Question Will the Intel i7-7700k be good for gaming while streaming at the same time?

[animefreak2019]

Hi. I just ordered the Intel i7-7700k processor & was wondering if it's good for gaming while streaming in 720p 60fps? Thank you.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Well, it will work, but it won't be optimal. You might get some slowdown from time to time and an impact to framerates, but it will do it.

 

[animefreak2019]

Well, it will work, but it won't be optimal. You might get some slowdown from time to time and an impact to framerates, but it will do it.

Oh. So what CPU would you recommend if I am to stream optimally at 720p 60fps?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Oh. So what CPU would you recommend if I am to stream optimally at 720p 60fps?

You'll want something with some more cores. Either a Ryzen 5 2600 or better, or a Core i5 8400 or better.

The 7700K is a great gaming CPU, but it has 4 cores with hyperthreading making 8 threads. Streaming uses a lot of core resources, taking away resources the games want to use. So things slow down. Most games are designed to take advantage of 4 cores, so if the streaming program wants to use a core or two, that is less for the game. The Ryzen 5 2600 and i5 8400 have 6 cores, with the Ryzen having symmetrical multi threading (SMT) making for 12 threads. This allows the game to use 4 cores and the streaming service to make use of the other 2 so you can do it all with a minimal performance hit.

 

[animefreak2019]

You'll want something with some more cores. Either a Ryzen 5 2600 or better, or a Core i5 8400 or better.

The 7700K is a great gaming CPU, but it has 4 cores with hyperthreading making 8 threads. Streaming uses a lot of core resources, taking away resources the games want to use. So things slow down. Most games are designed to take advantage of 4 cores, so if the streaming program wants to use a core or two, that is less for the game. The Ryzen 5 2600 and i5 8400 have 6 cores, with the Ryzen having symmetrical multi threading (SMT) making for 12 threads. This allows the game to use 4 cores and the streaming service to make use of the other 2 so you can do it all with a minimal performance hit.

I have the i5-6500 CPU currently. Would upgrading to the i7-8700k be too much or is it not good for both streaming & gaming?

 

[animefreak2019]

I also have the ASUS ROG GTX 1060 6GB Strix GPU, in case you're wondering.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

I have the i5-6500 CPU currently. Would upgrading to the i7-8700k be too much or is it not good for both streaming & gaming?

The 8700K would be great for streaming and gaming. If your motherboard supports it, it'd be a great upgrade, but I think you'll need to swap out the motherboard for something with a 300 series chipset.

Wait... GTX 1060? Use NVEC! NVidia's hardware encoding isn't half bad. It makes for reasonable streams without hurting performance.

 

[animefreak2019]

The 8700K would be great for streaming and gaming. If your motherboard supports it, it'd be a great upgrade, but I think you'll need to swap out the motherboard for something with a 300 series chipset.

Wait... GTX 1060? Use NVEC! NVidia's hardware encoding isn't half bad. It makes for reasonable streams without hurting performance.

Yeah I actually already use the NVEC setting in OBS. But I tried playing Devil May Cry 5 on high settings recently & my CPU would max out at 100% most of the time. So that's why I'm looking to upgrade the CPU.

 

[animefreak2019]

What do you think about that?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

The 7700K will most certainly help with that. The 4 extra threads will give you some more CPU resources, so you shouldn't max it out. That said, you'll probably still max out several threads, but you'll have more threads than the game can use so you'll still have unused CPU resources. You'll probably still see upwards of 80% usage though. The same thing would happen with high core count CPUs though. You'll probably max out 3 to 4 cores but still have cores left over for other processes.

 

[animefreak2019]

The 7700K will most certainly help with that. The 4 extra threads will give you some more CPU resources, so you shouldn't max it out. That said, you'll probably still max out several threads, but you'll have more threads than the game can use so you'll still have unused CPU resources. You'll probably still see upwards of 80% usage though. The same thing would happen with high core count CPUs though. You'll probably max out 3 to 4 cores but still have cores left over for other processes.

So do you think I'll be perfectly fine with the i7-7700k, then? Or should I upgrade to the i7-8700k instead? I'm sorry for the noob questions, even though I'm pretty decent with computers, but most of what I see online regarding the i7-7700k is just people suggesting the Ryzen CPU or something else.

 

[animefreak2019]

Again sorry for all the noob questions. xD I just want to be extra sure, that's all.

