I'm trying to scope out a really meaty workstation build, and would love a sense check/some advice.

We are going to be using the workstation for three main things:
1. Houdini sims (flip/pyro mainly)
2. Redshift rendering
3. Unreal Engine development

Here are the current specs of the proposed build:

• Mobo: ASUS PRO WS W790-ACE
  
• GPUs: ASUS 4090 x 2
  
• RAM: Samsung 32GB 4800 MHz ECC DDR5 Server/Workstation RAM x 8 (256Gb RAM total)
  
• CPU: Intel 24 Core Xeon W7-2495X
  
• Drive 1: Corsair MP600 PRO XT 1TB
  
• Drive 2: Corsair MP600 PRO XT 2TB
  
• Cooler: Noctua NH-U14S DX-4677
  

My main questions concern the CPU:
- Is the clock speed of this Xeon going to be ok for this kind of work? Not sure how well it will play with Unreal Engine?
- Would a Threadripper be a better fit?

But also wondering if there are any other considerations here that I might be missing. All help massively appreciated!

Personally -
7950x (16 cores - 32 threads) and most productivity reviews put it amongst the better ones. I think 3d is very much a mix of single threaded and multi threded operations so getting a high base/boost clock will certainly help.

Id probably want to go for more RAM, 64GB min really.

GPU wise, yeah 2 x 4090s sounds amazing... ive never used more that one so cant comment on how well they play together with rendering etc... I'd go for the higher end build versions such as ASUS Strix or MSI Suprim, all that rendering/ full load could take its toll on the cheaper end of parts.

I know ECC and Xeon are 'better' workstation grade parts but never really been overly sure on how much of that is really warrented for day-to-day productivity work.