I’d like to use Unreal to make (hopefully high quality) animated films as a hobbyist.
This is the spec I have in mind (and also the maximum budget I can spare):
CPU: Intel Core i9-13900KF 2.2GHz (24 cores)
MoBo: Asus ROG Maximus Z790 Hero
RAM: 64GB
GPU: RTX 4090 (24GB VRAM)
I searched online, but I mostly found articles that talk about hardware suited for gaming development.
Since I want to use UE for animated films, I am wondering if the hardware should be adjusted for that purpose (for example, should I go with a CPU with fewer cores and threads but higher clock speeds, since I won’t be compiling, coding etc?)
If anyone could offer some feedback, it would be very helpful!
How certain are you about spending 600+ euro on a motherboard whose features you’re not going to use? Decent mobos can be had for half the price and the excess invested in copious amount of fast storage.
First of all. Consider not buying the 13900k. If you must have Intel, get the 14900k instead - just released a month ago or so - there’s no good reason to buy the 13th gen even though the refresh is rather meh. The price is roughly the same.
Any Z790 board will be great, packed with fancy features and have most of the modern bells & whistles. No need to spend 600 euro - there really isn’t unless you’re going for something specific, like running a trio of 4090s and 2TB of RAM.
MSI MPG Z790 EDGE WIFI - 400
MSI MAG Z790 TOMAHAWK - 250
Z790 Aorus Elite X WIFI7 - 350
You could even consider a b760 chipset for half the above price but since you’re buying a 4090 + a very power hungry top of the range Intel chip, the pricing is not that big of a concern, surely - just get a reasonable z790.
Since Intel supports both DDR4 and DDR5 memory, make sure you’re buying a DDR5 version of the Motherboard and RAM.
I am also a bit concerned about future-proofing
There’s no future for Intel upgrades. The next Intel chip will use a different socket, meaning a new motherboard - that’s why spending so much makes little sense. But you’ll be able to replace the GPU once something that can actually take advantage of PCIe 5.0 materialises. Around 2025 perhaps - but the 4090 will stay very relevant for another 3-4 years, perhaps longer. Same goes for faster storage, motherboards are ahead of time bar for the sockets. And there’s nothing you can do.
Concerning the CPU (the 14900K), I am guessing it doesn’t make much difference whether I use UE for developing games or for animated films, right
Kind of: you’re probably choosing between 14900k(f) vs 7950(X3D) - both are beastly. And yes, if you do focus on one particular task, one could argue X or Y will have a slight advantage here or there. But developing animated movies is not 1 task. You’ll be using a plethora of tools. Outside of the UE ecosystem, too!
Extra reading to be done if you need the details:
tl;dr: you can’t really go wrong at this tier. If you needed a budget-friendy gaming PC for $1000, things would be more fun. This is rich ppl problems