 

[animefreak2019]

The 7700K will most certainly help with that. The 4 extra threads will give you some more CPU resources, so you shouldn't max it out. That said, you'll probably still max out several threads, but you'll have more threads than the game can use so you'll still have unused CPU resources. You'll probably still see upwards of 80% usage though. The same thing would happen with high core count CPUs though. You'll probably max out 3 to 4 cores but still have cores left over for other processes.

Also I'm currently looking at processors online right now so hopefully you can get back to me as soon as possible.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Heh, no problem. If you weren't already on a reasonable platform I'd have suggested the Ryzen as well. AMD has some great things going for them right now. Ryzen is a great platform for content creators. AMD went and almost made the 7700K irrelevant with the Ryzen lineup, that is why Intel added more cores with the 8th gen and 9th gen CPUs.

Honestly if you were looking for a solid upgrade something like the Ryzen 5 2600 or 2600K would be great. You could use CPU encoding at 1080p 60fps with minimal performance issues. Add to that the upcoming Ryzen 3rd gen, which is looking to be amazing, and will fit on current motherboards, and it becomes hard to ignore AMD. AMD may not deliver the sheer FPS of Intel CPUs, but for streaming they are absolute monsters.

What you do is up to you, but the Ryzen 5 2600X is a strong recommendation for anyone streaming. That said, the hardware you have/are getting is still very capable. Just because something faster exists doesn't make your hardware worthless. That said, the 8700K is a poor value for streaming. You don't gain a lot over the 2600X in terms of capability, and right now are paying a lot more than it should be because of Intel's CPU shortages. So, if you are sending that 7700K back, go Ryzen and save some money. You could realistically get a Ryzen 7 2700X for less than an 8700K and the 2700X is an absolute monster of a CPU.

Also, sorry for taking a while. I take pride in my word choice. I don't want to give people wrong ideas.

 

[animefreak2019]

Heh, no problem. If you weren't already on a reasonable platform I'd have suggested the Ryzen as well. AMD has some great things going for them right now. Ryzen is a great platform for content creators. AMD went and almost made the 7700K irrelevant with the Ryzen lineup, that is why Intel added more cores with the 8th gen and 9th gen CPUs.

Honestly if you were looking for a solid upgrade something like the Ryzen 5 2600 or 2600K would be great. You could use CPU encoding at 1080p 60fps with minimal performance issues. Add to that the upcoming Ryzen 3rd gen, which is looking to be amazing, and will fit on current motherboards, and it becomes hard to ignore AMD. AMD may not deliver the sheer FPS of Intel CPUs, but for streaming they are absolute monsters.

What you do is up to you, but the Ryzen 5 2600X is a strong recommendation for anyone streaming. That said, the hardware you have/are getting is still very capable. Just because something faster exists doesn't make your hardware worthless. That said, the 8700K is a poor value for streaming. You don't gain a lot over the 2600X in terms of capability, and right now are paying a lot more than it should be because of Intel's CPU shortages. So, if you are sending that 7700K back, go Ryzen and save some money. You could realistically get a Ryzen 7 2700X for less than an 8700K and the 2700X is an absolute monster of a CPU.

Also, sorry for taking a while. I take pride in my word choice. I don't want to give people wrong ideas.

Wow, thanks very much for the detailed response! I really do appreciate that! So if I were to get the Ryzen 2700X, that would be a really really fantastic CPU for streaming while gaming at the same time?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Wow, thanks very much for the detailed response! I really do appreciate that! So if I were to get the Ryzen 2700X, that would be a really really fantastic CPU for streaming while gaming at the same time?

Absolutely. It comes in just behind the 8700K for gaming performance and has more cores and threads. It is an 8 core/16 thread CPU. It beats the 8700K in a lot of benchmarks that aren't gaming as well. You'll be able to game, stream, and probably do other things in the background. I don't see any way it wouldn't do anything you want it to... it is even a capable video workstation CPU. So if you wanted to edit together videos from your streams it'd be nice and quick for that too.

So a Ryzen 7 2700X with a solid B450 or X470 motherboard, with some fast RAM and a GTX 1060 would be a great streaming platform. You could even upgrade the 1060 to whatever the heck you can afford later. There isn't a card on the market that the 2700X can't push plenty of performance to.

