I need to have a PC Workstation built for Unity Development. Here is a Workstation from Puget Systems in the US: Standard Workstation for Unity | Puget Systems
I am going to use this as a basis for a spec I can have built in the UK. Any thoughts on this spec?
I would go with a 1950x. 16 cores, great for baking light. I’m on a 1800x with 8 cores right now, its fast, but you always want more cores!
Have to second the recommendation to purchase an AMD Threadripper. You simply get far more bang for your buck right now with an AMD system. Below is an example I threw together in a few minutes with a price tag of $3500.
There are a couple other differences from the Puget Systems build. For starters, I choose Samsung 960 Pro SSDs which have considerably higher performance (3.5GB/sec read 2.1GB/sec write) compared to the now rather dated and essentially budget tier 850 Pro SSDs (550MB/sec read 520MB/sec write).
Second, I choose a GTX 1080. There wasn’t any particular reason for that other than to bring the cost to roughly the same amount as the Puget Systems build.
This fantastic blog went into how extra cores help with various tasks in Unity.
https://pixelspice.games/just-multi-threaded-unity
I’m with Ryiah on this one, get as many cores as possible!
If you are talking workstation, go as big as you can afford. The time it saves doing various tasks like baking lighting, compiling, and generally not hitching up will save you money in the long run.
We run (now 3-year-old) i7-3930x/4930x processors, with older rx 480s and GTX 980s. These systems have held up very well, and working on anything slower is painful. Right now it looks like Ryzen is going to bring the biggest bang for the buck, so if we get another system in the near future, it will probably be one of those.
Yeah they got the price, intel still has the performance with their new ones though, but that is going to be very termporary (and I am not talking about unity). Intel made a choice to change archetecture in a way which makes it work better for things that are not properly multithreading, and overclocking, however as more and more software is developed to multithread that is going to bite them in the backside.
The 1950x with its 16 cores is very hard for Intel to beat, atleast when we talk content creation. Sure the 7920x has 12 cores and higher single core perfomance. But its glued lid instead of soldered like the AMD so you will have cooling problems etc. And the 1950x is still faster because of more cores when it comes to content creation
Only for single-threaded workloads. Intel’s i9-7980XE (18 cores/36 threads) has a higher boost clock (4.4 GHz) but the base clock (2.6 GHz) is abysmal and since you can only have up to two cores boosted you’ll be spending most of your time at base speeds with the heavily multi-threaded workloads that justify the purchase of these chips.
By comparison the AMD Threadripper 1950X may have a lower boost clock (4.0 GHz) but the base clock (3.4 GHz) is significantly higher. We’ll have to wait and see the benchmarks to compare the two but I would be surprised if the Intel processor came out ahead in most of the workloads these chips are intended for.
Its a bit unfair comparing with the i9-7980XE if includ the price point
Someone needing a high-end workstation for development will likely be able to afford the difference. Besides it’s helpful to see the whole picture rather than just looking at a single processor from each company. Just look at the difference in base clock between each model of the i9 (in the spoiler because the image is huge) and the difference for the Threadrippers.
AMD:
Intel:
And like I said, Intel uses glued lid while AMD solders, huge difference in heatspread
Thanks for this post I’ve been googling if unity would benefit from the AMD threadripper to purchase it for a new build but was worried there would be some sort on incompatibility issue. Looks like it would be the best choice from the research i’ve been doing.
Have any of you build a threadripper 1950x rig if so how do you like it? Also what motherboard did you choose. ATX or E-ATX board. I know with an ATX board you have more options to mid size cases but are they big enough to sufficiently cool everything?
Hello,
I’m looking forward to build a hackintosh for Unity3D development as I’m morking on a Mbpr for now.
Everybody talks about the benefits of multi threaded processors for baking lights, but what about compilation time in Unity ?
Exporting android apk or iOS projects, then compiling iOS project on XCode is where I loose most of my time waiting for nothing.
Would compilation time be rougly the same on let’s say an Intel 7700k 4c/8t and a threadripper 1950x ? Or would the number of core of the threadripper or any heavily threaded processor accelerate exponentially compilation time ?
Nope, compile times usually run about the same, compile is compile. The benefits after are wonderful though.
I monitored the CPU usage while building our game, it only used the 8 cores / 16 threads very briefly
Actually most of the time the CPU is close to 0 so I wonder if they couldnt speed things up 
did you zoom that out so that very briefly was at the end of your compile? Would make sense, that would be a garbage collection spike.
That is actually a pretty solid spread you got there, You won’t dev to make all threads run heavy all the time. True multithreaded operations have to weave their loop results in and out in a very controlled and organized way. It is a dangerous programming task for stability. Luckily Unity is doing it for us and making it so we can just click buttons and checkboxes lol.
When I bake light and build game I want it to be fast, dont need to use the computer if it means it goes faster. It could also be a option when you build. Using 100% CPU on all cores is not dangerus if your computer has correct mounted cooling etc
I waited for the CPU to spike, it happened around mid build. So the screenshot is from around mid build
