First professional blender animation PC - need advice. ~3000/4000 euro build.

[Wouter]

Hello all,

I am looking to build my fist PC for use with blender to make professional animations. Although I built a PC back in 2016, i'm not quite comfortable putting one together in in this price range though as I really want it to be good, and future proof.

I mainly want to use it for a blender animations - cycles heavy animations, complete pipeline. My current build is just really dated, and especially materials and texturing in cycles is annoying as I cant really do it realtime. I have an AMD MSI Radeon R9 390 Gaming 8G with a Intel Core i5-6500, and its really not cutting it anymore...

Looking to get into Z-brush in the future so it should run that nicely aswell.

My budget is around 3000/3500 euro (excluding tax).

I looked at this build:
CGDirector.com Parts List: https://www.cgdirector.com/pc-builder/?=6M12j

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7GHz 12-Core Processor ($839.00)
CPU Cooler: be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4 ($89.90)
Motherboard: MSI X570 Tomahawk ATX AM4 ($307.46)
GPU: Nvidia RTX 3080 10GB - EVGA XC3 ($1489.99)
Memory: 64GB (4 x 16GB) G.Skill Trident Z Neo DDR4-3600 C16 ($364.99)
Storage PCIe-SSD: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2TB NVME M.2 Solid State Drive ($239.99)
Power Supply: Corsair RMx Series RM750x 750W Power Supply ($129.99)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P300 ATX Mid Tower Case ($139.34)
Total: $3600.66

Now im sure its agreat PC, but is it 1) optimal for what I want to do? and 2) future proof? can add some 3080s later on? and 3) do I need better cooling if I want to expand it later on?

Im also open to cheaper builds with optimal performance. Like is it an idea to take multiple 2080s/2070s, and then upgrade to 3080s in a year or 2?

Im looking to combine it with a curved wide/ultrawide 4k.

Help is very much appreciated!!

 

[Wouter]

Nobody?

 

[Alex Glawion]

Hey Wouter,
The build looks great and will run Blender and zBrush and other workloads without any issues. It's as future proof as it can get right now, though the next AMD CPU gen will need a different Motherboard / socket, but there isn't anything you can do to plan for that right now.

You won't be able to add another 3080 because the Motherboard has lower bandwidths on the second pcie-slot. Look at the MSI Unify x570 or Asus WS Ace x570, which would allow you to add a second GPU later.

The CPU Cooler is fantastic, no issues there. Maybe an additional case fan would be nice, but with 1 GPU that is not really necessary, as the case already comes with fans.

The 3080 should really only cost around 700-800$. GPUs are crazily price inflated currently. But, yes you can start with a lower tier gpu and upgrade to a better one once the prices come down.

Check our monitor guides here:

Best Curved Monitors For Content Creators

Curved Monitors have lots of benefits, especially for Content Creators who can make great use of the added Screen Width and Curvature.

www.cgdirector.com

The absolute Best 4K Monitors you can buy today [2024 Guide]

These are the absolute best 4K Monitors for Professionals and Gamers that you can buy today. Make sure to get these very specific features.

www.cgdirector.com

 

[Wouter]

Thanks so much for the info!!