ZBrush

Processor

3D Modeling

Building meshes, extruding polygons and other 3D modeling tasks are single-threaded, meaning they only utilize one CPU core. If using this software mostly for modeling, we recommend a 4- to 6-core processor with a high clockspeed (3.5GHz and above).

Animation

Like 3D modeling, animation is also single-threaded. Therefore a processor with high clockspeed and 4 to 6 cores is also recommended.

Rendering

While 3D modeling and animation only utilize one CPU core, rendering is a highly multi-threaded task and therefore a high amount of CPU cores will provide better performance.

Graphics

As technology advances, applications progressively increase graphics card acceleration. ZBrush achieves the largest boost in performance from the processor and the demand on the graphics card is relatively light, so even a mid-range graphics card will be adequate. The graphics cards recommended are all the latest technology and support 10-bit color. We recommend at least 8GB VRAM for signifcant raw performance and powering multiple 4K monitors.

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080Ti 8GB (highest performance)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070Ti 8GB
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060Ti 8GB (most popular and adequate for majority of professionals)
NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 12GB

Storage

We recommend having two solid-state drives which provides the best performance:

1. Primary Drive: SSD for the operating system and applications
2. Secondary Drive: SSD for active projects; a dedicated SSD will offer optimal performance

2.5-inch SATA SSD performs at ~500MB/s
M.2 NVMe PCIe 3.0 SSD performs at ~2500MB/s

For long term storage or backup, infrequently accessed files, we recommend a 4TB to 18TB hard drive. Hard drives also work well for storing export files as the export/rendering process is generally not write intensive.

Memory

In general, 3-6GB of RAM per CPU core is recommended. For example, if you select a single 12-core processor, 32GB will suffice for basic tasks or 64GB for more demanding workloads.