Best CPU for 3D Rendering in 2024

Best Budget CPU for Rendering Workloads

A budget CPU for rendering should satisfy a few key needs: first, it should have access to a reasonable core count. Even though these CPUs are supposed to be friendly on the wallet, they still need to be able to function in a rendering engine with a highly detailed scene. Second, they should retain a decent clock speed. While core count is probably more important here, a decent clock speed is still going to be needed to save artists time when rendering projects. And third, obviously, the price needs to be lower than the competition. With that in mind, let’s name a few of the best budget CPUs for the job.

Intel i5 12400

Despite being one of the weakest CPUs in the entire list, the 12400 clearly has an incredibly high price-to-performance ratio, as is shown by the expansive research done by cgdirector. Usually sitting at just under $200 in pricing, this six-core count CPU offers users a weak but cost-effective solution to 3d rendering and doubles as an effective CPU for gaming, media browsing, or video editing.

The speed at which this mainstream CPU will tackle rendering tasks relative to the other CPUs in this article is just slightly better than pitiful, thanks to underwhelming multi-threaded rendering performance in comparison to its rendering peers.

In a crucial point for the upgrade conscious, it should be noted that at 12400 CPU by Intel not only strikes a good balance between general PC performance and price but is also compatible with DDR5 RAM clocked at 4800MT/s, which means it could make a very good “will upgrade later” CPU to go along with an otherwise future-proofed system.

AMD Ryzen 5 5600

Essentially, one could think of the Ryzen 5 5600 as a strict AMD alternative to Intel’s processor listed above. The difference between the 12400 and the 5600 is so minimal that the choice between them lies squarely on a couple of points. If you prefer AMD to Intel, or vice versa, then the choice is obvious. Otherwise, the ability to upgrade to a 5600 from an older chipset AM4 motherboard should be weighed against the ability to use DDR5 RAM with the 12400.

If neither of those points mean anything to you, then simply go with the CPU that you like more. Keep in mind that the 12400 performed just slightly better in the CineBench r23 rankings, although the difference is effectively negligible for most users.

Best Mid-Range CPUs for Rendering Workloads

A Mid-Range CPU has similar characteristics to a budget CPU, but generally trades its lower cost for higher core count or higher clock speeds, or sometimes both. The differences in price between these CPUs and their budget peers are set in stone but can be exaggerated highly by timings in the market.

Intel i5 13600K

The Intel Core i5 13600K is a far better CPU than the two in the budget list for a few obvious reasons; Its clock speed is higher than the previous two, and the architecture from which it sits is a full generation above the aforementioned processors. In fact, when comparing performance in terms of processing power, the intel core i9 13600K just about beats out the budget CPUs by a factor of two.

The difference in the rendering speed and efficiency here isn’t negligible by any means. That said, the newer architecture means that you’ll be hard-pressed to go with DDR5 RAM (otherwise, what’s the point of spending more on the better processor?), a newer motherboard, and stronger cooling solutions than you otherwise would have been forced to purchase. At the end of the day, this processor alone is going to cost 60% to 100% compared to its budget peers.

Still, the 13600K represents a strong option for decent rendering at a relatively low price.

Intel Core i7 12700F

Intel’s i7 12700F, as its naming scheme notes, has a high core count compared to the 13600K listed above. This 8-core count CPU manages to help this previous generation Intel CPU keep rendering speed decently high thanks to its multi-threaded performance while in render engines.

To keep costs down, the CPU incidentally finds itself a full generation behind the 13000 series Intel CPUs. To boot, its potential single-core speed is nothing to scoff at, either.

For maximum cash saved, opt for DDR4 RAM and avoid overclocking to ensure cheap cooling solutions remain effective. For maximum performance, DDR5 RAM alongside stronger cooling solutions, such as expensive fan-based CPU coolers or even an AIO build, is ideal.

AMD Ryzen 9 5900X

Since the Ryzen 7000 series CPUs have made their entrance into the public space, the 5900X has found itself sitting in a comfortable price range that gives users a mid-ranged price CPU with a high core count. Specifically, the 5900X offers users 12 cores running at 4.8GHz clock speed.

Interestingly enough, the strengths of more cores in support of a render engine don’t necessarily put this option above the i5 13600K CPU in terms of raw render speed, according to the CineBench R23 results. That said, it will absolutely smother anything that scales in performance with a higher count.

In short, if you’re desperate for a high core count, even at increased costs, the 5900X is a great option. Otherwise, the 13600K will probably outperform the 5900X from a simple render time, perspective. If you’re unsure of which one is better for you, it may just be worth sticking with the 13600K for a more future-proofed system.

