Advice on a good Desktop

Jaykrass

I'm currently saving up money to build my first desktop, I got a budget range of 500-700USD, I use Zbrush, blender and Photoshop cs6.
I want to transition to Maya, Substance Designer/Painter and 3D coat, the main engine I want to use is Unreal.

Currently I did some research and found that most people are content with 16gb of ram for Zbrush, I would like to get to the point where it doesn't take 3 minutes to load up 1 mil active points, I also learned that Zbrush doesn't "require" a Gpu, but relies on ram.
I've noticed that the most expensive part is the GPU and the CPU/APU, I like AMD (cheaper, but I hear they heat up fast.)

Yes I did look through the forums, I found some good resources I'll take a look at here shortly, one of which is CareyHolzman on youtube.

Here are the Forum posts:
http://polycount.com/discussion/145144/desktop-pc-build-help-for-a-beginner

http://polycount.com/discussion/173350/upgrading-or-building-a-new-pc-this-is-the-thread-for-you

I'm seen some potential 500-600USD custom gaming PC's on google, but I'm still not sure if I'll be putting my money where it should be put.
I'm not entirely leaning towards gaming (it's a really nice touch, would love to play For Honor), but considering that I want to do rendering, a good GPU is obviously needed.

Here is what I currently Have:
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA22F4GM6238&ignorebbr=1&nm_mc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC&cm_mmc=KNC-GoogleMKP-PC-_-pla-_-Notebooks-_-9SIA22F4GM6238&gclid=CjwKEAiArbrFBRDL4Oiz97GP2nISJAAmJMFalIGURgdvWI5uB_nHQRZDwnF0XroA4k49BqLTemSeLBoCLtfw_wcB&gclsrc=aw.ds

I would be happy if it was at least 100% better, I'm not looking to go all out for a professional top notch build, just something to replace this laptop. (I'm forcing myself to go desktop, I normally prefer to use laptops since they're more convenient and mobile.)

I've had this laptop for about a year and a half, restoring it might make it work better, but I shouldn't have to restore it.
I'm tired of waiting 2-3 hours for something to finish rendering (https://www.artstation.com/artwork/ml2ya I would say these renders took about 2-4 hours to finish).
I'm tired of using Zbrush only to find myself waiting 1-3 minutes for Zbrush to re-dynamesh a 500k object, I can get up to 1-2mil then things start to become slow and and irritating.
Unreal engine is hard to work with, my laptop tends to crash when opening up the insides of a material by accident.

I'll be looking through the 2nd forum post that I linked atm for some more information (skimmed through so far and looks enticing) but I'm looking for some opinions/advice/experience on what it is I'm looking for exactly, I'm still a bit lost on a lot of it despite how much time I have put into trying to figure out a good, compatible and cheap rig within my price range.

I'm also debating with myself whether or not I should include the Monitor as part of the budget or not, I would like something around 24+ inches, clean and not clunky.

PCpartpicker build: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/

[Deleted User]

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PolyHertz

Jaykrass said:

I'm not entirely leaning towards gaming (it's a really nice touch, would love to play For Honor), but considering that I want to do rendering, a good GPU is obviously needed.

For rendering, ie vray, mentalray, etc. what you want is a fast CPU. The GPU is for realtime performance (ie. the viewport in Max / Maya / Unreal Engine /etc.), or for special GPU-based renderers.

JohnnyRaptor

Here are two good lists to check for best performance for value.

GPU: http://www.videocardbenchmark.net/
CPU: https://www.cpubenchmark.net/

Jaykrass

What would be your guys' opinion of GTX 1050 ti + AMD FX-8350, It seems for the budget I'm aiming for these would be fairly good.
I've found some deals on the FX-8350 around $85-110 and the 1050 ti is pretty consistent with being $140.
would you guys consider these good options? I've noticed that although AMD FX-8350 is old, it seems like people still really like it, 2k+ reviews on newegg give it 5 stars.

As for a motherboard, I'm thinking about the ASRock 970 Extreme3 R2.0 ATM AM3+.

Any objections?

PolyHertz

For rendering in Blender, or sculpting in ZBrush, the CPU is the most important thing by far. However, for realtime 3D, such as in the Blender viewport, Unreal, or Substance Painter, the GPU is king. RAM is extremely important for Substance Designer, and an SSD will allow for faster loading times.

Assuming you want a 'balanced' PC build that will handle all the apps you mentioned without being heavily bottlenecked in any of them, this is the build I'd go for within your $700 budget: https://pcpartpicker.com/list/2hBCqk

This does not take into account the additional cost of a monitor, mouse, keyboard, and OS. If you need those to fit within your $700 budget I'd say just go with the minimum spec listed on the previously mentioned thread (but I'd absolutely avoid doing that unless you have to). You can also buy your parts used from places like ebay and craigslist (if you're in the US) to save money if your willing to take the the risks involved.

Now, about CPUs and Intel vs AMD: The Intel CPUs will give you by far the best value for your money up until about $330, at which point the Ryzen line from AMD will be your best bet (which are extremely new having just come out within the last few days). The AMD FX series of CPUs that you mentioned are all old and slow by todays standards (FX-8350 is a CPU from 2012). Buying an FX series CPU these days is equivalent to throwing your money away.

Bek

You say you want to do rendering, but you also mention Unreal. What's more important to you, realtime rendering in unreal, or rendering in Blender, if you're doing that at all? Because if you are doing CPU rendering Ryzen is probably the better choice (pending more benchmarks — but you can see comparisons between Ryzen blender render times to other CPU times here)

Unreal/Sub Painter are going to be GPU heavy though so if cpu render times aren't king, go with PolyHertz suggestion of i5 6500 + 1050ti. You could consider saving $50 by going regular hdd rather than SSD, which has some pros/cons (more storage and reliability, but significantly less speed). I'd probably do that and add the luxury of an ssd later.

Jaykrass

I would have to say Zbrush and Rendering are the most important atm, and I'm planning on going along with the pc Build that PolyHertz linked but instead using GTX 1060, due to finding a really good deal for one.