Hello, everyone. I’m sorry in advance if I’m posting this in the wrong place! New to the forums and this is the most relevant topic I could find. Will gladly move to a different community if needed.
Basically, I’m going off of the recommended hardware for building a pc for development and trying to compare (hopefully) similar hardware to get the price under the $1800-$2500 they are quoting. Here are the main points (not listing off the extra stuff for building and cases, etc.)
What they recommend: **
Intel Core i7 4930K processor (3.4ghz/hexa-core)
Intel X79 chipset motherboard (Asus Sabertooth X79, according to the build on PC Part Picker)
32GB RAM (Corsair Vengeance, according to the build on PC Part Picker)
Samsung E40 1TB SSD
Nvidia GTX 770 video card* (or EVGA GeForce GTX 770 2GB according to the build on PC Part Picker)*
Price: ~$1917.70 ($1867.70 after rebates apparently)
What I’m looking at:
Intel Core i7-6700K processor (4x 4.00ghz/8mb l3 cache/quad-core)
MSI Z170I Gaming Pro AC Mini-ITX
32GB RAM
Samsung E40 1TB SSD
Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 - 4GB
Price: ~$1663.95
Would what I am looking at be comparable as far as performance goes for the price? I compared parts on CPU Boss and by looking at benchmark tests but managed to get myself more confused. For the record, no, I’m not the one building this (as you can probably tell, knowledge of PC hardware is not my forte). I just need to pick out the parts.
Thanks guys and gals, any help is greatly appreciated, including tweaks or recommendations to the “what I’m looking at list”.
The 4930K and 6700K are very comparable in performance, but you should be comparing the 5820k to the 6700K, since that’s the newer cheaper hexacore. I’d go with the 6700K, especially if you want to do an ITX build, but it will also have much better single core performance and slightly slower multicore performance, a pretty even trade off, and motherboards for that processor type are cheaper.
You probably could get by with a 512 GB SSD, if you want to save money.
Honestly I’ve been effectively running mine with a gtx750ti (costs around 140$) and 8Gb of ram
Also I’ve been using the amd black edition 8core processor (Costs about $180) http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16819113284&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleAdwords-PC--pla--Processors±+Desktops-_-N82E16819113284&gclid=Cj0KEQiA5dK0BRCr49qDzILe74UBEiQA_6gA-lsuNMDkjrRopPQa-ucw_VmOprQ8_zuSs-aJcRnpQmYaAoa98P8HAQ&gclsrc=aw.ds
Solid states are used to run specific programs fast, so you could run your OS and the engine on your solid state and have all other not so important files run on your HDD as well as all save files go directly to your HDD if you’re trying to save a couple of bucks
I’ve ran UE4 on a $300 laptop and although it took the assets a while to load at first I was still able to play around with it quite a bit
If you’re going for high quality assets and scenes then yes you will need a powerhouse
Also keep in mind you want the Best RAM available, 8 gigs of high quality RAM can outperform 16 gigs of low quality ram, I liked the G.Skill Trident series Ram personally
Gtx 970 is a great graphics card for the price
Zack - Hey, thank you - this is some great info. Question, though, the 6700K I found seems to be quad core rather than hexacore. Was that a typo or do you still recommend the 6700K for high end performance in the engine? If hexacore is recommended do you have one you’d prefer over what I named here? Thanks again.
Transcendence - Cool! The 32GB I was looking at actually is the G.Skill brand. Though I don’t remember the full name but good to see something I could recognize, haha. I was thinking of doing just that with the storage - 1TB SSD for the main stuff and then 1TB HDD for things like media, etc. I would be using high quality assets / scenes (so powerhouse is preferred).
Price wise I would be able to go around $2000 for the build, but I’m trying to make it as economic as possible to save wiggle room for the peripherals. I also have plenty of time for saving up (about 6 or 7 months). I currently have a 2011 iMac that has been amazing but with recent updates to Maya and Unreal Engine (even Unity to some extent) I’ve noticed the graphics card just can’t quite keep up. My laptop is a retina macbook pro with the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M w/ 2GB and an i7 Haswell, so that’s been holding up fine (it’s a couple years old) and it’s great for mobility - but when it comes down to it I would rather have a desktop workstation because I like being at a desk. Lol. I’ve only owned macs for the last 7 years so I’m definitely new in the custom PC world but so far the stuff you can pull off for around the same price is really impressive, and so cool looking…
I’ve been using logical instruments and pc part picker as a guide so hopefully I’m on the right track. Again, any other recommendations welcome! Thanks <3
I’m not sure where you live, but I created a build for you: http://pcpartpicker.com/p/YhhjwP
$1630 AR
i7-5820K
ASRock X99 Extreme4 (ATX board)
32GB of DDR4-2400 RAM
Nvidia GTX 980
512GB SSD + 1TB WD Blue
850W modular PSU that greatly exceeds the power draw of the build, but will let you run SLI 980s in the future.
Corsair 500R case
The SSD is preference really, what you feel you need, however I have a 120GB for OS and work programs, which is enough space for UE4, Unity, VS and some Adobe tools. Then a TB HDD for everything else, works out much cheaper this way.
For the ram 32GB is likely to be double what you will need for a long time, there are still debates going around whether 16GB is too much.
There seems to be some misconception about the processor, unless you’re running high mathmatical algorithms 24/7 7 days a week, an i5 performs just as well if running at the same ghz etc for short multiple tasks.
Finally, in the past I’ve noticed big differences in the GPU ranges between the standard range and the TI. If you could cut back on something else and stretch the standard GTX to a GTX 980 ti, giving you an extra 2gb (6gb total) GPU memory, that is where I’ve noticed some of the bigger performance increases.
I’ve had multiple instances of UE4 running at the same time with almost no lag and single, fairly complex projects running flawlessly on my rig:
Intel Core i7 4 GHz Processor (i7 because I got an OEM purchase at the same price as I could find any i5s at the time)
8gb DDR3 kingston RAM. (2x4gb)
120GB Kingston SSD
1TB Hitachi HDD
EVGA NVidia GTX 980 ti.
An Asus Motherboard I cannot remember, but fairly low end.
750W Corsair PSU.
MuchToLearn - this is awesome, thank you! Saved that build for later reference. I had to look up the SLIs but it seems like that has tons of potential. Thank you very much.
Hey everyone, thanks for your help! This is what I ended up with http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2tDT6h taking everyones information into consideration with a few tweaks for my own preference and a lot of research on the cooler and the power supply. I went with the Kraken61 for its compatibility with the case and ability to cool both the cpu and gpu. Went with the power supply just based on needs and comparisons.I ultimately decided on the 980 versus the 980 Ti, but if it’s something I should really stretch for let me know and I’ll definitely add it instead. Also went to micro center to check some stuff out in person.
At 1080p, the 980 Ti will be about ~25% faster than a 980. So there’s a sizable performance increase, but since the Ti usually runs ~$650 you’re most likely increasing the price as a % by more than the performance gain.
Even I consider the 980 Ti weak in terms of overall game performance (It’s not bad, GPU’s as a whole are), so I certainly wouldn’t recommend the 970. I have the 980 Ti, and I’d say it’s the best card for your money right now.
I had originally had my sights on the 980 Ti but couldn’t figure out the difference between them aside from overclocking? Would you guys say that with development the 980 Ti would tout better performance overall for the price than the 980? I may not have just known where to look but I’m certainly all about taking as many things into consideration before buying as possible.
The 980 Ti has more shader units, more ROPs, more TMUs, more memory, and more bandwidth. It’s about 25% faster than a 980, however it usually costs about 30% more. Raw performance goes up significantly, however the FPS per dollar goes down.