Best High-End CPUs for Rendering Workloads

Once you’ve researched the software compatibility for your favorite rendering engines, you’ve become familiar with your renderer and want to squeeze the best capable performance out of it, and you’ve become addicted to decreasing your render times to as short as possible, you step into the high-end CPU rendering space. Here, CPU rendering becomes as good as it possibly can while making use of consumer-grade products.

High-end CPUs are clocked at a high frequency, they’re built with a laughably large amount of cores, and they’re sometimes used to build things like an irender farm, such as corona renderer, which means the further you step into this space, the less financially viable it becomes to build your own rendering PC instead of outsourcing the work to other companies for saved cash (just as a word of warning).

In truth, the higher the CPU scores on the benchmarks, the more out of proportion the pricing becomes. That is to say, with the other CPUs, a certain percentage increase in cost had a proportional effect on the increase in performance.

Here, the percentage increase in costs starts to get you less and less performance the higher you go. (In 90% of cases, you should just use a render farm service instead of paying for these products.)

Intel Core i9 13900K

The 13900K is the last CPU in the “Standard” lineup of processors provided by either AMD or Intel before stepping into the Threadripper space that performs exceptionally well in rendering tasks.

In short, it’s a powerful CPU. The full story is that it sports Intel’s latest architecture, fits on the LGA 1700 socket, supports DDR5 RAM, and has many, many cores. 24, to be exact. At its max clock speed of 5.8GHz, those 24 cores are going to shred anything you throw at it.

Please keep in mind that when you commit to this Intel CPU, you essentially commit to one of the most expensive consumer-grade PCs money can buy. You should pretty much always be combining it with DDR5 RAM, you’re going to need a high-end cooler, you’re going to need a high-end motherboard, and you’d be doing yourself a disservice by not pairing it with an RTX 4080 GPU (an extremely strong GPU with ray tracing capabilities) or better in almost all cases.

In short, the high cost of this CPU is the least of your worries when considering pricing for a properly built PC that runs it.

AMD Ryzen 9 7950X

As an obligatory AMD processor inclusion before the Threadripper series, the 7950X serves as a weaker performance alternative to the 13900K for those who prefer AMD products.

Ultimately, the difference between the two isn’t world-ending, but large enough to where the only reason an enthusiast or professional should opt for this AMD option is if there is a sale that makes the price difference between the two worth the loss in performance. Otherwise, you’ll be spending “best CPU for rendering” cash on something that objectively doesn’t fit the bill, despite its high amount of CPU cores and clock speed.

The 7950X is a good processor, but for rendering purposes, the 13900K should be looked at first.

AMD Threadripper 3990X

The data on the numerous AMD Threadrippers seems to vary, depending on who you source as your dealer of figures. According to cgdirector, though, the 3990X takes the cake as the best CPU for rendering on the market today overall.

For those unaware, the AMD Threadrippers are essentially built with core-heavy tasks in mind. They suck up power, are ultra-capable, and exist to act as CPUs for professionals who spend most days of the week rendering in highly taxing, memory-heavy environments.

The Threadrippers do this with their extraordinarily high core counts (the 3990X has 64 of them). This has the somewhat unintuitive effect of making Threadrippers extremely useful in render engines, a render farm, or in businesses where cloud rendering is a main service, but rather cost-ineffective as a solution to any other task that simply doesn’t use so many cores in the first place, such as gaming or media browsing.

In truth, the Threadrippers should be viewed as “professionals only” performance tools created by AMD for very niche purposes, and are best avoided unless absolutely certain that you’ll need their power. The Threadrippers listed here boast an asking price of a few grand each, at least. And of these, the 3990X has the best overall score, at least in the multi-core benchmarks.

Close by are the AMD Pro 3995WX and the Pro 5995WX, with the latter having a much high single core performance than the other two, most likely due to its higher base clock speed. The differences between these Threadrippers become more and more outrageous or nuanced the more you look into it, such as the differences in security features, or the difference in RAM allotment, with the 3995WX supporting two terabytes of DDR4 RAM and the 5995WX supporting up to two TiB’s worth of memory.

In short, the AMD Threadrippers are outrageously overpriced and over-performing for the vast majority of users, but they are undoubtedly the best CPU in render engines in terms of raw performance and by some margin at that. If you do want to undertake the journey into Threadripper builds, do your own research and be doubly sure about your specs before pulling the trigger on any purchase.