[SOLVED] I Could Use Help On A New PC Build For Streaming.

chris661

Prominent
Feb 15, 2019
8
0
510
I’m a console gamer, currently as the last PC I built was in 2012 and it can’t run anything anymore. With the new PS5 coming out, I’ve been comparing prices of buying a new PC with specs close to the PS5. It seems building a PC with similar specs is anywhere from $1,000 and up with brand new parts. That’s out of my price range.

I currently stream using a Macbook that is only dual core i5 and it bogs down at times. Since the consoles I game on are PS3 & PS4, I thought it could be a better investment to skip the PS5 for now IF I can build a PC for around $500-$600 that can stream without slowing down.

I’m not too worried about having super high graphics, but would like the option to easily upgrade a GPU if/when I decides to start gaming on PC while streaming.

Anything I get would most likely be within the next couple weeks. As I mentioned, this machine doesn’t have to be fancy looking at all, just something that can run my streams with overlays through my ElGato at 1080P/60FPS.

I’m so far out of the loop on PC hardware I don’t know where to begin.
 
Solution
So allow me to update you with what's going on in the market and why you should wait at least a month until everything settles down.

CPU:

AMD has, since last year, released CPU's (Ryzen 3000 series) that rival intel in gaming and outright beat all current line-ups in price-performance. AMD has just announced as well of their next matured Ryzen 5000 series for desktop that is meant to outdate and fix all the issues that the 3000 series had (in gaming and data latency mostly).
Intel on the other-hand has been scrambling to compete and releasing new CPU's that are basically refreshes of their previous chips. While they do have more cores than their previous gens and run slightly faster, they are not at AMD's level...
So allow me to update you with what's going on in the market and why you should wait at least a month until everything settles down.

CPU:

AMD has, since last year, released CPU's (Ryzen 3000 series) that rival intel in gaming and outright beat all current line-ups in price-performance. AMD has just announced as well of their next matured Ryzen 5000 series for desktop that is meant to outdate and fix all the issues that the 3000 series had (in gaming and data latency mostly).
Intel on the other-hand has been scrambling to compete and releasing new CPU's that are basically refreshes of their previous chips. While they do have more cores than their previous gens and run slightly faster, they are not at AMD's level of price-performance still. As of now at least. Intel is still trying to reach the newest architecture AMD is at but is having trouble.

Conclusion:
Only get Intel if you want pure gaming performance, or go AMD if you want similar gaming performance but superior multi-tasking performance at a better price.
My recommendation for CPU: AMD Ryzen 3600X as of now for a budget gaming/streaming build. Though as mentioned earlier, new CPU's are coming out, so I'd wait either to see what's new or for prices of current cpu's to drop.

GPU:

Nvidia has JUST released new graphic cards, the RTX 3000 series. Though currently there are a lot of issues at the moment with global distribution and random crashes due to possible low quality capacitor usage in production of third party cards. But overall this new generation trumps the previous generation in price-performance. We have yet to fully confirm, but it's slated that the 3070, a card that will cost 500$USD will be just as good as the previous top-tier consumer card 2080 Ti, which cost 1200$USD at launch. Nvidia has truly delivered this generation, so it is a perfect time to consider nvidia as an upgrade.

AMD is also announcing their new graphics card along with Nvidia's. There is still little news about the cards themselves but AMD is going to reveal the details of their new generation at the end of this month, leaks and rumors point that they will deliver near equal performance of Nvidia's card at a much better value (perhaps 50$ cheaper). But AMD is not as mature in GPU development, both hardware and software, as nvidia is. So for the time being no conclusion can be drawn until we see evidence of their performance.

Conclusion:
Wait till next month to get all the detail regarding Nvidia and AMD. Nvidia will definitely release cards of their new generation that cna go for 300-400$ most likely, but AMD may have competitive options. Don't buy anything as of yet and read up on these two companies and their new GPU's before making any decisions.


OVERALL CONCLUSION:
While you can buy older parts at less costs now that new parts are JUST releasing to the market, I'd recommend waiting a bit longer to upgrade given much better values for much stronger products are releasing and will benefit you in the long run - since you seem like a person who doesn't plan on upgrading for many years to come. Once everything is released to the market by the end of this year you can definitely pick up a powerful computer at 1000$USD that could rival top-tier gaming rigs of last generation. So wait man... Wait.

But if you can't here's a list I compiled:

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 3.8 GHz 6-Core Processor ($209.09 @ Amazon)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 RGB Black Edition 57.3 CFM CPU Cooler ($40.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Gigabyte B550M DS3H Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard ($94.99 @ B&H)
Memory: Corsair Vengeance LPX 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 CL15 Memory ($64.98 @ Amazon)
Storage: Crucial P1 500 GB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive ($59.99 @ Adorama)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda Compute 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Video Card: MSI Radeon RX 5600 XT 6 GB MECH OC Video Card ($259.99 @ B&H)
Case: darkFlash DLM 21 MicroATX Mid Tower Case ($59.99 @ Amazon)
Power Supply: Cooler Master MWE Gold 650 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply ($105.98 @ Newegg)
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 10 Home OEM 64-bit ($108.78 @ Other World Computing)
Total: $1059.77
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-09-26 17:20 EDT-0400

EDIT:
Note that the motherboard and case are Micro Atx, which mean it's compact build. Shouldn't hurt performance but if you want full size then replace the components I chose with regular ATX motherboard & case. I chose Micro ATX because it's cheaper.
 
  • Like
Reactions: alexbirdie
Solution