Difference beween rendering computer and gaming computer?

[Izheet Midraaz]

Hello everyone, the questions is pretty straitght forward but for better clarification. I KNOW what rendering is. I'm just having a hard time locating an article that lays out the specs for a gaming computer versus a rendering computer.

For example, I often see people have one computer specifically for making videos and the other computer for games / regular activities. I'm mainly wondering what specs are used and how do they normally transfer over the recording material onto their rendering computer. Do they edit on their gaming computer and afterwards, transfer the finished document onto their rendering computer?

Any answers would help. Thank you in advance. Have a great day!

[Big Boom Boom]

Rendering is not making video, that's encoding. People would be using professional graphic cards like Quadro for rendering instead of consumer graphic cards like GTX.

[Omega]

A gaming PC can function as a rendering machine and vice versa. But a true rendering machine usually has a 6 or 8 core (Somethimes even more) CPU instead of a 4 core that most game PCs have, and it usually also has more RAM than the average game PC. Also they quite often have SSDs in a raid configuration and many HDDs for temporary project storage and backups.

People with a professional camera usaully record on to a SSD but most do it simply with a SD card that they just insert in the PC via a card reader or 2,5 inch SSD/HDD SATA rack.

[🦜Cloud Boy🦜]

When you make a 3d model in a 3d space in a software like 3D studio Max / Maya, it uses the power of the GPU. But any mid range $200 GPU is enough for that work. Even the biggest work.

When you Render a scene or animation, it uses only the power of CPU. It will always use 100% power of your CPU in all cores. no matter how powerful your CPU is. Means better CPU will makes rendering faster. You can buy a $1000 CPU if you can afford.

Professional cards such as "Quadro" or "FirePro" are only used for better customized driver support. Their driver is specially made for sofware like MaX/ Maya for better compatibility. They are expensive because of their Driver support not for the Cards.

When it comes to Gaming PCs, they always use GPU to 100%, but not the CPU. So they need a top end GPU but a mid range CPU is enough for them.

[ugafan]

you don't need a separate computer. you'll benefit from having a cpu with more cores. ryzen 7 is a good choice because it has 8 cores. get a good gpu, fast ssd, and lots of ram.

[Marcy]

Originally posted by Cloud Boy:

When you make a 3d model in a 3d space in a software like 3D studio Max / Maya, it uses the power of the GPU. But any mid range $200 GPU is enough for that work. Even the biggest work.

When you Render a scene or animation, it uses only the power of CPU. It will always use 100% power of your CPU in all cores. no matter how powerful your CPU is. Means better CPU will makes rendering faster. You can buy a $1000 CPU if you can afford.

Professional cards such as "Quadro" or "FirePro" are only used for better customized driver support. Their driver is specially made for sofware like MaX/ Maya for better compatibility. They are expensive because of their Driver support not for the Cards.

When it comes to Gaming PCs, they always use GPU to 100%, but not the CPU. So they need a top end GPU but a mid range CPU is enough for them.

Maya actually uses both the CPU and GPU intensively. Quadros will outperform GTX cards just because of their unlocked drivers and OpenGL support. It doesn't really matter though, because things like nCloth and BiForst simulations are handled by the CPU while the GPU is mostly responsible for displaying all the faces and vertices of your models. So they're equally important! The same can be said for PBR texture authoring programs.

Also, Zbrush (unfortunately) is completely CPU based and completely neglects GPU accelerated graphics, unlike for example Mudbox, which is almost entirely GPU based.

I don't really do video editing much, but I guess the reason people keep separate systems for work/gaming is because they can afford it, and because enjoy keeping work and personal life separated. In terms of hardware I doubt it'll make much difference, since Ultra setting gaming, HD video editing/compositing, digital sculpting, PBR rendering environments and 3D modeling all require both a good CPU and GPU, since they utilize both fully. You only gain performance from apps that can actually make use of Quadro technology.

So yeah, don't waste money on two decent systems, just go all out on one awesome system that's perfect for gaming, it'll work for everything else too.