Migrating from Mac to PC for Unreal Engine 5. Thunderbolt 4 support on PC motherboards??

[Deisuke Aramaki]

Hello,

After being a LIFELONG user of many Mac computers I decided to buy a PC Desktop computer for Unreal Engine 5 and VR Realtime applications development.

I use a OWC Thunderbay Flex 4 enclosure for all of my data and media I store on SSD drives inside the enclosure. These work fine with a mac - but I would also like to use this enclosure with the new PC I intend to buy.

From what I learned so far - the PC motherboard must support Thunderbolt - otherwise just adding a PCI ASUS ThunderboltX4 expansion card to any motherboard will not guarantee that it will work - is that true?

I was advised to buy ASUS PRO WS X570 ACE motherboard by my supplier along with the AMD RYZEN 9 5900X Processor - but I'm not sure if the ASUS PRO WS X570 ACE will be able to use the ASUS Thunderbolt card?

I also found another motherboard by ASUS ProArt X570 Creator-WIFI - which apparently has native Thunderbolt support. However I wonder if it has the same number of PCIe lanes as the ASUS PRO WS X570 ACE - and moreover will it be any good if I wanted to add an additional GPU in the future?

There is also the ASUS B550 CREATOR with the Thunderbolt support - but it lacks the PCIe lanes and PCI sockets the ASUS PRO WS X570 ACE provides..

Any thoughts or experiences with using Thunderbolt on a PC?

Any thoughts or advice with using these components for Unreal Engine 5 3D content Development?

Would this configuration be OK for UE5?

motherboard: ASUS ProArt X570 Creator-WIFI
power supply: Netzteil (ATX24) FSP HYDRO PTM1200W
processor: AMD RYZEN 9 5900X
cooling: CPU Arctic Freezer A13 X CO
RAM: 32 GB RAM
gpu: ASUS RTX3080 10GB V2 TUF GAMING OC
(perhaps I will add another RTX 3080 in the future???)
SSD M.2.: 1 TB Samsung PM9A1
System: Win 10 Pro
enclosure: UNC-410S-B-U3

My budget for the PC is 3800 USD
I will be buying parts in Poland or Germany EU.

Any advice would be appreciated!

Kind Regards

 

[Alex Glawion]

Hey Deisuke,
We've got a guide on PC Recommendations for Unreal here: https://www.cgdirector.com/unreal-engine-system-requirements/

Your Build looks good so far. Dual GPUs would work though note the PCIe-Lane reduction per GPU when you do upgrade.

I am not an expert concerning thunderbolt storage devices from Mac running attached to windows. I'd say it should work with the motherboard you list above if you've formatted the drives correctly.