Right now I am working on a MacMini and spending a lot of time waiting for Unity. I definitely can’t switch between any other intensive programs while Unity is doing anything.
I’d like to upgrade and expect to have about $1000 or maybe a little more to spend. I figure a desktop will be the best way to go. I don’t need portability. I am comfortable with OSX or Windows.
I also use Maya for modeling and animation. With Unity, I’m doing the whole gambit of game development. My project has detailed graphics (comparable to current console games), high polygon models, high res textures, post-processing effects, as well as large terrains (up to 10km).
Whether you have a specific recommendation for x computer, or just some general advice about minimum hardware recommended, I appreciate it.
And please, just tell me what you recommend, not what you DON’T recommend. That should alleviate any operating system debates.
I can’t really recommend an entire build to you, but I can recommend a graphics card. I’ve got this model right here and it’s been able to handle anything I’ve thrown at it, from Blender to Maya to pretty much every game I own at the highest settings. They’re a little pricier than they should be because cryptocurrency miners are buying up cards in bulk, but you should be able to make a build around that.
I don’t develop anything intensive myself, but I guess a gaming PC with good processor, GPU and RAM will do, and 1000$+ budget should be more than enough.
I am personally biased towars Windows though.
I also recommend SSD. Install windows on it, probably Unity and Maya too.
i7 7700k,
at least 16gb ram,
a gtx 970 or better,
Samsung evo 850 500gb ssd for the OS and applications,
and 2tb harddrive for storage
if you base something on those specs, it should be pretty affordable and plenty powerful.
My home and work pc have similar specs, and i work daily with Maya, Unity and ZBrush with it.
I have an overclock msi 1070 so not quite that good but close. I7 quad core sli motherboard 800 watt supply, optical drive, 250 gig ssd and 1 terabyte mechanical drive. Got it from iBuyPower. Works well, never had a problem c9st me $1250. A little higher than your budget but a solid machine. I have to agree with the choice of cards but for me the 1070 overclockedvwas enough of a price break without too much less power I went for it.
I assume building your own is cheaper? Most things are like that.
I only have a layman’s understanding of hardware. Is it not too skill intensive to put the various pieces together? But then, I suppose, there is some know-how required in getting all the normal software on it. Or is it as simple as installing an OS?
I think I’ll veer towards getting a prebuilt computer, unless someone convinces me that with nothing more than youtube and a screwdriver I can put together my own for much cheaper and without much difficulty. I’m not opposed to learning more about computers, of course, but I don’t want to get myself in over my head. I just want to keep on building my game.
Thanks for all the suggestions so far, I will take some time to research them soon.
Alternatively you could go with a Ryzen 7 1700X. Performance per core between these two processors is very similar but the i7-7700K only has four cores while the Ryzen has eight cores. For some tasks (eg building lightmaps) this will provide a much bigger boost of performance.
Just be aware that you will spend more money for less hardware than you would have building it yourself, and the difficulty of building your own computer is almost non-existent. Components come with instructions, YouTube is loaded with videos (example below), and the components themselves are colored and keyed to only fit in one location.
I chose to have mine prebuilt to specs. I priced the parts at the time and would have spent 250 to 300 bucks less building it myself. That was just me doing a quick search for the parts and not looking for deals and im sure it could have been a bigger difference. The reason I chose this way was mostly time and a little for an extended warranty but mostly time. If I had taken the time to really search through hardware sellers and do my research I could have come out ahead by a good bit but for me It was worth paying a few hundred to have someone else source the parts and put them together then install the os. Was it worth it? I dunno depends on how much cash you would spend to get a weekend free.
You don’t have to do it yourself. You can have PC Part Picker do it for you. It automatically pulls prices from Adorama, Amazon, Astro Gaming, B&H, Best Buy, Corsair, Dell Small Business, Directron, Harman Kardon, Monoprice, My Choice Software, NCIX US, NZXT, Newegg, Newegg Marketplace, Other World Computing, OutletPC, PCM, SteelSeries, SuperBiiz, and Target.
Additionally it assists you with configuring a system by automatically excluding parts from selection that are not compatible and will calculate the amount of power your components draw. It has graphs to show how prices for each component have changed over time too.
Many components have longer warranties than your would normally receive buying from an OEM. Dell’s normal warranty is a single year which is pretty pathetic when you consider most hardware components have greater warranties than that.
Here are some examples that are pretty normal for their categories.
Agreed. I will utilise that in the future. I actually decided after I got the rig that for the next machine I would use alot of my pre existing parts like case, cooling and power supply and build my own. Its been almost 20 years since I put one together and I was expecting time spent being extra careful and it to take me a weekend at least. I opted for the lazy pay my way out and dont really regret it but next build will be mine. There is definatley money to be saved building it yourself. I dont think I did bad the way I bought it though and if pressed for time its a valid option. You just have to expect to pay to have it assembled at a fairly high rate. You are paying more but at least you are paying for something, labor, testing and warranty all at one email instead of from the manufacturer of each component. I agree your likely paying slightly more than thats worth in general but sometimes I pay extra just so I dont have to do something. Kinda like valet parking or having my trash picked up. I can park my own car and haul my own trash alot cheaper but I really dont want to.
Edit… @Ryiah . I just visited the site you first mentioned, pcPartPicker, and entered my build specs. I had to cheat in a couple places because they didnt show my brand of ram or case but I requested the cheapest that was roughly equivalent. Turns out to be about $200 more than what I spent having it built last winter. I may have gotten lucky and found some Christmas special thing though.
Price the same build at iBuypower.com. Mine was cheaper prebuilt than the parts on pcpartpicker. You might get lucky although somehow I feel this is a fluke.
If you’re set on Unity I wouldn’t go overboard, I built a ridiculous machine for UE as it likes to grind weak machines into powder. Between an I7 4810MQ (2.8GHZ) w/ SSD / 32GB / 980M (laptop) and a 14 core Xeon / 32GB DDR4 / M.2 SSD / GTX 1080 can’t say I can tell much difference and I do a similar type of game to you…
The only real difference is GPU power which leads you to believe everything is always hunky dory in terms of development as everything always runs bouncing off the limiter.
The only difficult bit about phsyically building your own machine is getting pins in the right places for connectors (like power, HDD lights etc). The rest of it fits in like lego, in the ASUS board in mine it even shouts at you if you put your GPU in the wrong place.
Apart from that you just need to patch components together properly (that are compatible), right socket for the CPU to match a motherboard… You need the right PSU to supply your GPU and all the rest (although there are plenty of calc’s online that do all the hard work for you).
Or just ask here as we all know what fits with what so we’ll be able to tell you.
Intel’s processors feel rather disappointing to me lately. My primary problem with them is that they’re cheap on the number of PCIe lanes which greatly reduces options for graphics, storage, etc. The 7820X only has 28 PCIe lanes which is only four more than the Ryzen 3/5/7 series offers.
By comparison the Ryzen Threadripper chips (1950X with 16 cores, 1920X with 12 cores, and 1900X with 8 cores) all have 64 lanes in addition to having practically the same performance as their competing Intel chips. The 1900X is due to ship at the end of the month with an MSRP that is $50 less than 7820X.
Both the 1950X and the 1920X are due to receive reviews and hit the stores August 10th, but last I heard the 1900X was getting delayed till the end of the month.
I’m in the same situation as you. My Phenom II X4 965 is seriously starting to feel like I’m hitting a wall with it. I haven’t completely decided on which chip I want, but I’m leaning very heavily towards one of the Threadrippers.
