Game developer desktop/workstation build questions

[camaro777]

OK 1st issue, I want to start building games for professional purposes using Unreal Engine 4. I live in Texas and don't really have a budget per say, however I'd obviously like to keep it cheaper but not skimp on professional parts(the goods). I'd like to stay round 3500usd, give or take a little.  

The rig will mainly be used for creating games and such with UE4 but also do some gaming as well. The gaming will come second to using Unreal Engine, so its lower priority for me. But as blasphemous as it sounds I've never done the PC gaming thing so I would like to start.

My internal debate is this; Intel i9 7900x overclocked vs i7 8700k overclocked. I understand the i7 is pretty much good for what ill be doing, (along with being freaking cheaper). I know its better for gaming with its fast single core speeds. However the i9 with its 10 cores are better for productivity. That alone is not worth the price gap to me, as I know the i7 can handle UE4 just fine. What the debate for me is, future upgrades. I.e. better or multiple GPU, software updates, multiple tasks, etc. I'm currently only using one monitor but again, in the future I want to plan on the option that I maybe using more, which in turn may require better GPU and more tasks running and so it goes back to looking to future upgrades. 

 

This is a long post... I'm not sorry. I'm also not done. 

 

My 2nd issue is storage. I have every intention on buying a 3TB HDD or even 1 to 2TB SSD in the future when I've perfected Unreal Engine and start building more and more game renders and saving them. BUT, as of right now I want to get a 280GB Intel Optane 900p for storage, since I'm a ridiculous idiot that likes to have overkill as well as its advantages even over something like a 860evo or 960pro, ("advantages" according to benchmark ). I don't want to pay the extra for the 480GB Optane especially since I might be going with the i9 CPU. We are getting reallll pricey at that point. However I've never done this before and I'm not positive a 280GB is even enough storage for just a couple of level renders at a time, along side regular computer things. I know a higher gig 860evo will have the performance for what I need but like, I want the Optane ... because I'm a ridiculous idiot. ALL THAT NON-SENSE TO ASK, will 280GB be enough if I'm not going too crazy with the rendering downloads just yet? Or do I just need to get over myself and get the evo with more storage??

 

So basically, I want the greatest whiskey on a beer budget. Cutting cost where I can yet still getting professional gear.  Chasing unicorns I suppose. 

 

Potential rig build-out specs:

CPU: Intel Core i7-8700K  -OR-  Intel Core i9-7900X.

Motherboard: MSI Z370 gaming pro carbon AC. // X299 pro carbon AC for possible i9 ridiculousness 

Ram: 32GB DDR4 3000MHz

Power supply: 750watt gold fully modular 

Storage: 500GB Samsung 860 Evo SSD  -OR-  280GB Intel Optane 900p (both with 3TB HDD later on)

GPU: GeForce GTX 1070 8GB overclocked<-- cost cutting

Operating system; Windows 10 pro

Complete with all the liquid cooling jazz and fans needed.

 

If you have read all this bs and still want to educate my noobness thank you very much for your advice. You deserve to be paid. I mean, I'm not going to pay you, but you still deserve it.

 

 

 

 

[NoRomanBatmansAllowed]

DON'T BUY OPTANE (unless your using a ryzen system lol).

 

You're way better off spending that money on an SSD + HDD space.

 

What's the point of liquid cooling everything? You can get just as much performance out of a beefier air cooler, plus more quiet & reliable.

 

Case?

 

Haven't done that much developing, but I doubt you'd need a 8700k/7900X to start off. Maybe an 8700 would work well enough.

[Streetguru]

5 minutes ago, camaro777 said:

 

R7 2700X or 1950X because 16 cores is more fun than 10, and the soldered IHS is nice, as well as StoreMI being neat. You probably don't need NVME and especially don't really need Optane

32GBs of RAM is probably overkill
 

Go for a GTX 1070ti with current pricing, or possibly Vega FE with it's pro driver optimization, that really depends on your software though

Do you have an actual budget?
 

