3d Design And Animation Px Build

In this guide you will find the best builds for rendering and animating.

You will save a lot of money by building a PC yourself instead of buying one prebuilt, especially for professional work like rendering, where PC manufacturers usually use "professional" components which are much more expensive than regular components.

First, you will find the recommended PC builds, you will find one for almost any budget, but if you need one for a different budget, feel free to ask for help in the comments or contact us and we will gladly help you find the right PC for your needs.

In the hardware section, you will find an explanation of the impact each component has on performance in this task.

In the software section, you will find the most used software for rendering and animating.

If you want to learn to animate, you can check out the last section, where you will find some good courses we recommend.

Recommended PC Builds
Hardware
Software
Learn To Animate

Recommended PC Builds

$850 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 5 2600X
CPU Cooler	Stock
Motherboard	B450
RAM	32GB
Storage	500GB SSD
Storage	2TB HDD
GPU	GTX 1660 6GB
Case	Phanteks Eclipse
PSU	550W Bronze

This is the "Entry Level" Rendering/Animation PC, if you need to lower the price you can change the RAM to 16GB, and change the CPU to a Ryzen 5 1600. If you need help making a build with a lower budget, ask in the comments or in our contact form and we will answer as soon as possible

$1300 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 5 3600X
CPU Cooler	Stock
Motherboard	X570
RAM	32GB
Storage	1TB SSD
Storage	4TB HDD
GPU	RTX 2060 6GB
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Pro
PSU	850W Gold*

*At the time this guide was made this was the cheapest Gold rated fully modular PSU, you can check other options like the EVGA G3 to see if the price has gone down.

$1500 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 7 3700X
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock 4
Motherboard	X570
RAM	32GB
Storage	1TB SSD
Storage	4TB HDD
GPU	RTX 2060 Super 8GB
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Pro
PSU	850W Gold

$1900 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 9 3900X
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock 4
Motherboard	X570
RAM	32GB
Storage	1TB SSD
Storage	4TB HDD
GPU	RTX 2070 Super 8GB
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Luxe
PSU	850W Gold

$2100 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 9 3900X
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Motherboard	X570
RAM	32GB
Storage	2TB SSD
Storage	6TB HDD
GPU	RTX 2070 Super 8GB
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Luxe
PSU	850W Gold

$2500 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 9 3900X
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Motherboard	X570
RAM	64GB
Storage	2TB SSD
Storage	6TB HDD
GPU	RTX 2080 Super
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Luxe
PSU	850W Gold

$3000 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Ryzen 9 3900X
CPU Cooler	be quiet! Dark Rock Pro 4
Motherboard	X570
RAM	64GB
Storage	2TB SSD
Storage	2 x 6TB HDD*
GPU	RTX 2080 Ti 11GB
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Luxe
PSU	850W Gold

*This build has two HDD, you can either use them separately, or set them up in RAID 1 for redundancy.

$4500 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Threadripper 2970WX
CPU Cooler	Corsair H150i PRO
Motherboard	X399
RAM	128GB
Storage	2TB SSD
Storage	2 x 6TB HDD*
GPU	RTX 2080 Ti
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Primo
PSU	1200W Platinum

*This build has two HDD, you can either use them separately or set them up in RAID 1 for redundancy.

$5200 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Threadripper 2990WX
CPU Cooler	Corsair H150i PRO
Motherboard	X399
RAM	128GB
Storage	2TB SSD
Storage	2 x 6TB HDD*
GPU	RTX 2080 Ti
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Primo
PSU	1200W Platinum

*This build has two HDD, you can either use them separately or set them up in RAID 1 for redundancy.

$6300 3D Rendering/Animation PC

CPU	Threadripper 2990WX
CPU Cooler	Corsair H150i PRO
Motherboard	X399
RAM	128GB
Storage	2TB SSD
Storage	2 x 6TB HDD*
GPU	2 x RTX 2080 Ti
Case	Phanteks Enthoo Primo
PSU	1200W Platinum

*This build has two HDD, you can either use them separately or set them up in RAID 1 for redundancy.

Hardware

CPU

Rendering used to depend completely on the CPU, and made the CPU the most important part of a rendering PC, but now, rendering can be done using the GPU which is much faster.

Rendering usually takes advantage of more cores over higher speed, although it is best to keep a balance of high core count and high clock speeds.

GPU

The GPU is a vital part of a rendering PC since the GPU handles the rendering.

You might see some professional workstations using Quadro graphics cards like the one in the picture above, but you will get much better price/performance by getting a consumer GPU.

I recommend getting an NVIDIA GPU instead of AMD, the reason is that most software uses NVIDIA CUDA, which is only available for NVIDIA GPU while AMD uses OpenCL.

RAM

RAM isn't as important for a rendering PC, and unless you are processing very large scenes for professional work, then you will probably not use over 16GB of RAM.

If you find that you are using all of your RAM, you can add more as long as you have available RAM slots and your CPU can use the amount you want to add, which in most consumer CPUs is 64GB.

Storage

You will usually need less storage in a PC for animation than one for video editing since the assets you will use take up less space than videos, so 1-2TB of storage should be enough unless you are making long animated videos, in which case you should get more.

I recommend getting an SSD for all of your software and your OS and get an HDD to store your assets and your projects once they are finished.

Software

Maya

Autodesk Maya is a professional 3D modeling software, it is commonly used for making video game and film objects.

Maya uses it's own renderer named Mental Ray which is included with the software subscription.

You can purchase a monthly subscription for $185 per month or for $1470 per year. Get 20% off for a limited time by buying through this link.

AutoCAD

AutoCAD is another software developed by AutoDesk and is commonly used to make blueprints for architectural projects and to design mechanical components.

You can purchase a yearly subscription at Autodesk for $1400. Get 20% off by buying through this link.

Cinema 4D

Cinema 4D is developed by Maxon, the developers of the popular benchmark Cinebench. It is widely used in the entertainment industry for designing 3D models

Cinema 4D can be purchased for $3510

Blender

Blender is a free, open source 3D design program, it is more difficult to learn than other professional software but it is a good choice if you want to try out 3D design and animation without having to pay.

You can download Blender here

Rhino 3D

Rhinoceros 3D is a highly customizable 3D design and CAD program which is commonly used for engineering and architectural projects.

Rhinoceros 3D can be purchased for $995.

Learn To Animate

Bloop Animation

If you want to learn to animate, I recommend you take a course from bloop animation, they have courses for most software including Maya, Blender, and Adobe After Effects.

You can also get all of the courses for just $397