 

[animefreak2019]

Absolutely. It comes in just behind the 8700K for gaming performance and has more cores and threads. It is an 8 core/16 thread CPU. It beats the 8700K in a lot of benchmarks that aren't gaming as well. You'll be able to game, stream, and probably do other things in the background. I don't see any way it wouldn't do anything you want it to... it is even a capable video workstation CPU. So if you wanted to edit together videos from your streams it'd be nice and quick for that too.

So a Ryzen 7 2700X with a solid B450 or X470 motherboard, with some fast RAM and a GTX 1060 would be a great streaming platform. You could even upgrade the 1060 to whatever the heck you can afford later. There isn't a card on the market that the 2700X can't push plenty of performance to.

Wow, that sounds awesome! But if I wanted to overclock the Ryzen 7 2700X, would I need the B450 motherboard or X470 motherboard? Also My ram isn't overly fast. I only have 16GB of G.Skill Ripjaws V 2133 speed.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Wow, that sounds awesome! But if I wanted to overclock the Ryzen 7 2700X, would I need the B450 motherboard or X470 motherboard? Also My ram isn't overly fast. I only have 16GB of G.Skill Ripjaws V 2133 speed.

Yes, to overclock you'll need a B450 or X470 motherboard. If you are overclocking a Ryzen 7 I'd recommend the X470 chipset. Generally they are higher end boards with better power delivery.

Well, that is a good amount of RAM, but Ryzen really loves faster RAM. DDR4 3000 or 3200 is needed to get everything you can out of it. 2133 is pretty darn slow for a Ryzen system... It'd hurt performance by quite a bit... maybe... 9-12% (super rough estimate).

 

[animefreak2019]

Yes, to overclock you'll need a B450 or X470 motherboard. If you are overclocking a Ryzen 7 I'd recommend the X470 chipset. Generally they are higher end boards with better power delivery.

Well, that is a good amount of RAM, but Ryzen really loves faster RAM. DDR4 3000 or 3200 is needed to get everything you can out of it. 2133 is pretty darn slow for a Ryzen system... It'd hurt performance by quite a bit... maybe... 9-12% (super rough estimate).

Gotcha gotcha! I think I'm gonna go with the Ryzen 7 2700X with some nice G.Skill TridentZ RGB 16GB 3000 RAM. Also what cooler would you recommend? I ordered the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition. Will that be enough?

 

[animefreak2019]

Also which motherboard do you think would be better overall?

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145060

OR

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813119099

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Also which motherboard do you think would be better overall?

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813145060

OR

https://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813119099

Honestly I like them both. I'm a bigger fan of Gigabyte though. I've had many of them and they all work great. I've never had a problem with them. That said, I've owned a couple of ASUS boards as well and have nothing bad to say about those either... so... if you are fine with the features of both boards, let price dictate. That said if you plan on getting a lot of USB3 devices, the ASUS would be a better idea as it has more high speed ports.

 

[animefreak2019]

Honestly I like them both. I'm a bigger fan of Gigabyte though. I've had many of them and they all work great. I've never had a problem with them. That said, I've owned a couple of ASUS boards as well and have nothing bad to say about those either... so... if you are fine with the features of both boards, let price dictate. That said if you plan on getting a lot of USB3 devices, the ASUS would be a better idea as it has more high speed ports.

Oh okay. Thanks! Also what cooler would you recommend? I ordered the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition. Will that be enough?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Gotcha gotcha! I think I'm gonna go with the Ryzen 7 2700X with some nice G.Skill TridentZ RGB 16GB 3000 RAM. Also what cooler would you recommend? I ordered the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition. Will that be enough?

The Hyper 212 is a good cooler, but I'm not totally sure it is enough to get the maximum overclock out of the CPU. For a moderate overclock and every day use it should be just fine.

 

[animefreak2019]

The Hyper 212 is a good cooler, but I'm not totally sure it is enough to get the maximum overclock out of the CPU. For a moderate overclock and every day use it should be just fine.

Ah I see. What cooler would you recommend, then?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Oh okay. Thanks! Also what cooler would you recommend? I ordered the Cooler Master Hyper 212 Black Edition. Will that be enough?

The Dark Rock Pro 4 would be the high end cooler I'd go for. The Hyper 212 would be the budget cooler I'd go for. If I were going water cooling I'd get an AIO with a 240mm radiator. Probably the H100i.