PCPartPicker part list: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CH74dX
Price breakdown by merchant: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/CH74dX/by_merchant/

CPU: AMD - Threadripper 1950X 3.4GHz 16-Core Processor  ($879.99 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Enermax - LiqTech TR4 360 102.2 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($132.15 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus - ROG ZENITH EXTREME EATX TR4 Motherboard  ($414.71 @ Amazon)
Memory: Team - T-Force Vulcan 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($172.99 @ Newegg Business)
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 250GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($73.39 @ OutletPC)
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($59.79 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: AMD - Vega Frontier Edition 16GB Frontier Edition Video Card  ($854.98 @ Newegg Business)
Case: Thermaltake - Core X5 ATX Desktop Case  ($149.99 @ Newegg Marketplace)
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($106.49 @ Amazon)
Total: $2844.48
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-25 21:34 EDT-0400

 

 

[GDRRiley]

Just now, Streetguru said:

R7 2700X or 1950X because 16 cores is more fun than 10, and the soldered IHS is nice, as well as StoreMI being neat. You probably don't need NVME and especially don't really need Optane

nope unreal 4 likes high single thread performance 

https://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Unreal-Engine-4-16-CPU-Comparison-Skylake-X-Kaby-Lake-X-Broadwell-E-Skylake-Ryzen-7-984/

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700K 3.7GHz 6-Core Processor  ($339.89 @ OutletPC) 
CPU Cooler: Noctua - NH-D9L 46.4 CFM CPU Cooler  ($54.95 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock - Z370 Pro4 ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($126.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill - Flare X 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2400 Memory  ($159.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Samsung - 860 Evo 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($279.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Toshiba - X300 5TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($129.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Toshiba - X300 5TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($129.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Toshiba - X300 5TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($129.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: Asus - GeForce GTX 1080 8GB STRIX Video Card  ($599.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Case: Corsair - 100R ATX Mid Tower Case  ($34.99 @ Newegg) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Gold 550W 80+ Gold Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($61.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $2048.35
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-25 21:45 EDT-0400

 

HDD are my current drives and are over 200MB/s for long reads/writes. The idea of 3 is to run in a raid 5 to keep data safe. 

 

[Streetguru]

4 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

 

6 cores for a workstation just doesn't feel right man

Would also never recommend you RAID in your workstation PC, or even use RAID in general, especially not software RAID.

[GDRRiley]

Just now, Streetguru said:

6 cores for a workstation just doesn't feel right man

Would also never recommend you RAID in your workstation PC, or even use RAID in general, especially not software RAID.

it doesn't but that is what was found out.

I if you have to store it on box raid is ok. Software raid is fine it isn't perfect but remember all raid is software. 

[Streetguru]

2 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

it doesn't but that is what was found out.

I if you have to store it on box raid is ok. Software raid is fine it isn't perfect but remember all raid is software. 

You're way more likely to lose your data using software RAID than if you just used the hard drives on their own.

Better off building a dedicated NAS for that kind of issue.

[Streetguru]

3 minutes ago, GDRRiley said:

it doesn't but that is what was found out.

I if you have to store it on box raid is ok. Software raid is fine it isn't perfect but remember all raid is software. 

Also there may be hope yet for more cores. Dunno if there's been updates since Puget's testing.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/community/general-discussion/118650-intel-i7-6800k-or-amd-ryzen-7-1800x/page2

One person has contradictory results: https://forums.unrealengine.com/comm...38#post1046938

In their result it shows Ryzen 1700 lightmass getting a build time closer to 6900k (8Core) on Epiz Zen Garden. That's more in line with what you'd expect given what we know about ryzen's overall performance.

I wonder if there were some settings that limited the pugetsystems benchmarking for ryzen.

[GDRRiley]

1 minute ago, Streetguru said:

Also there may be hope yet for more cores. Dunno if there's been updates since Puget's testing.

https://forums.unrealengine.com/community/general-discussion/118650-intel-i7-6800k-or-amd-ryzen-7-1800x/page2

One person has contradictory results: https://forums.unrealengine.com/comm...38#post1046938

In their result it shows Ryzen 1700 lightmass getting a build time closer to 6900k (8Core) on Epiz Zen Garden. That's more in line with what you'd expect given what we know about ryzen's overall performance.

