Question / Help Dual PC Setup - i9 9900k (NO GPU) for encoding PC?

[reneg1990]

Heyo everyone!

I've tried searching around a little but I cannot seem to find anyone having the same questions as me.

I am in the process of doing research for my new PC system and I have a few "criterias" that I wish to meet.

I want to build the system in the Phanteks 719 case, which is a PC case supporting 2 PC systems (one being a itx form factor).

As the streaming PC would be a ITX build, and i'll be using a capture card, there wont be space for a GPU.

My question is:

Will a i9 9900K (I have one from my current gaming rig, hence why i wish to use this CPU) be able to Encode/power OBS properly with its on-board graphics, or should I absolutely need a GPU for it?

I've been searching around and cant seem to find an actual answer on this unless I am blind. Hoping theres some people which can give me a defenite no/yes answer, so that I might have an idea for wether or not this build will work.


The streaming Rig would be running the following:
ITX Board (best I can get for my money, not sure of specific one yet)
i9 9900k
2 x 8gb GSkill Ram @3200 mhz
1 x 1TB Samsung 970 Evo Plus
Elgato 4k Capture Card Pro

I hope someone can help me out here! Thank you very much in advance :)

 

[BigYuckFou]

hello,

I had the i9-9900K prior to getting a 10940x. the 8 core 16 thread 9900k I had overclocked to 5ghz on all cores. you will be able to do medium. or slow preset with reduced ref frames. and if that is OK with you then it will be just fine. fast motion will look blocky unless its just the game only no cameras.

Please keep in mind that you would need to ingest all content at the base canvas resolution unless you use the rescale option on the stream page settings (which will place an even larger load on your CPU) as the downscale on the video settings page uses a GPU.

Although onboard graphics can be used.. its was for me was a real pain in the side.' you are going to need to push that processor to its maximum to do slow. that is my experience with that processor.

 

[vapeahoy]

You should absolutely have space for a dedicated gpu when building a streaming pc. If you really want to get serious I would recommend considering rack mountable cases, so that little by little you can have all your pc's in a single unit. The future gpu's will, and to quite an extent already, eliminate -somewhat- the need for a dedicated streaming pc. But there will always be a use case for a dedicated stream pc ie capture card mode with main pc in bios and similar.

It's not possible to answear your question if your 9900K will be able to encode properly as that is entirely subjective, it will go a long way for sure, and the clock speed will help. But it's also going to consume quite a bit of power. It's encoder part should hopefully help alltho i'd rather have more cores or a gpu for encoding.

Cases like Thermaltake W200 allows you to build 2 pc's, in the same case. There's lots of options here. I have some core x5's and they can be stacked upon each other. Same as the core x9's. These are massive options tho.

On the other hand, all you really need is just a low profile gpu, there is at least 1 card of the 1660 TI that's LP, which you could fit with some other components in a 2u case. There's really not a big need for cooling that much, some for sure, when doing gpu encoding, but im not sure how much more power drain it is on the newer nvidia encoders and the upcoming 3000 series. But i dont think it will massively scale upwards.
Ie a 1050 TI will be enough to decode/encode lossless 1080p video into 6mbit stream. I did some testing on that yesterday with lots of customized settings and it worked quite beautifully. Not as good as cpu encoding, but still pretty great, at much less watt usage/less heat, the card doesnt even need its own power cable. So one really needs much less then one would think.

If you settle for an ITX board you are limiting your options. I would suggest instead you find a very small atx compatible case, there are some cheap alternatives on the market. I think it was Riotoro which had a really small one that still fits ATX motherboard. Doesnt look great, and you shouldnt care how it looks as long as it works and can do what u need.

 

[reneg1990]

hello,

I had the i9-9900K prior to getting a 10940x. the 8 core 16 thread 9900k I had overclocked to 5ghz on all cores. you will be able to do medium. or slow preset with reduced ref frames. and if that is OK with you then it will be just fine. fast motion will look blocky unless its just the game only no cameras.

Please keep in mind that you would need to ingest all content at the base canvas resolution unless you use the rescale option on the stream page settings (which will place an even larger load on your CPU) as the downscale on the video settings page uses a GPU.

Although onboard graphics can be used.. its was for me was a real pain in the side.' you are going to need to push that processor to its maximum to do slow. that is my experience with that processor.

Thank you very much for the feedback here. Your reply gives me something to work with. Does sound like the best option is having a GPU to do the encoding as well (or is that just to help with "animations" even if i run a cpu preset?). I saw you use a AverMedia Live Gamer Ultra, which is a external card - makes me wonder if i could get away with doing my ITX setup and just use an external capture card over a internal one. The capture card you're using, would that be as good as a Elgato 4K Pro capture card? or is there downsides to having an external one?

If i dont have to use an internal capture card, then the pci-e slot is free, and i could essentially add a gpu and that would kinda solve my problems, as i really wish to build in the Phanteks 719.

Also, if i am not mistaken, even if i add a GPU to the streaming rig, i will still want to have it encode with the cpu and not the gpu, right? I'd probs add a 2060 in it, or perhaps a spare 2080.

Thank you to both of you for your replies, much appreciated.

 

[reneg1990]

I am thinking about perhaps just selling the i9 9900k and buying another Ryzen based CPU for the encoding PC.

Could go with this board: https://www.amazon.com/X570-Phantom-Gaming-ITX-TB3-Thunderbolt/dp/B07VXYYG7F/?tag=tb3lap-20 to get a Thunderbolt 3 Port and use the AverMedia Live Gamer Bolt capture card instead.

If i went with that option, would i want a 3950x in my streaming pc as well (Thats what I got in my gaming pc currently), or should a 3900x be sufficient? I am unsure whether or not the extra cores will make a huge difference compared to the higher base clock?

 

[BigYuckFou]

the internal capture cards are the best as they will offer the lowest latency to your monitor. usb bandwidth becomes an issue if you intent to ingest more than just a single or dual 1080p in. and if you have an xbox one x and wanted to ever try ingesting it at 4k.. then your a bust on USB ingest capture cards. IMO.

I ingest all inputs are 4k, then on the video tab downscale to 1080p using the GPU. I then encode with CPU as it gives the option to get better than medium or slow quality. the GPU can only give you somewhere between medium and slow quality, but in my experience it gets blocky and blurry on fast motion.

there is a GPU I will recommend. its a EVGA 2060 KO ultra or non ultra. for the extra $30 get the ultra, but just make damn certain its the KO model. the KO model is now using a paired down TU104 chip, the same one on the 2080... and it is more proficient at encode and blender.

also, I use an Intel chip for encode. just to be clear it is a clear winner over any AMD chip due to the fact it supports the entire ATX instruction set that OBS uses unlike AMD chips. now if you use an AMD chip and throw enough cores at it it may help, but then again OBS and threads over 28 will do damage to quality i most cases. therefore... you will probably want to go with an Intel encode CPU that has a minimum of 14 cores, and 16-18 if you can afford it.

I use the 10940x with 14 cores and 28 threads. I get better than slow quality. somewhere between slow and slowest. i got the 10940 for $900. if you can find a 10980x get it, at 18 cores. most today sell for 2-3000 and are not easy to find. so I went with the 10940...(same as the 9960x but better and newer)

truly it depends on what your goal is. how many inputs you intend to grab, xbox and cameras... I do not know many people that do not use a camera too, and if you use a USB camera at 1080 then you most defiantly want a internal capture card. many ITX boards do not have duel USB channels. so you pretty much limited to a 10mb inbound on it...over usb which a usb camera at 1080p could use all of.

my recommendation overall is this

Intel 9960x or 10940x - overclock it to 4.7ghz
EVGA 2060 KO Ultra
Avermedia Live Gmaer 4K at it has 32ms of input lag, about a third of most.

Then, ingest all inputs at 4k, downscale with GPU, encode with CPU... its a heavy investment.. but it looks great! sample https://www.twitch.tv/videos/616853469

 

[reneg1990]

Thank you very much for that detailed explanation/reply. Defenitely gives me an idea of what I should be doing. It does sounds like, if i wish to use the Phanteks 719 atleast, that I might have to build my "gaming" rig on the ITX board instead, and then have a full sized ATX system for the streaming rig so i can have an internal capture card plus a GPU. That might be the way to do it honestly. Or well, the best option might just be building two seperate PC's haha.

Once again thank you so much for all the help.

 

[vapeahoy]

I wouldn't really upgrade gpu at this point. I expect 3000 series card this summer, or shortly there after. What you really want is a 5-7nm card not a 12nm solution. It wouldn't be a problem getting a mini itx-card if they also made them with 10 gigabit, but unless u buy a really expensive server grade card, which will be out of place for streaming and stupid, they dont exist in the am4 space. Because down the line you're going to want to have faster transfers then just 1 gigabit. There are a a few small cards in the dtx space with 2 slots but really its just silly. gpu encoding is the future, not cpu.

 

[FerretBomb]

Honestly at this point, Turing NVENC has rendered 99.999% of 2PC setups irrelevant. About the only people that "need" them are competitive esports players on pro teams, who can't deal with having any streaming-related overhead or impact whatsoever. Turing NVENC provides the equivalent of x264 Slow (beats it in VMAF on some tests, loses out by a couple of points on others).
I'd strongly recommend reconsidering your build. It's a headache and a half, with a far more complicated and more restricted setup (not being able to capture per-window on the gaming system) and massively complicates your audio routing.

If you have money to burn and want to run 2PC for bragging rights, by all means. But bear in mind that the return-on-investment WILL be minimal to nonexistent without an extenuating reason to specifically need a standalone 2PC rig.

 

[BigYuckFou]

I agree with [B]FerretBomb[/B]... unless you are just exclusively streaming fast moving content and cannot stand blockyness or blurryness that may come from the NVENC encoder. not to mention soon the new Nvidia cards will be out and you can pretty much bet that using them for encode will smash all x264 rigs. so you may take his advice and simply build an adequate second PC for stream if you so desire and then upgrade the GPU in a few months to the latest. just a thought...

 

[reneg1990]

I mostly stream MMORPGs, so id probably be fine with a nvenc. The idea of a dual PC system was because of the fact that id use the second one for a render rig as well when I aint streaming and such.

All in all tho, it might be more convenient for me to just invest everything into one beefy PC.

If I had a budget about 5k USD, what would you guys advice I go for, if I want to buy completely new?

I have a i9 9900k and a 2080 atm, I did however get some issues with blurryness on my content though when i tried in the past, also ended up getting skipped frames. Cant reproduce any of this currently or send actual footage, as im in the process of moving. Unsure whether that blurryness was a hardware issue or setup related thing on OBS though.

 

[FerretBomb]

Honestly, you can slap a GTX 1650 Super (not the non-super or TI) into any rattletrap i3 (or worse!) and be able to stream 1080p60. Turing takes off ALL the heavy-lifting.

I mean, your current system is absolutely competent. As-is it should be able to stream with the best of them. No new hardware needed.

Blurriness is almost always insufficient bitrate for the resolution/framerate in use... better encoding will improve quality, but it will NOT let you run at half the bitrate needed (like those running 1080p60 at 6000kbps on Twitch; it wants 12mbps for the baseline, anything high-motion or high detail will need even more, which Twitch already can't do). Skipped frames we'd need to see a log, but generally if they're caused by render delay, running OBS as Admin will fix that up.
It also can't compensate for the quality loss of downscaling, or even worse non-full-integer downscaling. It can't avoid the judder you get when your monitor is running at 144hz and you're streaming at 60 or 30fps, resulting in uneven frame pacing.

There's lots of little things that can be done (or done wrong) in software and the settings to improve stuff, but that requires drilling down into specifics.

 

[reneg1990]

Ah, it could possibly related to the fact i run stuff on a 144hz monitor and stream at 60. How would i fix that? Vsync games to 60 frames?

