PC specs for streaming games

[brianx96]

Hey guys, I'm starting to record gameplay, live stream, etc. I need to know if I have a proper set up for it or do I need an upgrade. So right now my set up is

MB- Asus M4N68T M V2
Processor- AMD Athlon(tm) II X2 250 3.00 GHz
Memory- (currently)- 4.00GB (2.94GB usable) but i'm getting two 4gb sticks so it'll be a total of 8gb.
System type- 32 bit OS, x64- Based processor
Graphics Card- ViewMax NVIDIA GeForce GT 620 2GB GDDR3 PCI Express (PCIe) DVI Video Card HDMI & HDCP Support * COMMANDER EDITION *
Also eventually I will be getting a HDD- 1 TB.

I'm not sure if this will do it or if I need to completely upgrade everything.

 

[brianx96]

So I need to get a Intel i7, I was looking at this one. Is this ok? http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80605i7870
I need 1 HDD for the game
2 SSD for streaming
I know this is old, bot even sure if its compatible but can I use this for the GPU? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GWU2GNQ?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
Also will my MB be compatible with all of these things? I have Asus M4N68T M V2
I'm really trying to keep this on the cheap side but its looking like that wont happen haha I understand though what I want to do requires a lot.

 

[Wayfall]

Also truthfully AMD doesn't have anything that is as good as Intel's Core i7 4790 CPU which is Intel's best CPU power for the price. AMD seems to be moving towards APU's rather than super powerful personal computer CPU's.

 

[brianx96]

Also what about ram? I'm guessing at least 8gb and a 64 bit OS

 

[Wayfall]

So I need to get a Intel i7, I was looking at this one. Is this ok? http://pcpartpicker.com/part/intel-cpu-bx80605i7870
I need 1 HDD for the game
2 SSD for streaming
I know this is old, bot even sure if its compatible but can I use this for the GPU? http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00GWU2GNQ?psc=1&redirect=true&ref_=oh_aui_detailpage_o01_s00
Also will my MB be compatible with all of these things? I have Asus M4N68T M V2
I'm really trying to keep this on the cheap side but its looking like that wont happen haha I understand though what I want to do requires a lot.

If you want to stream permanently then you would need:
- Quad core CPU preferably the i7
- The first drive to be an SSD for your OS and the software your using
- The second drive to be another SSD but for your games that you want to stream
- Then a HDD for the rest of your computer stuff (E.g Itunes, Spotfy, web browsers, music files, pictures, programs, other games) I recommend the Western Digital Caviar blue 1TB
- A current gen GPU card preferably a GTX 960, 970

Regards

 

[brianx96]

Ok so this is what I got so far.
CPU- Intel Core i7 4790K
Storage- SSD (2) A-Data Premier Pro SP600 64GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
HDD Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
PSU- EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
OS- Windows 10 64 bit, now should it be home or pro system builder OEM?
Ram- I'm guessing best would be 16GB
GPU- ?????

 

[Wayfall]

Also what about ram? I'm guessing at least 8gb and a 64 bit OS

For any kind of streaming, rendering or video file recording you would need 16GB really...RAM isn't that expensive.

Windows 7 takes at least 1Gb of the ram (you can see in the control panel under system how much ram you have left after what windows has taken as reserves) I have seen Fallout 4 use at most 5GB RAM and if your streaming the software will want a lot of RAM. RAM will be being use a lot if your playing and streaming.

The GPU, CPU and Ram will be very busy.

Regards

 

[Wayfall]

Ok so this is what I got so far.
CPU- Intel Core i7 4790K
Storage- SSD (2) A-Data Premier Pro SP600 64GB 2.5" Solid State Drive
HDD Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive
PSU- EVGA SuperNOVA GS 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply
OS- Windows 10 64 bit, now should it be home or pro system builder OEM?
Ram- I'm guessing best would be 16GB
GPU- ?????

As I said if you want to game while streaming it you would need a high end GPU that being a GTX 960 or 970 (I own a MSI GTX 970 4GB)

Regards

 

[rhysiam]

I'm not sure you're getting good advice here. You've said from the start that your goal is minecraft... So the suggestion to move to a 4790K to stream minecraft and minecraft only? Not good advice IMHO.

If you want to get properly into recording/streaming multiple games including demanding AAA titles, then absolutely no question you need a high end CPU... but not for minecraft, especially not if you're prepared to go with a hardware based solution like shadowplay which has basically no impact on your FPS. If you can play the game with your current rig, you can stream it using Shadowplay with a supported graphics card.

Also, 2 SSDs for recording... seriously? A single good HDD is probably enough, though I agree it's a good idea to have a separate recording drive if you're using a HDD... but any decent modern SSD can write at 200MBps +, which is probably enough to record 10 games simultaneously... and is absolutely enough for one and the game itself.

OP, if you have the budget for that rig you're looking at, then it will definitely be better, but you're spending a lot of money and haven't yet added a graphics card. All for minecraft? Makes no sense to me.

 

[Wayfall]

Also the SSD you picked isn't that good, I'd recommend the Samsung EVO series so search it in Amazon.

