Question / Help Dedicated OBS Streaming PC - Graphics Card or Integrated?

[macharborguy]

Looking to eventually build a dedicated streaming PC for OBS to Twitch (games would be played on a dedicated gaming PC). Are there any benefits to having a discrete graphics card in the Streaming system, or would I get by just fine using Intel Integrated Graphics directly on the GPU?

In addition, this is the motherboard I am looking to use for the streaming system, mostly due to the large number of PCI-Express x1 slots inside of it.

I have run into issues on my current Gaming+Streaming desktop with having too many devices connected (game controllers, webcam, USB video inputs for older consoles, digital-audio converters, pci-e capture cards, etc).

With five PCI-E x1 slots, that would give me room to have my AverMedia Game Broadcaster HD, but additionally i could add an extra sound card (preferably with multiple usable inputs, any suggestions?), a second HDMI/Component capture card, possibly a composite capture card, and whatever else i may need.

 

[Lain]

Re: Dedicated OBS Streaming PC - Graphics Card or Integrated

Well just to be clear, OBS does use the graphics card for compositing, scaling, filters, and color space conversions. That being said, if you are using it for nothing but OBS it will probably be fine. Having a super beefy card is more ideal if you are capturing on the same PC.

 

[Krazy]

Re: Dedicated OBS Streaming PC - Graphics Card or Integrated

If you go with an Ivy or Haswell CPU, the iGPU's on those CPUs should be sufficient, especially on the Haswell side of things. If you are going with Sandy Bridge, you *might* have some issues, but I still sort of doubt it.

 

[Boildown]

Re: Dedicated OBS Streaming PC - Graphics Card or Integrated

I tried a GT630, and its kind of iffy with my i7 2600k. But in reality I got that card for my home theater PC, I just put it in my encoder PC for testing / curiosity.

I would go minimally with something like a GTX 550 or 650. On the AMD side, I'm not sure, but probably the AMD Radeon HD 7770 would be fine. So about $100 out of pocket, assuming you don't use the integrated Intel GPU.

As for that motherboard you picked, I'm not a fan. You're really selling out for PCIe 1x slots, and I find it doubtful that you'll ever use more than two of them. You're giving up USB 3.0, which means you can never use an X-Capture-1, AVerMedia ExtremeCap U3, or whatever other USB 3.0 capture device comes out in the future. You're giving up PCIe 4x which means nothing higher end, like the Blackmagic Decklink or what I use, a Datapath VisionRGB E1s.

Checking Newegg, it costs more, but here's the cheapest 1150 socket motherboard that eschews all PCI slots for some variant of PCIe, has at least one PCIe 4x in addition to the PCIe 16x, and supports USB 3: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157460 . You can do quite a bit cheaper if you accept some PCI slots, like this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6813157387 (PCI sound cards are still quite common, so its not a complete waste).

Edit: Your motherboard does have USB 3.0 ports, I misread that part. Assuming it uses the right chipset, then I think you're mostly fine with it, assuming you know you'll never want a high-end capture card. So its not as bad as I thought.

 

[Sinistercalling]

Hi I also have a separate pc for streaming with an avermedia capture card my question is is using a video card going to produce better quality then integrated graphics somehow ?