Ill do some proper testing once I set things back up. Maybe I'll make a "better" single-pc for all round stuff that would be better for rendering as well. Thought about selling my i9 9900k + mobo and swap over to a Ryzen 3950x, or perhaps even a threadripper if i am only building one PC. Might help with work related things. Dosent sound like itll do much for OBS/streaming tho as long as i am encoding with my GPU.

 

[FerretBomb]

Ah, it could possibly related to the fact i run stuff on a 144hz monitor and stream at 60. How would i fix that? Vsync games to 60 frames?

Ill do some proper testing once I set things back up. Maybe I'll make a "better" single-pc for all round stuff that would be better for rendering as well. Thought about selling my i9 9900k + mobo and swap over to a Ryzen 3950x, or perhaps even a threadripper if i am only building one PC. Might help with work related things. Dosent sound like itll do much for OBS/streaming tho as long as i am encoding with my GPU.

Run the monitor at 120hz instead of 144. The 'missing' 24hz isn't going to be visually noticeable while playing, but 120 divides evenly down into 60 and 30... using either every other frame for 60fps, or every fourth frame for 30fps. At 144, it's one-two-skip-a-few so you get un-smooth motion. If you have multiple monitors there's also the long-standing Windows mixed-refresh bug (the only fix for which is to run ALL monitors at the same refresh rate, at least until the fix FINALLY comes out in the Win10 2004 update).

 

[AlexanderHarizanov]

So i wanna join in on this.
So my gaming pc is 8700k 1080ti
Managed to NDI stream on fast preset for a few years on a 3770 i7 but for the paat year i am on the nvenc dou to updatea and stuff making the 3770 unstable.
My main games are csgo wow and other fast paste/fast animation games.
I do have a 2nd spare mobo that supports up to 9900k i have a 360x60 rad with cpu block pump fans from ekwb and a 1000w psu
So i need ro know if it is going to be better getting a 9900k and oc it to about 5ghz with a few ram sticks a case and a few ssd for encoding and recording or using the nvenc
I will also be upgrading to the 3080ti/3090 on the gaming pc at the same time so the 1080ti will most likely go to the enkoding/recording 9900k or be sold for a low end 3000 series depending on its recording encoding capabilities dor local storage for editing.
Also concidering my main monitor is 144hz 1080p gsync that needs DP will it be better to keep using NDI or get a capture card with DP to HDMI converters (ps running 2x logitech 922 webcams 720@60)
If i go the 9900k route i will only need to spend 1200€ (350 of them for the case) already have Aorus z370 gaming 7 mobo that is a great OC mobo
If i go for ryzen i need a new waterblock new mobo thats about 500€ extra
Also what is difference if i get a capture card and use mirror screen between the DP and HDMI to bypass the extra cable adapters and latency cause i read there were aome issues with that.
Also do you know what is the quality difference if any between using NDI and capture card
Thank you very much

 

[imr_sa]

I have the same question.
I have i9-109850xe with 18cores and 36threads,
Am I need a gpu to stream with 1080p 60fps with slow settings or stream in 4k ?
and I have elgato 4k capture card.
Is it possible to stream without gpu ?
And whats the deferent if I had nvidia gpu or stream on intel gpu ?

 

[FerretBomb]

I have the same question.
I have i9-109850xe with 18cores and 36threads,
Am I need a gpu to stream with 1080p 60fps with slow settings or stream in 4k ?
and I have elgato 4k capture card.
Is it possible to stream without gpu ?
And whats the deferent if I had nvidia gpu or stream on intel gpu ?

A GPU is required for OBS, due to how compositing/color conversion/scaling is handled in VRAM.
nVidia's NVENC is comparable to x264 Slow quality (so very good), offloading all that processing from the CPU and giving you a very good-looking stream while freeing up the CPU for other tasks, like rendering browser sources, video capture devices (like your Elgato 4K60), et al. Turing NVENC can handle a 4K60 stream with x264 Slow quality, which very few CPUs (if any) are able to do at present.