Which CPU for Unreal Engine 4?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

Hi,

I want to get a new PC that is suitable for level design (as a hobby) in Unreal Engine 4. Also I plan to use it for other things, such as 3D applications like Revit and 2D applications like those from the Adobe Creative Cloud. Gaming is something I want to do as well. I am pretty sure about the rest of the config, but I can’t decide on which CPU to get, an Intel Core i7 9700K @ 8x 3.6 GHz or an AMD Ryzen 7 2700X @ 8x 4.3 GHz (OC). Would I benefit much from Ryzen’s Hyperthreading, e. g. for compiling and building lights? Or is Intel’s better single-core performance more relevant? I want to find a good compromise where I can do all of my tasks without any issues. If that matters, I have a 2k monitor with 75 Hz.

Rig No. 1:
PSU: Corsair VS550 550 W
Mainboard: MSI MPG Z390 Gaming Plus
CPU: Intel Core i7 9700K 8x 3.6 GHz
Cooler: Xilence M704
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 2070 8 GB

  1. drive: Samsung 860 Evo SSD 500 GB
  2. drive: TOSHIBA HDD 1 TB (from my old PC)

Rig No. 2:
PSU: Corsair VS550 550 W
Mainboard: MSI X470 Gaming Pro Carbon
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 8x 4.3 GHz (OC)
Cooler: Xilence M704
RAM: 16 GB DDR4 3200 MHz
GPU: Nvidia Geforce RTX 2070 8 GB

  1. drive: Samsung 860 Evo M.2 SSD 500 GB
  2. drive: TOSHIBA HDD 1 TB (from my old PC)

Which one would you recommend?

2

IMO go for more threads. UE4 will easily make use of 16 threads when compiling shaders, and this will keep the system relevant longer.
AM4 has upgrade paths for at least a couple more years, it seems, and the whole system is likely to cost less, so put that savings into a pcie m.2 nvme ssd instead of sata for quicker load and access times. This means quicker iteration, which is key to UE4 development.

  • that’s my justification, anyways.
3

Thanks for your reply! At the moment, I am favoring rig no. 2 anyway. It is around 120 € cheaper than no. 1 and if I chose an M.2 SSD instead of the SATA SSD the price difference amounted to ca. 140 €. Additionally, the AMD-based build would get me two games (World War Z and The Division 2 Gold Edition) for free because of their 50th anniversary. :smiley: