Like most software developers, Unreal maintains a list of system requirements for Unreal Engine that can be used to help ensure the hardware in your system meets their minimum requirements. However, most “system requirements” lists tend to cover only the very basics of what hardware is needed to run the software, not what hardware will actually give the best performance. In addition, these lists are often outdated, list old hardware revisions, or simply contain sub-optimal hardware.
Because of how inconsistent those lists can be, we’ve taken the time to perform testing to determine what hardware runs Unreal Engine the best. Based on this testing, we have come up with our own list of recommended hardware.
How does Unreal Engine utilize the CPU?
The processor (or CPU) is one of the most important pieces of an Unreal Engine development workstation. While many other parts of the system impact performance to some degree, the CPU is the core piece of hardware that is a part of absolutely anything and everything you do. Based on our extensive CPU testing in Unreal Editor we have narrowed down the hundreds of CPUs available to just the few that are the best choices for developing in the Unreal Editor.
What is the best CPU for Unreal Engine?
For most users, Intel’s Core i9 13900K and 14900K are both terrific choices. Both CPUs score similarly in our Unreal Engine benchmarks and provide good performance for most users, with the newer 14900K being just a couple of percentage points faster.
For those that need the best possible performance for heavily threaded tasks like building lighting and compiling the engine from source, we offer a number of high core count CPUs depending on both your budget and the performance you need for these tasks. The AMD Threadripper 7970X is about twice as fast as the Core i9 models for compiling – while the Threadripper 7960X and 7980X also offer great performance and are additional options depending on your budget. All of these CPUs are substantially more expensive than mainstream models, though, so we typically only recommend one of them for users who spend a significant amount of time building lighting or compiling.
From enterprise applications and cinematic experiences to high-quality games across PC, console, mobile, VR and AR, Unreal Engine is a powerful tool that needs an equally powerful workstation.
