Best specs for UDK?

[zephonwing]

We are going to assemble a PC solely for the purpose of utilizing UDK to the maximum capabilities as possible, and do rendering/real-time on the same machine; maximum quality and performance.

Could anyone give me some suggestions of the components?
Motherboard, CPU, HDD, memory, and of course, video cards...etc.

I know HDD size doesn't really compute, but there are HD drives with faster read/write speeds, aren't there?

And I know memories are usually "the bigger the better," but there are so many variations out there, so I could really need some help with that too.

As for the motherboard, we're thinking maybe using Dual/Quad video cards, so it must have at least the slots for plugging them in, also, a PhysX card, and DirectX11+ support.

With all that, heat is gonna be a problem... so, suggestions?

Please advice on all the specs and makes.

An estimated price range would be extremely welcomed also!


Just looking for personal opinions, so please do not argue with each other about ppl's ideal specs, thanks!

[zephonwing]

Also, video cards that accelerates 2D rendering (photoshop) and 3Dmax/Maya are ideal.

[Chosker]

a PhysX card is useless nowadays, it's now processed by the GPU. just get a good DX11 card geforce 4** or 5**
I don't think GPU accelerated photoshop is much of a difference (never noticed any real improvement), and a DX11 GPU is much more than optimal for 3dsmax
depending on which GPU you get it'll probably be the most expensive component. I wouldn't get 4 of them

for the hard drive (HDD, not HD; that's high definition), look at the RPM (no less than 7200), and if you have the money set up a RAID with 2 or maybe 4 (lots faster than 1 regular HDD)

[zephonwing]

Nvidia over ATI?
4 of them is just a bit an overkill, is that what you mean?
so, a dual DX11 video card setup, 16G RAM ... RAID2~4 HDD, running on ... what kind of CPU would you suggest?

By the way... do we absolutely need a programmer?
We have quite a staff of talented animators with 3Ds, but no programmers.
(We're not making games, just real-time 3D animations)

[Supa]

Any decent SLI setup is going to be more than enough, 4 cards is massive overkill.

I'd suggest, if your budget can actually allow it, to get the following:
* Intel Core i7-970 or 980x (both are expensive, but they're six core and can utilize hyperthreading, which will be important in the coming months)
* 2 GTX 580's (I don't know how well UDK utilizes SLI or Crossfire setups, so this is open for critique I guess)
* 2 64/120GB SSD's in RAID0.
* Motherboard would need to be equipped with a second x16 or x8 slot in order for SLI to make any sense.
* 1000w power supply to actually power it all.

Now keep in mind that what I just described has a price range of about $3,000, with the two video cards being $499 each, the CPU being $700/$1000 (depending on which one you go with), the SSD's will be $75/$200 each, depending on which one you go with, and the motherboard will be about $200.

[Wizzard~Of~Ozz]

As I've said in a few other posts. You may want to wait, Socket 1366 is not going to be around much longer and with the new socket comes the next generation of processors. ( which rumor has scaling up to 8 core Sandy Bridge )

What he meant by GTX4xx / 5xx was one of the 400 or 500 series cards.

Dual SSD might be a bit of overkill, however if you are going to do it, it's best to do it from day 1 ( because adding it later is an irritation )

[TMichael]

As I've said in a few other posts. You may want to wait, Socket 1366 is not going to be around much longer and with the new socket comes the next generation of processors. ( which rumor has scaling up to 8 core Sandy Bridge )

What he meant by GTX4xx / 5xx was one of the 400 or 500 series cards.

Dual SSD might be a bit of overkill, however if you are going to do it, it's best to do it from day 1 ( because adding it later is an irritation )

On the money, and the current Sandy Bridge technology is quite affordable as new chips/motherboards go.

If I had to build my dream rig today, it would include:

CPU: Intel Core i7-2600K (Sandy Bridge)
Memory: 16GB DDR3 (Memory helps a great deal with Lightmass)
Video: GeForce GTX 590 Dual GPU (their newest and fastest at ~$750), or
Video Option 2: GeForce GTX 580 (the 590s are currently sold out in the US), or
Video Option 3: GeForce GTX 470 (great value for high performance)

These benchmarks can be helpful:

PassMark Video Benchmarks
PassMark CPU Benchmarks

The GTX 590 is so new that it's not yet on the first PassMark chart, but according to NVIDIA, it will clock in faster than anything on the list. The i7-2600K CPU performs just below the best i7-9XXX series at a fraction of the cost.

Cheers, and let us know what you decide to build.

[zephonwing]

Thank you all for your suggestions, we're looking into the hardware now.

But we're not going to assemble the computer right away, since I am tasked with calculating/estimating a budget for utilizing UDK, for now.

So, please allow me some more questions regarding that specific topic:

We're putting together a team to do realtime 3D animations with UDK, not games.

For a small team to operate, I am thinking of at least 1 animator, 1 modeler, and 1 texture artist, since it's really just animations, I don't think we absolutely need a programmer(correct me if I am wrong)

So, that would be 3 computers. The one running the final animation and the main UDK program would be, of course, the superior PC of which you all suggested, but for the other two, I want them to be able to run UDK as well as 3Dmax...

Therefore, they would be ... mid-range PCs?

I know I am asking for a bit too much, and rely too much, but any help is really appreciated, again.

[Whitenorthstar]

It's not essential, but suggest using a Nvidia GPU if you are planning to use the Apex PhysX Lab modules, like for destructables and clothing.

[ambershee]

You'll want a decent i7 Quad-Core, a GeForce 580/590 and at 6Gb+ of DDR3 (1600Mhz+). You can probably build said machine for around $1500-1700 - I doubt you'll need much more than that to work with UDK. If you want to output high quality video, you needn't do it in real-time, UDK is able to output frames at best quality and ignore the need for stable framerates.

If you're only doing animation work, you won't need a programmer.