Question / Help Hi there, I would like to know what type of upgrade I would need on my PC for streaming/recording.

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Forewit

New Member
Hey there, I'm really interested to start streaming and recording. Here are the specs.

Minion Advanced
  • Case - Minion Case Flame Red
  • Internal Lighting - None
  • AMD Processor - AMD Athlon x4 840 3.1GHz (Quad Core)
  • CPU Cooling - Standard Heatsink
  • AMD Motherboard - FM2 Chipset Motherboard
  • Memory - 8GB (2x4GB) DDR3 1600MHz
  • Primary Hard Drive - 500GB 7200RPM
  • Secondary Hard Drive - None
  • Optical Drive - DVD Writer
  • Graphics Card - AMD Radeon R7 260X 2GB
  • Power Supply - EVGA 500 Watt Power Supply
  • Operating System - Windows 8.1 64 Bit
  • Networking - Standard Onboard Ethernet (No Wi-fi)
I tried streaming League of Legends, and CS:GO. League turned out to have pretty decent fps when I stream, but CS:GO drops to around 70-90 FPS to my usual 150ish. I would like to know which parts could be upgraded to at least make the fps better without dropping quality on the stream. I am planning on getting a second monitor, a 1TB hard drive, and maybe an SSD. So I would mostly like to know like if I need to switch the processor, graphics card, motherboard, and etc.

I am very new to upgrading a PC and have no idea what parts I would need to upgrade. Thank you to anyone who gives an answer to this thread.
 
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Cryonic

Member
If you stream with x264 (i expect this, because AMD VCE is experimental and not in the regular build), your CPU is the limiting part here.

The cheapest upgrade would be:
AMD FX-8150/8350 and the right motherboard for your needs (if you overclock, go with an 990FX board!).
The best right now:
Intel i7 6700K + Z170 Board.
You can keep your RAM, its not fast, but it doesnt matter for games and streaming, 8gb is enough.
Same with the GPU, if you are happy with the FPS that your GPU can give you - dont upgrade.

An SSD will give you faster load & boot times, thats helpful when stuff that is on the SSD crashes and you want to restart it as fast as possible. It will not affect the streaming or gaming performance at all, but will help with loading times in games. 256GB is the optimal size right now, 512 is still expensive, 120 - too small.
HDD is simple - grab a big one, i love the WD Black series. If you wanna keep your recordings from every stream, go higher than 1TB, you will run out of space quickly.
CPU cooler is also an option, the stock fans are loud and cool just enough to keep it working. Overclocking will require you to slap at least 30$ on a decent 120mm cooler. Going with the FX 8150 etc will also require you to have a better cooler, they run hot and use more power.

Tell me your budget and your location (country is enough) and i can make you a list of what you can get, some sort "bang for your buck" parts. Also tell me, do you plan to overclock the CPU or not (that will cost extra on the Intel side, CPU and Board can bring up extra 100$ for overclocking options!).
 
F

Forewit

New Member
I live in the United States, and my budget is around 600-800 USD. The amount could increase overtime since I have a job but that's my current budget so I would love to see a list. Thank you for replying, Cryonic. What does overclocking do exactly?
 
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Cryonic

Member
Well thats enough to start something. Since you have DDR3, the "old" i7 4790k is just as good as the new i7 6700k.
http://www.ncix.com/detail/intel-core-i7-4790k-unlocked-d5-97888-1817.htm -450$
http://www.ncix.com/detail/msi-z97-gaming-5-atx-4d-97043-1257.htm -200$
http://www.ncix.com/detail/be-quiet-dark-rock-3-3c-93614-1210.htm -85$

This will give you one of the strongest quadcores out there (the new 6700k is not really stronger, just saves a bit more power and overclocks better - but it is expensive and boards with DDR3 support are still rare).
You can change the Motherboard to any Z97 Board out there from ASUS, Gigabyte, MSI, ASrock or EVGA, depends on your needs and budget. All of them support the general functions and are designed to take the selected CPU.
You will keep your DDR3 since it is good enough - no reason to throw away money.
And the cooler is a bit expensive, but almost silent ald looks great.
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Look for holiday sales here and there, thats what you need. Just remember: Intel i7 4790K, Z97 Board in the right format with all functions what you need (starts at 150$ i think) and a cooler for that socket, Be Quiet and Noctua have the best coolers on the market, but are also expensive. Think about your case, which motherboard and cooler will fit in. If not sure - take a ruler and doublecheck, the sizes are public for almost any part, specially cooler.
You can fall back to any 120mm cooler for that socket, the stock one is horrible. But remember - if you overclock, you will need the extra cooling, so going balls to the wall is an option, but that will cost you over 100$ on the cooler alone.

