New PC for art+3D Under £1000

[Zikar]

Hey, it's time to get a new secondary PC. This won't be used for gaming per se, but will be used to do artwork and make games in indie-friendly engines, like GZDoom, Godot etc. This will require 3D modelling, so being able to run Blender and have multiple programs all open at once is a must.

Now, the old PC I'm using is an older gaming PC, 980ti and i7-5820k, so I'd like something faster and more powerful than that.
I have a budget of £1000 but would like to get as close to £500 as possible.

This is what I have so far, but I was wondering if there are any other cheaper options, or if any of the components aren't suitable.
Oh yes, I'll need a motherboard too, I don't know where to start with those.

Thanks in advance!

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Corsair Vengeance 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-49600C36 6200MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (CMK32GX5M2B6200C36) (SKU: MY-4DX-CS) = £115.99
• 1 x Kingston KC3000 1024GB PCI-e 4.0 NVMe M.2 Solid State Drive (SKU: STO-KNG-01336) = £99.95
• 1 x Intel Core i5-11400F 2.60GHz (Rocket Lake) Socket LGA1200 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-69D-IN) = £99.95
• 1 x Asus GeForce RTX 4060 Dual OC 8GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-49H-AS) = £299.99
• 1 x Kolink Tranquility Silent Midi Tower Case - Black Noise Dampened (SKU: CA-03W-KK) = £62.98
• 1 x Asus ROG Strix 850W Gold Aura Edition Modular 80+ Gold ATX 3.0 PCIe Gen 5.0 Power Supply (SKU: CA-069-AS) = £129.95
• 1 x Noctua NH-U14S Ultra-Quiet Slim CPU Cooler with NF-A15 Fan (SKU: HS-000-ND) = £79.99

Total: £888.80 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Tetras]

You have a real hodgepodge of parts there.

- 11th gen CPUs can't be run with DDR5.
- 11th gen is just not worth buying anymore.
- The cooler is too expensive, I'd get a freezer 36 for £23.

Example lower-end of budget build:

- I swapped the 4060 for a 3060 12GB because my understanding of Blender is that if you don't have enough VRAM you can't even complete the render.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-12400F 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AR-IN) = £98.99
• 1 x Asus Prime B760M-A WIFI D4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6KG-AS) = £105.99
• 1 x Team Group 8Pack Edition 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Ki (SKU: MEM-8PK-02586) = £59.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-374-MS) = £248.99
• 1 x WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58F-WD) = £59.99
• 1 x Antec CX500M RGB M-ATX Mini Tower - Black (SKU: CAS-ATC-02734) = £54.95
• 1 x Phanteks AMP GH 750W 80PLUS Gold ATX Power Supply Modular - Black (SKU: POW-PHK-02517) = £84.94
• 1 x Arctic Freezer 36 120m Black CPU Cooler - 2x 120mm (SKU: COO-ARC-02420) = £23.00

Total: £736.84 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

Example max budget build:

- The 4060 Ti 16GB is not normally recommended due to low performance for the price, but from the benchmarks I've seen Blender is much slower with AMD GPUs.

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-12600KF 3.70GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-69Y-IN) = £149.99
• 1 x MSI B760 Gaming Plus WIFI (LGA 1700) DDR5 ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-37M-MS) = £149.99
• 1 x TeamGroup Vulcan 32GB (2X16GB) DDR5 PC5-44800C36 5600MHz Dual Channel Kit - Black (FLBD532G5600HC36BDC01) (SKU: MY-0BB-TG) = £79.99
• 1 x MSI RTX 4060 TI VENTUS 3X OC 16GB GDDR6X PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GRA-MSI-03252) = £419.99
• 1 x WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58F-WD) = £59.98
• 1 x Phanteks Eclipse P400S Glass Midi Tower Case - Noise Dampened Gun Metal (SKU: CA-06A-PT) = £54.54
• 1 x Phanteks AMP GH 750W 80PLUS Gold ATX Power Supply Modular - Black (SKU: POW-PHK-02517) = £84.95
• 1 x Arctic Freezer 36 120m Black CPU Cooler - 2x 120mm (SKU: COO-ARC-02420) = £22.99

Total: £1,022.42 (includes delivery: £0.00)​

 

[Zikar]

You have a real hodgepodge of parts there.