Also the bigger the size the more channels the SSD has for data meaning it can handle more.

 

[brianx96]

I'm not sure you're getting good advice here. You've said from the start that your goal is minecraft... So the suggestion to move to a 4790K to stream minecraft and minecraft only? Not good advice IMHO.

If you want to get properly into recording/streaming multiple games including demanding AAA titles, then absolutely no question you need a high end CPU... but not for minecraft, especially not if you're prepared to go with a hardware based solution like shadowplay which has basically no impact on your FPS. If you can play the game with your current rig, you can stream it using Shadowplay with a supported graphics card.

Also, 2 SSDs for recording... seriously? A single good HDD is probably enough, though I agree it's a good idea to have a separate recording drive if you're using a HDD... but any decent modern SSD can write at 200MBps +, which is probably enough to record 10 games simultaneously... and is absolutely enough for one and the game itself.

OP, if you have the budget for that rig you're looking at, then it will definitely be better, but you're spending a lot of money and haven't yet added a graphics card. All for minecraft? Makes no sense to me.

and I agree, I felt what he was telling me was OP, of course I would love to have a extremely good set up but just the CPU and Storage alone is about $500 but I know I do need a update but nothing to crazy. Do you think when I go to update my pc should I get like intel i3 or something. For right now all I'm going to be doing is minecraft. From experience, I know I need a good GPU and Ram but other than that like I said I have a AMD Athlon II CPU, and at least for minecraft it does fine. Now for streaming I have that thing you told me to get and I was rerading about it. It does everything you said haha so I think I will be fine with that program. So for HDD. Do you think I should stick with 1TB or go bigger? or just get a 1TB HDD and a 250gb SSD?

 

[brianx96]

Also do I still need OBS to record gameplay or does shadowplay do all of that also? i'm sorry for all these questions hah i'm just starting and don't know to much

 

[rhysiam]

and I agree, I felt what he was telling me was OP, of course I would love to have a extremely good set up but just the CPU and Storage alone is about $500 but I know I do need a update but nothing to crazy. Do you think when I go to update my pc should I get like intel i3 or something. For right now all I'm going to be doing is minecraft. From experience, I know I need a good GPU and Ram but other than that like I said I have a AMD Athlon II CPU, and at least for minecraft it does fine. Now for streaming I have that thing you told me to get and I was rerading about it. It does everything you said haha so I think I will be fine with that program. So for HDD. Do you think I should stick with 1TB or go bigger? or just get a 1TB HDD and a 250gb SSD?

Look, it really depends how much money you're prepared to put into this and (related question) how seriously you intend to take it. My guess is from reading your post, that you're a keen Minecraft player and you're interested in trying out a bit of youtubing & twitch streaming. You're dipping your toe in the water so to speak. If that's the case then I'm suggesting you literally spend just $100-120 on a GTX 750ti and try it... see how you go. If it works, great! If it doesn't, then you figure out where the bottleneck is (it'll either be storage or CPU), and price up an upgrade, and decide then if it's worth investing further.

Maybe you want to take it more seriously though? A friend of mine recently took a gap year from work because he wanted to have a shot at being a professional streamer and youtuber. He set himself a limit of a year to see if he could make it, and he wanted to be fully set up and ready to go so he didn't waste his first month or two trying to get things working. So I helped him put together a more serious build.

If that's more like what you're trying to do then for sure I'd suggest you look at an i3 (as a minimum - really in that case i5 or i7 make more sense), SSD & HDD, and a decent graphics card. But it'll cost you, so you have to be prepared to make that investment. Is that worth it to you?? I can't answer that question for you.

 

[rhysiam]

Yes - shadowplay will stream & record. The issue with OBS, Fraps or the standard Twitch streaming, will be the hit on your CPU. I would be surprised if any of those solutions worked well for you, that old X2 is just not up to it. That's why I've been pushing Shadowplay from the start.

 

[brianx96]

and I agree, I felt what he was telling me was OP, of course I would love to have a extremely good set up but just the CPU and Storage alone is about $500 but I know I do need a update but nothing to crazy. Do you think when I go to update my pc should I get like intel i3 or something. For right now all I'm going to be doing is minecraft. From experience, I know I need a good GPU and Ram but other than that like I said I have a AMD Athlon II CPU, and at least for minecraft it does fine. Now for streaming I have that thing you told me to get and I was rerading about it. It does everything you said haha so I think I will be fine with that program. So for HDD. Do you think I should stick with 1TB or go bigger? or just get a 1TB HDD and a 250gb SSD?

Look, it really depends how much money you're prepared to put into this and (related question) how seriously you intend to take it. My guess is from reading your post, that you're a keen Minecraft player and you're interested in trying out a bit of youtubing & twitch streaming. You're dipping your toe in the water so to speak. If that's the case then I'm suggesting you literally spend just $100-120 on a GTX 750ti and try it... see how you go. If it works, great! If it doesn't, then you figure out where the bottleneck is (it'll either be storage or CPU), and price up an upgrade, and decide then if it's worth investing further.