I wonder if there were some settings that limited the pugetsystems benchmarking for ryzen.

I think I see it.  2400 ram. 

[Streetguru]

1 minute ago, GDRRiley said:

I think I see it.  2400 ram. 

Yup, RAM might make a decent difference, Puget should do some retesting now that Ryzen 2 and threadripper are out.

AMD really needs to spend money with software devs though to optimize their software. Or intel should for multi-core stuff. Both companies lose out when things are still so single threaded.


Got a Threadripper 1950X (16 cores, 32 threads), 16 GB RAM (but probably running slower than it can). I'm now at around 103 seconds for Zen Garden on High.
Production quality took 239 seconds.

Please note that my RAM settings are probably not right yet. It's running, according to CAM, at 1330 MHz, instead of the maximum 3600. This will make a big difference. I still need to fix this.

EDIT: see my later post in this thread for results with correct RAM (at 3600 MHz) speeds. It's a lot better.

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i9-7900X 3.3GHz 10-Core Processor  ($914.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H150i PRO 47.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($169.99 @ Corsair) 
Motherboard: ASRock - Fatal1ty X299 Gaming K6 ATX LGA2066 Motherboard  ($225.14 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 32GB (4 x 8GB) DDR4-3333 Memory  ($338.40 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Crucial - MX500 500GB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($121.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Toshiba - X300 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($112.89 @ OutletPC) 
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1080 Ti 11GB SC Black Edition Video Card  ($945.89 @ B&H) 
Case: Fractal Design - Meshify C Dark TG ATX Mid Tower Case  ($87.28 @ Newegg Business) 
Power Supply: BitFenix - Whisper M 850W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($104.28 @ Amazon) 
Total: $3020.75
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-25 22:07 EDT-0400

[brob]

For large storage I'd suggest a NAS box using something like RAID 10. (RAID 5 is a fragile choice for drives over a TB or so.)

 

I've been thinking that a good compromise might be a Ryzen 7 2700X. Eight cores and a decent clock.

 

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD - Ryzen 7 2700X 3.7GHz 8-Core Processor  ($309.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
CPU Cooler: Corsair - H100i v2 70.7 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  ($94.99 @ Best Buy) 
Motherboard: Asus - Prime X470-Pro ATX AM4 Motherboard  ($183.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Memory: G.Skill - Ripjaws V Series 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3200 Memory  ($326.99 @ Newegg) 
Storage: Western Digital - Blue 1TB 2.5" Solid State Drive  ($229.99 @ Amazon) 
Video Card: EVGA - GeForce GTX 1070 Ti 8GB FTW ULTRA SILENT GAMING Video Card  ($509.99 @ Amazon) 
Case: Fractal Design - Define C ATX Mid Tower Case  ($79.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Power Supply: SeaSonic - FOCUS Plus Gold 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($81.99 @ SuperBiiz) 
Total: $1817.92
Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-04-25 22:08 EDT-0400

[camaro777]

Thank you all for the replies! 

I really think y'all made it worse though by giving me 50 more different options to think about  .

BUT options are good and I sure can use the wisdom everyone has.

 

So update. Optane 280 is OUT. I didn't realize at the time of post how much storage some games cant eat up! I can get a Evo or Pro with more storage for like the same price as the Optane 280. 

 

As far as budget is concerned, No I don't really have one, but because I'm a noob just now getting into gaming and rendering, I figure I don't need to go all out and end up with a 5 to 6 thousand dollar computer. I want good stuff but maybe not extra good but keeping my system good enough to upgrade later without having to replace everything. 

 

Backstory behind this whole post is; I may have the opportunity to work with a major developer. However i have to have some experience with UE4 and be able to provide samples of levels I would be building.. sounds crazy I know, to spend all this money on top shelf equipment for something not even guaranteed. But I am very much a determined type person and I need to try as hard as I can to get this. If I fail, then I end up with one bad ass rig. So not really a total loss or anything.