Question / Help AMD FX-Series Cores and OBS

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MrBr1ghtsid3

New Member
Hello, ye beautiful peoples!
My first post on the OBS and before I continue with this topic, i just want to say that iLove the product and i'm thankful to all who work on improving it.To the point now - i have next to no experience with the AMD processors, but am growing more and more interested as time goes by. Has anyone ran any tests using these CPUs in conjunction with OBS and the standard 720p and 1080p, @ 30fps and 48fps presets? I'd love to see some data. The reason being is, i stream using 2 computers and am thinking of making myself a mini streaming case (CPU+mATX+capture card) and AMD's prices are simply way too lucrative. But just how effective are their CPUs for streaming really?
Thank you for taking the time to read this! Happy streaming all!
 
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freehuhn

Member
the amd's 8350 is very very fast in x264.

but they take a lots of power when you live in a country where "power" is not that expensive why not?

but don't forget the gaming performance is normally a lot higher on intel but that doesn't matter as long as you don't use a 150+ euro/170+ usd gc you may even need a 300euro/350usd to notice this not sure.

have a look at this

http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_ ... dge,9.html
http://www.legionhardware.com/articles_ ... dge,5.html

the watt are very very high in this test my own 3770 takes about ~100 watt in prime and ~38 in idle
 
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WayZHC

Member
Check Xeon E3-1230V2 (ivy) or Xeon E3-1230V3 (haswell). Runs fine on cheap H77 (ivy) or H87 (haswell) board. Just like AMD FX cpus it doesn't have an iGPU but it will perform as good as i7. It has 4 cores and 8 threads. Consumes a lot less power than AMD FX cpus which also means a lot less heat which is good when building small stream rig. There are H77/H87 mini-itx boards so you can make even smaller build.

Costs about the same than AMD FX 8350
 
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z0rz

Member
Ehhhhh, the Xeons seem like a good idea on paper but the fact that they can't be overclocked really hurts their value IMO. The 1230V3 is $265USD on Newegg right now, while an 8320 is $145USD (after $15 off coupon). Haswells put up better numbers in x264 benchmarks, but is it really worth an extra $120? Maybe prices are a little closer outside the US, but I really don't think you can beat the bang-for-the-buck value of 8320/8350 for a dedicated streaming rig.
 
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WayZHC

Member
Overclocking on dedicated stream pc is not needed (exept for maybe 1080/60fps). Xeon can be overclocked near 4GHz by changing the baseclock. And US prices doesn't tell anything since OP is from UK so only UK and European prices applies here. For small formfactor build Intel beats AMD since Xeon consumes a lot less power which means less heat. But yeah OP's choise what he wants. I just told one possible option.

AMD FX 8350 costs about 45€ less than xeon in Europe BUT:
Xeon can be run on cheaper mobo. FX 8350 is recommend to use with mobo that has atleast 8 + 4 VRM and the cheapest one is maybe ASUS m5a97 EVO. Xeon can be used on cheaper mobo. Also for FX 8350 aftermarket cooler is recommended so after all that the price is same. Xeon goes well with stock cooler.

So OP's choise. Intel is better choise for small formfactor builds like mini-itx.
 
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WayZHC

Member
Oh yeah also adding that to the count, Xeon is actually cheaper.

But ofc if you have an internal capture card you cant do a mini-itx build since you need GPU just like you need one with AMD build. But if were going to buy a GPU anyway, just pay little more and get E3-1245V3. But E3-1230V3 is fine if you are gonna build a mATX build with discrete gpu.
 
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z0rz

Member
WayZHC said:
Overclocking on dedicated stream pc is not needed (exept for maybe 1080/60fps). Xeon can be overclocked near 4GHz by changing the baseclock.
Click to expand...
Overclocking a dedicated streaming PC might not be "needed," but HUGE gains can be had in x264 performance by overclocking. If you're going to go through the trouble of building a multi-PC streaming setup, it seems like you've already crossed the threshold of settling for "good enough." Might as well push the boundaries and see just how high your quality can go, right?

Also, are you sure about the Xeon overclocking? Last I heard, non-K Haswells are more locked down than ever. I don't see why that wouldn't also apply to the Xeons.

freehuhn said:
don't forget you have to pay your power bill too 100-160 watt per hour more is a lot
Click to expand...
As far as the energy concerns go, you guys are totally right: AMD chips use way more energy right now. But is it really that big of a deal for a dedicated streaming PC? I think it's safe to say that the streaming PC won't be in a high-power state nearly as often as the primary gaming PC -- there's a good chance you won't be streaming EVERY game you ever play, you probably won't be streaming yourself when you read emails and watch YouTube videos, etc.

WayZHC said:
But ofc if you have an internal capture card you cant do a mini-itx build since you need GPU just like you need one with AMD build. But if were going to buy a GPU anyway, just pay little more and get E3-1245V3. But E3-1230V3 is fine if you are gonna build a mATX build with discrete gpu.
Click to expand...
This is the part that I'd like to learn about. OBS definitely needs a video card for processing/encoding of some sort (some DirectX 10 stuff, I think? I don't know the technical details). I imagine you would need a video card in the streaming PC for this reason, but maybe the video card in the gaming PC handles that when it sends the information to the capture card? I doubt it, but I really have no clue.

Ultimately, I'm not saying the Xeons are a BAD choice by any means, but the AMD chips are just made for this kind of application and are quite a bit cheaper. As everyone else has said: compare the prices, weigh that with any x264 2nd pass benchmarks you can find, and factor in whether or not you plan on overclocking. Hopefully that will help you narrow it down for yourself.
 
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WayZHC

Member
z0rz said:
This is the part that I'd like to learn about. OBS definitely needs a video card for processing/encoding of some sort (some DirectX 10 stuff, I think? I don't know the technical details). I imagine you would need a video card in the streaming PC for this reason, but maybe the video card in the gaming PC handles that when it sends the information to the capture card? I doubt it, but I really have no clue.
Click to expand...

Well AMD FX or Xeon E3-12x0Vx CPUs do not have any kind of iGPU so say you have a mini-itx board which has one pcie slot. Internal capture card (like LGHD) will take that slot so next problem will be that you can't get any picture to the display. So for mini-itx stream pc build you need cpu with iGPU for example E3-12x5Vx. Also OBS needs Directx 10 supporting GPU to even start. And here you can see why GPU is so important for OBS:

Capture card (source)
GPU (renders the scene and handles the downscaling)
CPU (does the x264 encoding and outputs the stream)
 
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MrBr1ghtsid3

New Member
Here's what iWas thinking about in terms of build: MSI 760GM-P34 (FX) + AMD FX 6300 Black Edition, Vishera, Six Core, S AM3+, 3.5GHz, 14MB Total Cache, 95W + 1GB XFX HD 5450 Silent, PCIe 2.1(x16)
Could work, but i'm wondering - how well, tho?
 
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