I feel guilty if I haven't put in any work of my own, even if I don't know what I'm doing, lol.
Thanks for setting me straight.
I'll likely stick with the case I chose, though. It'll be in my room so being dark and quiet is better, rather than having RGB fans.

Thanks for the recommendations!

 

[Tetras]

I'll likely stick with the case I chose, though. It'll be in my room so being dark and quiet is better, rather than having RGB fans.

The Antec is a bit showy, but fish bowl cases are all the rage at the moment. It does have a LED on/off button at the top, for the record.

The Phanteks I believe you can turn off with the case too.

Your case choice should fit either of those builds just fine, as it is pretty roomy.

I feel guilty if I haven't put in any work of my own, even if I don't know what I'm doing, lol.

Is all good!

Pretty confusing to be fair having 11th/12th at the same price. I'm surprised that they are still available.

 

[Trickle]

The 16Gb memory version would be beneficial if you intend to use AI to generate images. Or if you want to create 3D concept art the traditional way. However you wouldn't need it in Blender for stated indie game individual art asset creation.

 

[WARburton]

I'd go for this but with the 12600 or if you can find one the 12500 for the 4 extra cores over the 12400

My basket at OcUK:

• 1 x Intel Core i5-12400F 2.50GHz (Alder Lake) Socket LGA1700 Processor - Retail (SKU: CP-6AR-IN) = £98.99
• 1 x Asus Prime B760M-A WIFI D4 (LGA 1700) DDR4 Micro-ATX Motherboard (SKU: MB-6KG-AS) = £105.99
• 1 x Team Group 8Pack Edition 32GB (2x16GB) DDR4 PC4-28800C18 3600MHz Dual Channel Ki (SKU: MEM-8PK-02586) = £59.99
• 1 x MSI GeForce RTX 3060 Ventus 2X OC 12GB GDDR6 PCI-Express Graphics Card (SKU: GX-374-MS) = £248.99
• 1 x WD Black SN770 1TB SSD M.2 2280 NVME PCI-E Gen4 Solid State Drive (WDS100T3X0E) (SKU: HD-58F-WD) = £59.99
• 1 x Antec CX500M RGB M-ATX Mini Tower - Black (SKU: CAS-ATC-02734) = £54.95
• 1 x Phanteks AMP GH 750W 80PLUS Gold ATX Power Supply Modular - Black (SKU: POW-PHK-02517) = £84.94
• 1 x Arctic Freezer 36 120m Black CPU Cooler - 2x 120mm (SKU: COO-ARC-02420) = £23.00

 

[Tetras]

I'd go for this but with the 12600 or if you can find one the 12500 for the 4 extra cores over the 12400

FYI: the 12600K/KF have the 4 E-Cores, the 12500/12600 do not. This was changed with 13th-14th gen (13400/14400 have 4, 13500/14500 and 13600/14600 have 8).

 

[WARburton]

FYI: the 12600K/KF have the 4 E-Cores, the 12500/12600 do not. This was changed with 13th-14th gen (13400/14400 have 4, 13500/14500 and 13600/14600 have 8).

i was sure the 12500 did... in thats case go with the cheper build

 

[JollyJamma]

I have a budget of £1000 but would like to get as close to £500 as possible.

Just on that point, the sweet spot for your system is probably going to be closer to £1000 but let’s see what we can find.

Looking at the Puget Systems guide for Blender, Intel is better for animation and AMD is better for rendering. Nvidia significantly outperforms AMD graphics so that decision is easy.

I can’t recommend Intel at the moment as there are still serious stability concerns and Intel have released another micro code update to prevent long term damage to the 13th and 14th gen processors.

If you wanted to do this on the cheap, you could go AM4 with a 5950X, 64gigs of DDR4 RAM and a Nvidia RTX 4000 series GPU but maybe going AM5 would be the better long term option, especially if you intend on getting more serious and want to turn it into a business.

In the business situation, an AMD 7900X, 64gigs of DDR5 6000 MT/s (ONLY in 2 by 32gig DIMM form) and an RTX 4060 (maybe 4070) would be great.

You could run an AMD 5950X CPU with an RTX 4080 Super and see how that works but it’s less balanced than I think you’d want for Blender since Blender absolutely smashes the CPU.