CGI Animation PC setup for a newbie

Craig Cumberton · 24 Mar 2021 at 14:54

Hi everyone!

Completely new to the whole PC thing, haven’t a clue what means what so I basically have no knowledge on what I need.
I’ve been learning CGI animation using Blender on my basic Dell laptop. Very very slow, crashes whenever I try to render an image. But it’s something I still want to carry on with learning so I thought I’d get myself a PC.
Had a look on Amazon at pre-made gaming PC’s but I don’t know what I’m looking for. Should I be looking at building my own?? Or just buy a basic PC and update it over time?
Also I’d like to play stuff like the sims and 7 days to die on it.
Like I said, I have no clue and I imagine this whole post has been very unhelpful for trying to give advice to.

also my budget is up to about 1000 at the moment as I’m in the middle of moving house so shouldn’t be spending all my money on a PC

But fingers crossed someone can point me in the right direction.

Thanks guys!

crashbeaga · 25 Mar 2021 at 10:01

Hi there Craig, I've been doing CGI sometimes with blender or zbrush and what helps ease the rendering process is have tons of RAM, if you are updating your laptop to do so top up the ram to its max allowance, otherwise if you plan on really building a pc now (expect shortage of good parts), find good ddr4 ram (3200), also cpu with high threats as most rendering uses it so if you can afford a threadripper you are in good hands lol, grab some good ssd as well and of course, gpu, that is going to be tricky since there are rarer than unicorn those days. So any modern gpu RTX2000 series up or RX 5000 series up will make you run those renderings with no problem.... hope that helps. good luck!

Craig Cumberton · 25 Mar 2021 at 11:27

Thanks so much for your reply.

is there a pre-built PC you could recommend at all?

AyeAyeAhoy! · 25 Mar 2021 at 20:59

There are some cheap pre-build systems out there. Usually people wouldn't wholly advise going for them, bit currently their the easiest way to get graphics cards, so it's probably worth it

joacoerazo · 28 Mar 2021 at 17:43

Hi Craig. I started like you some time ago. First I took a Compaq (Pre build machine those days)..... huge mistake! Sometimes you can´t upgrade those as easy as we think.
It is far better to start with good mother board and processor and cheap case and extras. If your budget allows it, good amount of RAM.
In time, you will be able to replace the cheap parts (hdd to ssd, low end graphics to a nicer GPU, fanciest monitor and so on).
Hope this works for you as for me.