Maybe you want to take it more seriously though? A friend of mine recently took a gap year from work because he wanted to have a shot at being a professional streamer and youtuber. He set himself a limit of a year to see if he could make it, and he wanted to be fully set up and ready to go so he didn't waste his first month or two trying to get things working. So I helped him put together a more serious build.

If that's more like what you're trying to do then for sure I'd suggest you look at an i3 (as a minimum - really in that case i5 or i7 make more sense), SSD & HDD, and a decent graphics card. But it'll cost you, so you have to be prepared to make that investment. Is that worth it to you?? I can't answer that question for you.

Ok, I do appreciate that help. So i'm just going to go with what you said and upgrade big time. Any suggestions for GPU or do I stick with the GTX 750 or get something better. I plan on getting i7 CPU and of course the 16GB of ram or is that overkill? and 1 TB HDD. 250GB SSD. Also what MB should I get? I don't care about cost now because I'm going to be saving my pennies. Of course I don't want to spend thousands of dollars just yet but close to a thousand I guess. My current plan was to just record Minecraft. Of course I want to play other games later down the road but i know with my financial situation now i just thought i could just upgrade my GPU and get more memory. I mean i can but why not just buy everything now, save me money in the future. So pretend i don't have anything haha and lets start from scratch. What are some of your suggestions for a build that can stand streaming and playing games like Minecraft, GTA 5, CS, and so on.

 

[Kevern_11]

If you can get a 960 or 950 for the shadowplay and future SLI capability compared to the 750.

 

[rhysiam]

Ok, I do appreciate that help. So i'm just going to go with what you said and upgrade big time. Any suggestions for GPU or do I stick with the GTX 750 or get something better. I plan on getting i7 CPU and of course the 16GB of ram or is that overkill? and 1 TB HDD. 250GB SSD. Also what MB should I get? I don't care about cost now because I'm going to be saving my pennies. Of course I don't want to spend thousands of dollars just yet but close to a thousand I guess. My current plan was to just record Minecraft. Of course I want to play other games later down the road but i know with my financial situation now i just thought i could just upgrade my GPU and get more memory. I mean i can but why not just buy everything now, save me money in the future. So pretend i don't have anything haha and lets start from scratch. What are some of your suggestions for a build that can stand streaming and playing games like Minecraft, GTA 5, CS, and so on.

I didn't tell you to go all out on a new rig! But if you wanna record or stream things like GTA V with high or above detail settings, then you're back to where you were with Wayfall when I was trying to talk you out of it.

Unfortunately to move to a quality streaming PC, you need a whole new build.

Do you live near a MicroCentre? Because they're the only ones who stock Skylake (the new) I7s at the moment. Do you have a budget? Do you need a monitor and an Operating system?

Just thinking about it, I could post you a build, but now you've decided what you want you might be better off starting a thread based on the new-build sticky: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/353572-31-build-upgrade-advice
Make sure you include answers to the questions I asked above and be clear that it's for streaming and you'll probably get some better builds than anything I could put together.

 

[brianx96]

I know i was planning on just keeping the system i have and trying to update some of the stuff like get a good GPU, and more ram, also upgrade my OS to 64bit, but if i'm going to be spending $300 on GPU, $100 on OS, and close to $100 for ram then i should just go that extra mile and upgrade my MB and CPU. I have no idea what MicroCentre is. I dont want to spend anywhere close to $1000 but i know with the stuff i need it'll be around that area. So yes i'm on a budget but like i said i know this stuff is expensive. I have a pretty nice monitor right now, its a AOC 27in Widescreen monitor. Also i have Windows 10 32 bit right now on this computer i have now.

 

[brianx96]

Also primary i was just going to stream gameplay of minecraft, but since i'm thinking about just starting a new right, i want the capabilities now to play GTA 5, Minecraft, etc. Probably not at ulta high settings, because i will be spending a boat load on GPU and what not. Also i think eventually i will be getting software like Sony Vegas 13 or something like that to edit my videos.

 

[Justkeeplookin]

Minecraft, relies on single-core performance. Something that Intel is strong in, and AMD is slightly weak in. I can guarantee you that a Core 2 Duo, will outperform a AMD Phenom, in terms of single core performance. Since your streaming get a i5, this is how it would be, 1 core would be busy processing Minecraft, while the other 3 take care of the streaming smoothly.

 

[brianx96]

Minecraft, relies on single-core performance. Something that Intel is strong in, and AMD is slightly weak in. I can guarantee you that a Core 2 Duo, will outperform a AMD Phenom, in terms of single core performance. Since your streaming get a i5, this is how it would be, 1 core would be busy processing Minecraft, while the other 3 take care of the streaming smoothly.

I planned on getting a i5

 

[Justkeeplookin]

Good Choice, which generation are you getting? Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake?

 

[brianx96]

Good Choice, which generation are you getting? Haswell, Broadwell, Skylake?

i don't know what that means haha, which would you prefer?

 

[Justkeeplookin]

Haswell is 4th generation, Broadwell 5th, and Skylake 6th.

Do you bother with overclocking or no?

 

[brianx96]

I never OC before. I'm scared to ha but i wouldnt mind trying it out. I'm getting the Intel i5 6600K so I'm guessing that Skylake?