Building a better PC for Blender

I am currently using a 2021 MacBook Pro 16 Inch with 32 GB or RAM and the M1 Max.

The reason I switched to a MacBook from a Desktop PC with multiple GPUs is, because it is fast enough for what I am doing.

I don’t make complex 3D projects anymore. I use a lot of Photoshop, Midjourney, After Effects, and make simple 3d Projects. And thanks to Denoising and the Apple Denoising Support, I am able to do that. With a lightweight mobile and silent set up.

A MacBook compared to any other Laptop has the benefit of having the Full Performance without a Charger and also has a good enough Trackpad to even work in 3D with that, at least I am capable of doing that. Another thing I really like about it is, that it supports format like .PSD or .PDF out of the box.

On the other hand, Windows Supports almost every Software, which is also the reason I wouldn’t recommend Linux for. 3D Artists even do, it seems like the performance is slightly better in Blender. For example, Character Creator by Reallusion which I also featured in my Article “Character in Blender without modeling” is only available for Windows.

The RAM determines how much you can do on the PC at the same time. How much Tabs you can open in the Browser, how many programs you can have opened, or how many/ complex the objects can be In your 3D project. A popular misconception is, that more RAM makes the PC faster, which is only true in some Edge cases.

The minimum that Blender requires is 4 GB, but I would recommend getting at least 16 GB. Personally, I never needed more than 64 GB.

When it comes to rendering, no matter if it is Eevee, Cycles or any other Render Engine, Blender can render way faster with GPUs. Some Render Engines like Octane which I mentioned in the article “Every render Engine in Blender” Even requires a GPU to work.

So it absolutely makes sense to get a dedicated GPU. Also, if it is not necessary to run Blender.

Yes, for rendering, 2 (same) GPUs mean roughly 2 times better performance. But you can also use 3 or 4 GPUs. As far I know, the limit is at 32. But I never had more than 4 GPUs in my PC.

You can also use different GPUs. At the same time. But they have to use the same render kernel. For Example, you can’t render with an AMD GPU which uses OpenCL and an Nvidia GPU that uses CUDA at the same time. Also, if you want to render with an OptiX GPU (like the RTX3080) and a GPU that doesn’t support OptiX you can’t use the fast OptiX kernel, and you have to use the slower CUDA kernel.

The first instinct would be, to pick the one with the most CPU cores, like an AMD Threadripper or an Intel Xeon. And even do they have the best performance in rendering, GPUs are way better in this regard.

Which means a good CPU is more important for things like simulations or modeling. For which I would recommend CPUs like the latest Intel i9 13xxx, i7 13xxx or i5 13xxx depending on the budget.

The most important thing is not to buy a no name Power supply.

Popular brands are BeQuiet, Corsair, Seasonic, Silverstone, Corsair, MSI, Phanteks, Antec, Sharkoon, Gigabyte…

You definitely should not save too much money at this part since it is related to safety. Especially if you live in a Country with a bad electricity network, since too high voltage can not only kill your PC, it can also kill you in the worst case.

The second most significant thing is, you need a Power supply which supports enough Wattage. Here is a calculator to find out, how much you require.

When it comes to rendering, efficiency can become essential since rendering means using a lot of power over a longer period of time.

To certify the efficiency of a Power supply there is the 80 PLUS certification, the higher the certification the higher the percentage of the energy the power supply pulls out the wall it will pass along to the computer components.

Which can be translated to the higher the 80 PLUS certification, the lower the energy bill will be.

If it makes sense for to buy a Power supply with a higher certification is something you can roughly calculate.

Blender itself doesn’t require a lot of storage. Unliked Video editing Software like Premiere or After Effects, it does not benefit from faster storage or even multiple drives.

But if you are rendering Videos in Blender like I describe it in this Article “Export animations in Blender the professional way” You will have relatively big Video files.

I would recommend getting at least an 1 TB SATA SSD. An M2 or PCIE SSD is great, but has not really an effect on performance.

Even do I am using a Mac, I wouldn’t recommend a Mac to anyone who is primarily doing 3D. In most cases a Mac has worse performance, especially, when it comes to things like rendering or any other process in which heavy rendering is done over long periods of time since the cooling in a smaller case is worse.

Also, a lot of 3D Software which can supplement Blender like Character Creator only runs on Windows.

But if 3D is only a Part of what you are doing, and you want something mobile and lightweight, a Mac could be the right choice for you.