Thank you again for all this of this, I have read through this once and I am going to go through it several more times making sure I understand it in full.So I have actually followed along a little with UE5 and Nanite. It's exciting technology. It's not my area - you system architecture, infrastructure, DBs, I'm great at that stuff. Graphics isn't my area though I follow it.
This video talks a bit about development for UE5 and Nanite. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=roMYi7BU1YY&t=656s
So this video says that Nanite isn't very CPU heavy and relies mostly on the GPU (makes sense). For this reason, though I'd love to go Threadripper, I'm leaning Ryzen. You're simply going to need every penny you can for the GPU. :/
I managed to find UE's developer recommendations for hardware for version 4. They're suprisingly low and I think they're out of date but this is them: https://docs.unrealengine.com/4.26/en-US/Basics/RecommendedSpecifications/ As you can see, not very high. I'm guessing because you don't need high detail textures to do basic development. For their Early Access requirements for v.5 they have this:
https://docs.unrealengine.com/5.0/en-US/Welcome/ where they say requirements are the same but have upgraded their GPU recommendation to GTX 1080 or Vega 64 upwards. That still seems low to me but sharing anyway.
So I've started with a rough build because it's easier to start from somewhere than from nowhere. I would love to go for a Threadripper build as I said but I've gone Ryzen because I think that will be fast enough on the CPU for what you need and I'd rather leave as much money as possible for the GPU. I decided it was really worth trying for the PCI-E v4 over v3 because although it doesn't make that much difference right now I think content creation work is one of those scenarios where it is going to help. Again, if you went down to the previous gen that wouldn't be bad. But v4 gets you faster storage for the future and current gen GPUs can make some use out of it.
The killer is the GPU. Miners have devastated the market and that doesn't look like it's stopped. It's become genuinely hard to buy a modern GPU and when you can the prices are double or more what they ought to be. So this is a Ryzen based build sans GPU and monitor which I'll treat separately.
PCPartPicker Part List
CPU: AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor ($423.88 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($39.99 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: MSI MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard ($257.99 @ Newegg)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory ($183.99 @ Amazon)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory ($183.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Western Digital Black SN850 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($199.99 @ Western Digital)
Storage: Western Digital Black 4 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($149.99 @ Newegg)
Case: Phanteks Eclipse P300A Mesh ATX Mid Tower Case ($49.99 @ Newegg)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($116.82 @ Amazon)
Total: $1606.63
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-06-06 06:03 EDT-0400
As you can see, it's a starter build as far as storage goes but I think that's okay - it has a strong performer for its main OS drive and with 1TB it should be able to put most of the software you'd want on there as well. I've added a 4TB traditional drive for storing the assets, project files, etc. Maybe you could swap it for an SSD but I think based on description you want the space. For RAM, you've got 64GB which is a lot. It's 3200 as well so pretty fast. DDR5 is coming but unless you're willing to put this off for a year I think you have to take the plunge on knowing it's going to be slightly outdated in a couple of years. But it's a poor workman blames his tools - goal here is to get your nephew what he needs to learn and work productively. Slight downside is that if he does want to go higher with RAM there are no spare slots so it's replace the memory sticks wholesale. But to avoid that scenario you'd really need to go Threadripper and we'll be adding around $500 dollars to make that jump.
So now the two big omissions. First up the monitor. I haven't used this personally but good brand and good reviews and good specs:
View attachment 2236204
It's got lots of real estate for having IDE, blender, whatever on one side and reference webpages on the other. Good colour reproduction, 4K resolution for video editing.
You could also look for an ultrawide and maybe drop the cost a little with something like this and have a view to replace it in the future. Or just stick with what he has if need be as I don't know what he has.
A key thing to look for in monitors is "IPS". That's the panel technology. You don't want to do any photo or video work on a "TN" screen as the colour will be awful.
And now the thing that dominates everything else, cost-wise. The graphics card. Because he's wedded to iRay technology it needs to be Nvidia. As @Smaug's Smokey Hole says, you need minimum 8GB VRAM on it. Ideally you'd go for something like the 3080 with 10GB but that can be over a thousand right now due to miners. It honestly grieves me that I can't point you at something more reasonably priced. Crypto mining has utterly wrecked this to the point only the well-off can comfortably afford this. I myself have been waiting a year to upgrade my GPU because of the situation and will probably sit this generation out entirely because of it. Maybe get a 1080 or a 2080. They wont be bad, they're impressive cards. They're just not as good as you should be able to get for the money.
I might do up a Threadripper based system for comparison but my feeling is you'd be adding on $500 and I don't feel you'd lose too much based on my reading the requirements from UE. You can play around on PC Parts picker and it will warn you about incompatibilities. We might want to check the CPU / motherboard combo in the sample spec I put together as well as it might require a BIOS update to work. So don't click buy on that just yet! It's a starting point. I'd really like to get some input from others on what they'd change.
A great starting point for my end, for sure....thanks again!
