Question / Help Considering CPU Upgrade

[wolf39us]

So I've been trying to weigh my options. I currently have a Core i5 3550 and have recently upgraded to a GTX1080 (which rocks btw). I've always wanted to really get into streaming and have used OBS in the past. The problem is that I don't use a dedicated streaming PC and everytime I've attempted in the past to get good streaming quality, I've not been succesful.

One game that comes to mind is Rocket League. My computer has no trouble playing this game, and I can certainly stream at 720p 30 or 60fps, but the picture is blocky (I've attempted 2.5k, 3k, and 3.5k). The only thing I've found that cleans up the picture significantly is a lower preset. Trouble is anything lower than "very fast" drives my CPU to 100% and causes frame drops.

I'm looking at getting the new Core i7 6700k (4.6ghz OC) with a Gigabyte Gaming 7 board in the hopes to significantly better my experience in the resulting picture overall. Can anyone shed some light on this? Is an upgrade of this magnitude something I should consider? It's going to be a pretty penny, but I have a buyer already for the old board and am considering it!

 

[H4ndy]

Rocketleague is a nightmare to stream since it is very very fast paced.
720p30 is usually the best you can do on Twitch with its bitrate limitation of 3500 (2500 recommended if you are not a partner).

i7-6700K should be able to push out 720p30 with a medium preset. But thats about what you can improve here, don't expect quality wonders from a lower preset.

If you stream to Youtube Gaming for example, you can go to 5000 bitrate for best quality.

 

[wolf39us]

Rocketleague is a nightmare to stream since it is very very fast paced.
720p30 is usually the best you can do on Twitch with its bitrate limitation of 3500 (2500 recommended if you are not a partner).

i7-6700K should be able to push out 720p30 with a medium preset. But thats about what you can improve here, don't expect quality wonders from a lower preset.

If you stream to Youtube Gaming for example, you can go to 5000 bitrate for best quality.

Thank you, this is very helpful.

I didn't know YouTube Gaming had a much higher bitrate maximum! My GTX1080 has plenty of available power and I've tried the Nvidia streaming with Twitch. The picture is very soft and blurry compared to x264 CPU rendering, but it's less blocky and is much easier on my resources. Does YouTube gaming at 5,000kbps using Nvidia streaming look very good?

 

[H4ndy]

Nvida Streaming/NVEnc is OKish but will always get kicked by x264. You can expect better quality with more bitrate (as long as you internet upload is fast enough of course).

Rough quality estimate at same bitrate:
x264 > Intel QuickSync Haswell/Skylake > NVenc > Intel QuickSync Sandy Bridge > AMD VCE

So always use x264 if you have the CPU power to spare for it (with a 6700K for certain).

 

[wolf39us]

I bought the Z170x Gigabyte Gaming 7 board with the Core i7 6700k and Nactua NH-D15 cooler and G.Skill ram (low profile).

This should be the upgrade I was looking for!