Frequently Asked Questions – Workstations for Unity
Q: Do I need anything special to create VR content?
A: Driving a 3D experience in VR is all about framerates and GPU power. If you are developing for the HTC Vive, Oculus Rift, or any other VR HMD we typcially recommend using a more powerful GPU if possible. While a card like the GTX 1070 is often considered entry-level for VR, for working directly through Unity we recommend at minimum a GTX 2070 GPU if not the more powerful GTX 2080 Ti.
Q: Does having more CPU cores improve performance?
A: Whether you should use a CPU with more cores depends on the tasks you tend to wait on in Unity. Many tasks like opening projects, importing/exporting packages, and viewport FPS are only lightly threaded so having more CPU cores does not improve performance. Other tasks like navmesh, GI baking, and progressing lightmapping are able to utilize a high number of CPU cores. For more information on what CPU you should use, we recommend reading some of the Unity threads for system building.
Q: You only list Intel® Core® CPUs, don’t I need a Xeon® CPU for a workstation?
A: In the past, Xeon CPUs were more robust than their Core series counterparts. Today, however, there is very little functional difference between the two Intel product families for workstations. In addition, Xeon CPUs are almost always clocked slightly lower than the Core i7 and i9 CPUs which means that you would be giving up a small amount of performance to gain a set of features that are typically only useful for servers.
Q: How much system RAM do I need?
A: The amount of RAM you need is going to depend on your specific project and whether you do RAM-intensive tasks like light baking or deal with massive polygon models for professional visualization. However, as a general rule of thumb we recommend 32GB of RAM for most users or 64GB+ if you work with especailly large and complex projects.
Q: Should I use an SSD for my files?
A: Yes! SSDs are much faster than traditional hard drives and in many cases can be noticeably faster than the older style drives. We highly recommend using an SSD (or even one of the newer and faster M.2 NVME drives) for your OS drive as well as a dedicated secondary SSD if possible for your project files.
