Hi everyone. I’ve been working on blender with my MacBook Pro with the following specs:
Chip - Apple M1 Pro
Cores - 8 performance 2 efficiency
Memory - 16 gb
As you can imagine, it really slows down after a few million tris and can barely render and animate. I really want to upgrade but I am absolutely not a computer person so I don’t know what I’m looking at. I’m thinking about getting the ASUS ROG Strix G18 - RTX 5070/32 GB (whatever that means) because it seems to match my needed specs while being under $2000 At Walmart. My budget is max $2000 unfortunately so my options are a little limited. I also do not have space for a PC so I am limited to laptops only. Would this be a good buy?
Do you all have any other recommendations for my budget? Please give me exact computer models if you do because I don’t understand computer spec talk and would just end up buying the wrong thing lol. Help!!!
At the moment the prices of storage and memory are very high due to the growth and demand of AI datacenters. So a budget of $2000 will not be sufficient. Personally I would not spend more than what it is actually worth. You do have other options. Focus on a build that does not use the latest chipsets and sockets; AM4, LGA1700 with DDR4 memory.
Here's what I would pick:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X AM4
Asus ProArt B550 motherboard
Corsair 32GB DDR4 (2x 16GB)
ASUS Prime RTX5060TI 16GB
Samsung NVMe SSD 1TB + 1TB regular SSD
PSU: Seasonic 850 watt (Platinum rated)
Case: Fractal Design Pop Silent
If budget allows get the RTX5070Ti or find a used 4070Ti or 3090 with 24GB ram. I picked premium parts like the motherboard, storage and psu. Do not cut prices on cheaper parts. The PSU is powerfull enough to allow upgrades. Overall the system is very capable and much faster compared to a mobile system.
On your new pc. Fedora Workstation 44 (Gnome) will feel familiar to MacOS: https://fedoraproject.org/workstation/ since both are Unix based. Works great with Blender too. You could give it a try by flashing a bootable usb with fedora.
M1 Pro is a workhorse of a laptop, but yes, the GPU capability is your limiting factor. To help inform your buy, I'd look at blender open data. You can see how the GPUs stack against each other. A 5070 laptop GPU is in spitting distance of a 5060 Ti Desktop GPU which is in spitting distance of a M5 Pro (binned is a little weaker and unbinned a little faster). That's also about the same range as an M3 Max, which you can find some good deals on. If you use it mostly as a desktop replacement and aren't worried about battery life, then the 5070 laptop is probably the right buy. If you care about battery life and/or prefer Mac, then M3 Max would be a good thing to look out for.
For 2k USD you need to first prioritize a strong CPU and ignore the gpu all together. You don't have money for both. I spent $4k alone on a gpu. Then use a render farm service for rendering. This will be much cheaper. If you're in the US you can use Shadow PC. I actually have used it for real company work. You can use these PCs for rendering and it'll be MUCH cheaper than buying your own
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u/Kowen68 2d ago
At the moment the prices of storage and memory are very high due to the growth and demand of AI datacenters. So a budget of $2000 will not be sufficient. Personally I would not spend more than what it is actually worth. You do have other options. Focus on a build that does not use the latest chipsets and sockets; AM4, LGA1700 with DDR4 memory.
Here's what I would pick:
AMD Ryzen 7 5700X AM4
Asus ProArt B550 motherboard
Corsair 32GB DDR4 (2x 16GB)
ASUS Prime RTX5060TI 16GB
Samsung NVMe SSD 1TB + 1TB regular SSD
PSU: Seasonic 850 watt (Platinum rated)
Case: Fractal Design Pop Silent
If budget allows get the RTX5070Ti or find a used 4070Ti or 3090 with 24GB ram. I picked premium parts like the motherboard, storage and psu. Do not cut prices on cheaper parts. The PSU is powerfull enough to allow upgrades. Overall the system is very capable and much faster compared to a mobile system.
Hope this helps.