Rendering animations and high quality still images from Blender can be quite an intensive process on your computer. Sculpting and creating VFX also requires a lot of hardware resources. Unsurprisingly, one of the most common questions I get asked is “What’s the recommended PC Build to run Blender?”
In this article, I’ll give my recommendation for the best pc build for Blender in 2022 while staying within a budget of ($/£) 1,000 - 1,500. The video below is a more thorough analysis and contains insights surrounding my recommended PC build. I’ve also included information on recommended usage of blender if you're just getting started and not ready to make a big purchase.
Actual Needs
Blender will run on low-end equipment and slow machines. However, the graphic intensive processes mentioned in the introduction may cause such machines to crash, especially those with integrated graphics. If the machine doesn’t crash, you may notice that it struggles to update as you move the camera around while working. These are Blender’s stated minimum requirements if you’re curious.
Minimum Build
With a minimum build that meets Blender’s minimum requirements, you really are quite limited to what you can do with the software. If you have an old pc or laptop that you just want to try running Blender on and learning about 3d modelling, that’s perfectly okay. My recommendation would be to learn the blender interface if you’re an absolute beginner.
Then, you can advance to low poly characters or hard surface modelling. Even if you did have the recommended pc build or better, you still have to remember good 3d modelling practices to make sure the objects will run as intended on the broadest amount of devices. Use the constraints of your old computer to your advantage to think about how to make nice looking assets that still work on hardware-limited devices like mobile phones.
Best Budget PC Build
Again, if you’re looking for the reasoning behind this recommendation, I suggest you check out the video about the PC Build where I break it down. Once you have a well-performing PC that can easily handle normal workflows in Blender, you can try to create some detailed characters or environmental assets. Below are the components you’ll need to construct the PC. If you’re uncomfortable with building your own, you might consider going to a local PC build shop or look for pre-made builds that have the following components or components of similar specification.
- CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 5600X Six Core
- Motherboard: ASUS® PRIME B550-PLUS
- GPU: 12GB NVIDIA GEFORCE RTX 3060 - HDMI, DP, LHR
- RAM: 16GB Corsair VENGEANCE DDR4 3200MHz (2 x 8GB)
- Storage: 1TB PCS PCIe M.2 SSD (2200 MB/R, 1500 MB/W)
- Case: CORSAIR CARBIDE SERIES™ 200R COMPACT GAMING CASE
- Upgraded CPU Fan: PCS FrostFlow 100 V3 Series High Performance CPU Cooler
- Operating System Windows or Linux
The choice of the recommended operating systems will depend on what other programs you use. Most people will select a Windows OS such as 10 or 11. Linux is more performant with computer resources and Blender, but you may not have the same OS compatibility with the normal applications you use. Additionally, Linux has many distributions that are written about quite extensively, and it would be hard to recommend any such distro over another.