PC Specs for Blender

[tcook27]

Hi all,

 

We currently have a class of 30 students doing a module on Blender, they will be creating a short animation and the current computer the teacher is using is not up to par with the needs of the application.

 

I'm wondering what sort of specs others have opted for to ensure that animations can be processed and rendered comfortably for this member of staff.

 

Many thanks.

[mavhc]

Desktop or Laptop? Just the teacher, or students too?

 

Depends entirely on the complexity of the animations really what spec you need. What are they using now and how many times faster do they want it to run?

[tcook27]

Hi Mav,

 

It would be a desktop, they're currently using an old Dell laptop where the application crashes before even attempting to run the animation.

 

I am just looking to see what others may be using for a general opinion.

 

Many thanks.

[Oaktech]

Hi Mav,

 

It would be a desktop, they're currently using an old Dell laptop where the application crashes before even attempting to run the animation.

 

I am just looking to see what others may be using for a general opinion.

 

Many thanks.

 

 

My old school are using blender extensively and they have a dedicated high-performance suite (even though some of it is getting on a bit now) it still works for medium-weight Adobe, Unity, Blender & Autocad tasks. The spec of the devices vary as some have been upgraded over the years - 6th gen i7 or better, minimum 16-32gb ram, SSD primary storage and 1tb 7200 scratch disk. Some still have the original 2gb Nvidia 750ti but most have an an upgraded 4gb GTX1660.

 

Blender themselves state a CPU less than 10 years old, 2gb GPU, 8gb RAM.

[Dos_Box]

Blenders specs page list the following for both minimum and recommended specs - https://www.blender.org/download/requirements/

 

 

Minimum:

 

• 64-bit quad core CPU with SSE2 support
  
• 8 GB RAM
  
• Full HD display
  
• Mouse, trackpad or pen+tablet
  
• Graphics card with 2 GB RAM, OpenGL 4.3
  
• Less than 10 year old
  

 

 

Recommended:

 

• 64-bit eight core CPU
  
• 32 GB RAM
  
• 2560×1440 display
  
• Three button mouse or pen+tablet
  
• Graphics card with 8 GB RAM
  

 

I would imagine that most PC's purchased in the past few years would meet many of the recommended specs (less RAM). But if you don't have anything that meets that then @ict-direct do sell refurbished workstations that can probably easily fill those requirements, especially when to comes to rendering.

Edited June 26, 2023 by Dos_Box

[TheRobins]

Runs ok on Core i5 11th Gen, 16gb of Ram and a 500gb M2 SSD, using the Core i5 for graphics processing. Also runs the whole Adobe suite well.

 

[mavhc]

If it crashes it means there's probably no support for that GPU.

 

https://opendata.blender.org/about/#benchmark-score

 

Step 1: Work out what an acceptable score is, step 2: buy that computer

 

Perhaps people who use it for the same course can provide scores, what course is it for?

[PotNoodleTech]

As above there's lots of things you need to figure out but a general rule will be you're gonna want at least a core i5 and 32 gig of ram and a decent sized SSD preferably a 5 year old or less GPU in order to run that decently.

 

If funds are tight look at the second hand suppliers - ICT Direct etc have supplied me with HP Xeon workstations for these typed of tasks at a very reasonable budget.