Best Desktop for using DOTS and new feaures in Unity 2019

Hi All
I am evaluating in updating my PC and I am interested in using all the new features and DOTS in Unity 2019 and maybe you could advice me about what is the best Desktop spec at the moment
Sorry if it is a stupid question but I guess that Unity people know what is the best Desktop option to work with them.
Thanks for your time
Alejandro

There’s no one-size-fits-all best. That heavily depends on what kind of games you are trying to make, what workflows you have, and even what your multi-tasking habits are. If you are new to PC-buying, most build guides for game streaming or content creation overlap.

What matters/changes for DOTS:

  • If you are targeting PC or high-end console, get a CPU with as much AVX support as you can. Intel has AVX 512. AMD is a little behind in this regard. Burst promises to use it.
  • It used to be clock speeds mattered more than core count since most code ran on the main thread. Now it is the opposite. Core count makes a bigger impact.
  • With DOTS, you can chew through data a lot faster, which means you’ll want to feed it more data. And that means bigger projects. When it comes to RAM and hard drive space, make sure you get enough.
  • With DOTS, it is a lot easier to become GPU-bound, whereas before you were usually CPU-bound in Unity. If you want to target PC, get something at or above what your average player will have.
  • Rules for mobile development haven’t really changed at all.
2 Likes

Don’t forget that CPU have to support SIMD SSE4.1+
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/28185844/do-all-64-bit-intel-architectures-support-ssse3-sse4-1-sse4-2-instructions

And i am pretty sure any PC build above 1000$ range work well decent enough for station.
If you have a budget, a PC with 500$ range with correct components gonna work just fine.
I have ran mega city demo low quality with GT 1030 (not GTX) with 30FPS.

Best CPU: ryzen 2700x (cheaper and almost same raw power as intel i9 9900k
GPU: GTX + . anything above GTX 1080Ti is not worth price compare with performance
RAM: you only need 16GB.
Motherboard: based on CPU type

1 Like

Careful there! Depending on the use case that information might be misleading.

CPU: Ryzen 2700x doesn’t support AVX 512. So if you care about profiling Burst behavior for AVX 512 systems, you’ll need an Intel processor (Kabylake or newer for full support). If you don’t care, usually AMD is a little bit cheaper.
GPU: If you are using HDRP, you’ll want a (G/R)TX 10xx or 20xx from NVidia or an R9 yxx where y >= 2 from AMD. The reason for that is that prior to those models, async compute used in DX12 and Vulkan have to be effectively emulated in software.
RAM: 16 is minimum. Good enough for indie. For professional uses you will want 32 or more.

2 Likes

Burst use SIMD SSE4.0+ but with the new preview should also work on older CPUs. see https://discussions.unity.com/t/736175/18

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Hi All
First, thanks for your advice !!!
On the other hand and sorry for my ignorance but I have not any knowledge about AVX 512 or SIMD SSE4.1+, for it, Could you advice me and be more specific about the best PC component for doing the HDRP, DOTS , Shader Graph. Adaptive Performance etc( for example What the best Intel processor, ssd m2, etc? I guess that I could take like a reference Megacity project…
I am only sure myself in buying the Geforce GTX 1080TI and 32 gb ram memory but all of them and I have no idea.
Thanks for your help !!!
Best Regards

Just give acceptable price range and geography location. Maybe someone can figure best value PC parts for you.

Hi again
My price range is U$S 1500/2000 and geography location is USA . I live in Argentina but I buy all the in USA because the PC machines are very expensive and old models. in my country…
Thanks for your help !!!

So have you watched any of the ECS videos or heard about what they are saying about the Burst compiler? If so, you might have heard the phrase “vectorize your code”. So normally CPUs usually work with at max 32 or 64 bits at a time. Those are the sizes of the “registers” or the tiny pieces of memory which are essentially the workbench to the CPU. But that also means that a CPU would normally only be able to do one multiplication per instruction. And instructions take clock cycles to load too.

So to make things go faster, some people decided, “Hey, let’s make supersized registers where we can put multiple values into and then multiply all those values in a single instruction.” So on x86 (Desktops and Laptops), this became SSE registers and SSE instructions. The registers are 128 bits wide, so they can multiply 4 floats at once. Each version of SSE added more instructions.

AVX is essentially the same thing, except with 256 bit registers which can multiply 8 floats at once. AVX 2 adds more instructions. And AVX 512 as the name suggests uses 512 bit registers. Burst can target all of these extensions and use the best one that your CPU supports. Currently only Intel supports all of them. AMD supports AVX 2 (and everything prior) but I’m not sure if it is true AVX 2. So depending on what you want to support, that may affect your decision. And of course, make sure the specific CPU you get supports the extensions you want.

The main reason I bring all this up is because the last few days I have been trying to optimize on the assembly level using the Burst inspector. Having a CPU that supports the extensions I am targeting allows me to get real-world benchmarks and see if my code actually runs faster with specific changes. But then again, you might decide that you will never want to optimize at that level and just let Burst do everything. In which case AMD is cheaper for 8 cores which is nice.

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@castana1962 from what i read, the best intel cpu for enthusiastic consumer use right now is Intel Core i7-9900K but it need extra care for cooler. You can get full build with RTX 2070 (weaker than GTX 1080Ti but it support ray tracing and most high-end game right now)

Otherwise, you can use more popular cheaper choice with intel i7-8700K + RTX 2080 (still weaker than GTX 1080Ti)
https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/#sort=a1&X=148084,205328&g=427,424

And personally, I use AMD ryzen 2700x and it work fine with Burst till now. But I would still advise you use intel if you have budget to do so

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Hi DreamingImLatios
First thanks to teach me about AVX 512 and SSE !!!
Now I am interested in buying RTX 2080 for the Ray tracing and one Intel processor for AVX 512, for it, Could you say me about what the new processors works with AVX 512 or all of them using these AVX 512 feature?
About memory, I am interested in buying one Samsung 970 Pro NVMe PCIe because it is more fast than DDDR for editing video but I am sure if it the same for Game design in Unity. What do you think about this?
Finally, I am interested in buying one good Motherboard for gaming developent , for it, Could you advice me about some new of this?
One more time
Thanks for your advice
Best Reagrds
Alejandro

Hi NoDumbQuestion
Thanks for your advice about pcpartpicker. It is a ver interesting plvce. Now I am interested in RTX 2070. Do you know what would be a good motherboard for this GPU?
Best Refards

Hi All
I found the Pc machine that I love and it is so little like a Laptop
This is One
MSI Trident X Plus Gaming
Configuration

  • 3.6 GHz Intel Core i7-9700K Eight-Core
  • 16GB DDR4 | 512GB NVMe SSD + 2TB HDD
  • NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 (8GB GDDR6)
  • USB Type-A & Type-C | HDMI | DisplayPort
  • Wi-Fi 5 (802.11ac) | Bluetooth 5.0
  • MSI Mystic Light RGB LED Lighting
  • Windows 10 Pro (64-Bit)

If any b e interested in any review please click here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTk-VSMy0Ss
I am willing to hear your opinion about it…
Thanks for your time
Best Regards
Alejandro