P.S. i dont recommend the new 6700k with the Z170 board because its simply too expensive, scratching on the 800$-mark even without the cooler (and there is no stock cooler at all!), but the performance difference is 7% in the best case - no reason to do that. And most z170 boards use DDR4, while you have DDR3.

If you have a Microcenter shop in your area - visit it. They sell parts way cheaper.
Take a look: http://www.microcenter.com/product/434176/Core_i7-4790K_40GHz_LGA_1150_Boxed_Processor
In store pick-up only, i would take up to 70 miles to get that - still worth it.

P.P.S. if you wanna stick with AMD (which is not recommended because they simply are so far behind...), i can make a set of parts.
Or if you are sure that you NEVER will overclock your CPU, we can shave off around 150$ from that bundle, leaving you enough money for an SSD.
 
F

Forewit

New Member
Thank you very much for the list, and the Craigslist advice! Is there a graphics card that will be a good one to upgrade to once my budget goes up?
 
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Forewit

New Member
How much do you think I can sell each individual part for? An estimated price will be good enough to work with.
 
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Cryonic

Member
The GPU - i would it keep it for now, get the selected parts first (that will almost eat up your 800$ budget anyway), then try to sell the parts and save some money for the GPU.

The 260X is good enough for CS:GO, LoL, Minecraft, Dota2 and other not demanding games. TripleA titles will fall below 30FPS on that GPU even without streaming, so think your part. If you dont plan to stream newest games so far - keep the 260X and dont think too much about it, get the stuff what you need for streaming.

My GTX 970 produces between 450 and 600FPS in LoL while i`m not streaming, and when i do - it drops to 150 for no reason, (because the CPU is actually not at the limit) - but this is still more than double what my monitor can display (60Hz Monitor means it can show a maximum of 60 frames per second - but you want more to make sure that you always have at least 60FPS moving to your monitor). Again, think about it :-)

Good graphic cards right now are: GTX 970 (still) and the R9 390(X). The 980 makes no sense (too expensive for the performance), the 980Ti is too expensive in general. Same goes for the Fury lineup from AMD.
Since streaming with x264 on your CPU will give you the best quality possible, invest the same amount of money into your CPU as in your GPU. For gaming an i5 would do the job, but as a streamer you need more.


And your old parts.. Just open craigslist and type in the individual parts. Check 10-20 entrys and you will get your price.
I have no idea about the used parts market in the USA, i live in Germany :-) Just happens that i can speak english and also have some knowledge about where to get cheap hardware in Canada & USA, thanks to youtube and channels like NCIX, Linus Tech Tips and JayzTwoCents/TekSyndicate.
 
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Cryonic

Member
If you have any questions about the modern stuff that you might buy and install, ask me. Specially about overclocking, on the Haswell it is a bit more complicated than what you might know from your AMD build - a lot more voltages and settings :D
But dont try it without a decent cooler, if you got only the stock one (boxed) - dont even try or your ears will fall off and the CPU will still overheat^^
 
FerretBomb

FerretBomb

Active Member
Would advise against Skylake/6700k for the moment for streaming. It's more oriented toward gaming rigs and consumer workloads, while dedicated streaming will benefit from Haswell-E significantly more. Even just a 5820k, since streaming can use all the cores, and they overclock like beasts. Especially with the 10-core 6950k on the horizon soon for the 2011-v3 socket, supposedly Q1 2016.
 
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Cryonic

Member
The main problem is the price of the X99 or Z170, combined with DDR4 (meanwhile the TE has DDR3 flying around that could be used). So it doesnt make any sense to go that route. I have the 5820k and its a beast, but i spent so much money on that (and i got a lot from "old" parts back, but still) - not worth it for a new streamer.
4790K, overclock it a bit, be happy. Once the DDR4 prices will drop down to DDR3 level and the new CPUs (both Intel and AMD) hit the market - that will be the first point where its worth it to check for something new and shiny :-)
Believe me, the price of a good X99 setup right now will give the TE at least a heart attack :D
 
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