti 16gb, but I decided against it because of the less raw power compared to 4070. Idk, I read that the gap between 4060 and 4070 power wise is quite noticeable.

Very good point about the i7-14700K and heating “issue”. The heat is not a huge problem per se, but I realized motherboards is more expensive compared to AMD setup, AM5 is more future proof and colling solution would add extra cost as well. So I’ll probably go with the Ryzen 7 7800X3D or Ryzen 9 7900X.

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I completely agree with you! Cost/performance is what I am looking for. The issue is that I do not know what exactly is needed for UE performance wise, therefore it’s hard to find that sweet spot.

Have you gotten any issues with AMD GPU stability? Or maybe Nvidia and AMD cards you used are almost the same stability wise?

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Thanks! Checked the GPU benchmarks and it seems the 4070 Super should be enough as a starter card. And 4070 Super is suggested across the internet as well, so should be fine. Maybe 4070 ti super for that extra 4GB VRAM (16GB total), but that adds ~200-300 EUR.

And yeah, Ryzen 9 would be better for productivity. Probably will go with 7900X (12c/21t, double chiplet, 4.8Ghz (5.6Ghz boost)) over the Ryzen 7 7800X3D (8c/12t, single chiplet, 4.2Ghz (5.0Ghz boost) (which is/was one of the best gaming CPUs).

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if you have read that, then it’s a sensible choice.

Ryzen 9’s are really good. i haven’t used an intel cpu since my last pentium celeron 900mhz so i can’t speak for them. but i’ve hard ryzen are a good choice.
mine is a 5950x with a base clock of 3.8 so i’d say a 7900X is really good. the X versions seems to be a good extra value, but beware of the price differential.

the 3d seems to be 3dvcache (man what’s wrong with the people naming products). personally i’d avoid new tech like that, it’s usually immature and introduce weird bottlenecks and quirks. and are potentially more expensive to produce (due to being new, have new production pipelines, and have less market share), so less value. i rather a more powerful cpu like the 7900x. personally.

you might also get a lot more oomph going to ryzen 9 (opposed to 7). since i’m a developer and i use cpp a lot, i prefer the ryzen 9.

but beware you might find a big diff due to market.

on my local market i see a diff of 180usd. is up to you and your workflow if it’s worth it. both are good.
if i were to find a … 30% discount on the 78 and i were in your situation i’d think it thrice.

keep in mind i use a 5950x and i’m fine. so don’t worry too much.
90% of the time is just sitting there idle.
it only helps when recompiling the whole engine (which you wouldn’t do), packaging the game for the first time (which you do only once until you delete the cache), or modifying materials that have ton of permutations (which you should try to optimize).

and like i said, faster core is better than more cores once you go above… 8 i think.

i can’t say what you need to do. but if it makes sense to you. i’m not entirely sure you’ll need those extra 4gb, but with lumen and ray tracing it might give you a boost.

yeah i think so. good point also to think of your system as a “starter” one. not go for ultimate before you started.

i used to use amd gpus and i liked them. imho they tend to have better support on linux. amd tend to be much more cooperative to open source.
nvidia has a lot of vendor-lockin which i don’t like. tend to be more aggressively closed. but that’s a preference.

so both amd and nvidia have different techs. like fsr and dlss.
or cuda. it usually matters if it really matters to you. otherwise they are comparable.
imho its more a matter of preference, since, if you are making a game, you can’t control what card your players will use. so someone will use the card you haven’t.

there’s a considerable group of ppl that don’t enjoy upscaling and taa/tsr (which i think works in both). so fsr/dlss are less valuable than they seem on (marketting) paper.

on windows nvidia works well, there is a particular bug with corrupted ui that gets fixed by completely uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers (potentially due to an old driver).
on linux it works well too, though the last driver has an annoying bug with the compositor. not fatal but annoying.
i haven’t come across to bugs on amd on the forum. maybe by chance, maybe due to market share. dunno.

if you’re using windows i’d say both are stable and pretty on par. they differ on the very cutting edge, one day one the next the other.
cutting edge tech is bound to change and get dropped, sometimes it gets standardized and all cards do it.

i havent used amd for the past 4 years so i cant say. all i know is that on linux there’s one person that had an issue, but they still can work with it. i haven’t heard of amd or nvidia specific issues on linux on the last 6 months.

so i’d say both are pretty much the same unless you go for specific tech, which, if you’re starting, i would not worry about.

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sidenote, i would pay attention to get at least 64g of ram. and at least 1tb of a fast nvme.
those are really going to impact your day to day. (but don’t go overboard, 128 g of ram would be almost too much for a starter)

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btw, another reason to be careful with latest tech is that sometimes companies don’t tell the truth and hype a lot.
i’d be careful with mainstream reviews, and check for users reviews.
nvidia is not too trustworthy to me tbh.

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i’m not saying nivida is a bad choice (probably the 4070 is the best atm) but beware of reviews.
also keep in mind nvidia is pushing ai/ml stuff, so you’re paying for that hardware which you’ll likely won’t use.

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