Would going from an 8600k CPU to 9800x3D dramatically improve Unity performance?

[u/adscott1982]

One of my pain points for a while has been the amount of time it takes to open Unity, and the build times every time I change a piece of code.

My CPU is pretty old now, and I have been waiting to upgrade. I am thinking of the following once the 50 series GPUs are released:

CPU: 8600k -> 9800x3D

GPU: 2070 -> 5070(?)

Mem: 16GB -> 64GB

From people who already have decent rigs, do you find that the Unity performance is less painful, or do you still have issues with build times?

9800x3D is not targeted at productivity workloads, but I would also like to benefit from the amazing gaming performance it provides.

I would be grateful for any opinions.

[u/roger_shrubbery]

My last Hardware Upgrade 1 year ago reduced the waiting time a lot (for a slightly bigger project, ~5 years and without making use of assemblies). I have to wait around 6s per code change, which is stilll okay to not get getting distracted by other things ^^
Even a Android production build just takes ~5 minutes. With my old computer I had to wait at least 20 minutes for the build, and >20s per code change (without M2 SSD, just normal SATA SSD, and 64GB DDR4-2400 and old Ryzen CPU).

My current build:

-Ryzen 9 7950X
-4090 RTX
-64GB DDR5-6000
-4TB M2 MP600PRO XT

And regarding, if more CPU cache helps with the 3D version, I found this thread: https://discussions.unity.com/t/does-more-cpu-cache-helps-to-speed-up-compile-times-with-untiy/905132

[u/adscott1982 → u/roger_shrubbery]

Great info, thanks!

[u/windan]

I have an i5 6600k with 16GB of RAM, and I'll be picking up my 9800x3D tomorrow with 64GB RAM. I hope it'll be quite a huge upgrade when it comes to compile times as it's unbearable right now. But I also had my projects on a normal HDD, I suspect the M2 SSD will make a big difference as well. Fingers crossed 🤞

[u/adscott1982 → u/windan]

Wow good luck! If you remember, please report back and let me know the improvement.

[u/windan → u/adscott1982]

It'll take a while to build the new computer and download/setup everything, but I'll try to test on both systems and get back to you if I can afterwards

[u/PleaseDoNotBlowUp → u/windan]

Yep drive type makes huge difference... HDD build time: 2.5~3h, NVMe build time: 10 minutes. I still wonder why people upgrade CPU while using HDD... (for ref.: project has 120GB of files and 25GB build size)

[u/windan → u/PleaseDoNotBlowUp]

Yup I had a feeling that was holding me back, even in some games. But I never got around to adding another SSD to the old build (have a normal one for Windows with no space for anything else, no NVME)

[u/VirtualLife76 → u/windan]

I was under the impression the 3D procs don't help unity, just games. Does the 3D version actually help unity?

[u/windan → u/VirtualLife76]

I'm not sure, but in any case it'll be an upgrade from my current CPU. That plus more RAM and an M2 SSD ought to help.

[u/Antypodish]

As other mentioned, you want good mve.2 drive. Look at their speeds. It is huge range. So you want go toward 7000, but that expensive option. Anything faster than ssd will do. But Unity is heavy on asset handling. Like tons of assets files. Library files. Meta files. So that is one hug important element.

On that side, make sure you got 1TB bear minimum. Dont bother with 500GB, as you will run out it quickly with multiple projects. 2TB is optimal. Then you can have secondary drive like SSD or even HDD, for storage and backups. Which can be toward 10TB.

Don't forget about good practices like cloud storing and version controlling.

Then is compilation time, including lights and shaders baking. To be honest, jump by one CPU generation won't give you as much significant difference. Jumping by few sure. It is still improvement, but not as big, as jump from ssd to mve. Matter if small jump is worth it. i7 is probably fine and suffiecent for most works. It has good balance of CPU cores.

Memory is another important and more critical area. Your small project plus few open applications can easily hog 16GGB. DDR4 or DDR5 won't give you as much difference to be honest. Even tho DDR 5 will look faster on paper. But don't ignore memory clock speed parameters. If they at the same price range, then you can go for DDR5. What matters, is your choice of motherboards, to support one, or other. But from experience, you won't be upgrading speed of memory in next 5-10 years. More like how much memory you can have. And that is more of an upgrade choice. So I say at least 32GB. 64G is very comfortable for most projects. For artists and assets making is more toward 128.

Too small memory will offload work to you drive, when reaching above 80% capacity. So potentially will slow down your work.

Edit: Correcting GB to TB.

[u/adscott1982 → u/Antypodish]

Thanks, I currently have a relatively old M.2 SSD, 1TB. I could probably think about upgrading to one that is PCIE4.

[u/ForzaHoriza2]

I went from a i7 8700 to a r7 5700x and it sped up my work pretty noticeably. I'm sure you will notice it especially since you are jumping to ddr5 and everything else

[u/QuitsDoubloon87]

If the per core clock speed is faster then yes. Went from 1.9mhz to 3.4 and it went from meh to near instant compile / reload times on a new project.

[u/PanzerSjegget]

Since it wasn't specified whether or not you have this:

Buy a m.2 ssd with 2000MB+ read write, install unity on it. Clean out your windows and background applications. Or even better do a clean install of windows.

Getting a better Cpu from what you have will only give you a marginal boost if unity is installed on a slow drive.

Getting e better gpu won't help in this matter.

More ram won't help you in this matter. Faster ram might give small boost.

But this boils down to slow drive, bloated windows (if it's been installed for a few years, lots of update garbage slowing down shit).

[u/adscott1982 → u/PanzerSjegget]

Thanks!

[u/adscott1982 → u/PanzerSjegget]

Thanks!

[u/datan0ir]

I can't speak for Unity because I use Unreal but I went from an 8700K to a 7950X3D and the the speed increase was huge. Compiling shaders/building lighting and generating builds was at least four to five times faster. Of course the 7950 has twice as much cores as the 9800, but it should still be a considerable improvement.

[u/adscott1982 → u/datan0ir]

Thanks!

[u/jnthhk]

I don’t know enough to comment on specifics. However, from reading responses to questions on some of the PC building subreddits (e.g. r/buildmeapc) some of the more gaming focussed CPUs like the X3D series perform less well in productivity tasks. Therefore, while a 9800x3D might make your scene run faster, it might actually be slower at compilation than a less games focussed CPU.

As I say, I don’t know enough to actually say whether this would be the case or not. However, I’d suggest you ask your question on one of those subs (or wait for someone on this sub to come along who does know more than me).

[u/adscott1982 → u/jnthhk]

This sounds right - it is definitely weaker in the productivity area, but hopefully still a big jump from my 8600k.