PC build for Houdini and Blender

[Bean]

Hi! I am a beginner looking to build a PC for visual effects in Houdini and modelling in Blender. I am going to stick to CPU rendering for now and move on to GPU rendering later on. My budget is $2500 AUD.

Here are the specs that I'm currently looking at:

Processor: AMD Ryzen 9 5900x
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550 Aorus Pro
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3000 CL-16
Storage: Adata XPG SX8200 Pro 1 TB
CPU cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax black
Graphics card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 1660 Super OC
Power supply: Corsair RMx Series RM750x
Case: Cooler Master Masterbox NR600
Additional fans for case: Noctua Nf-S12B redux-1200

I am also considering the 8 core Ryzen 7 5800x over the 12 core Ryzen 5900x to cut down costs. In Australia, the 5900x is $860 AUD while the 5800x is $700 AUD. Will there be significant differences in rendering or overall performance? And if so, will it be worth the extra cost? Will a slower SSD work just fine? Do I need faster RAM speeds? I'm planning to upgrade my RAM, GPU, and storage later on. Please tell me if there are potential incompatibilities. I am open to any feedback or suggestions. Thanks in advance!

 

[Alex Glawion]

As CPU Rendering scales almost linearly with Cores, you'll see considerably higher rendering performance with the 5900X, yes. vfx in houdini or modeling in Blender will perform the same on both cpus.

There are slight speedups with higher clocked ram in the range of 3200 - 3600 mhz, yes, though they are marginal. 5xxx Series CPU play well with 3600MHz RAM.

I see no incompatibilities.