Question / Help Seeking PC upgrade guidance for console and mobile streaming.

R

Rjsoaz

New Member
Greetings,
I've spent quite a few hours last night scouring the Internet for help on streaming. It's become evident that my core 2 quad is probably not up to task. Therefore I am seeking upgrade guidance.

I am interested in streaming:
Ps4
Mobile games

Budget is not blue sky, but if saving a little longer for something that will provide a better experience needs to happen so be it.

Current budget for an idea would be around 600.00 at present time.

I know I will need

Chip
Board
RAM
power supply

Will I need?
Dedicated graphics card?

Thanks for any help

TLDR:
Can I upgrade to run a good stream for $600.00?
 
Newegg.com often have the newer stuff that is available.

Graphics: Most recent integrated graphics should work just fine. If graphics card is needed, any cheap directX 11 or newer may work.

Power Supply: Don't go cheap with poor quality brand.
RAM: OBS only uses 1 GB at most. For best speed, use 2 memory slots for dual channel.
CPU (for x264 encoder): I have intel i7-2600 with integrated graphics. Newer i7 6xxx is probably recommended now.
... or maybe AMD fx-8xxx but this cpu is kindof old. Avoid AMD APU (no L3 cache)

Make sure the CPU and Motherboard is compatible with each other, need to be the same socket.
 
Thanks for the input Sam, I've been playing around with pcpartspicker to ensure comparability. It's been quite a while since I've built/upgraded a PC. That site is awesome.

The memory guidance is a big help, that will allow me to focus more on the processor department.

Dollar for dollar is a slower i7 better than a faster i5 for the purpose of a dedicate stream machine, keep in mind I will not be streaming PC games, the only thing this machine will be doing is encoding for streaming.
 
Most i5 is a quad core without hyper-threading. Nearly all i7 have hyper-threading, it may allow more speedup for multithreaded programs. x264 encoder is multithreaded so this helps. Some i7 may have more then 4 cores which also helps.

Edit: it appears newegg might be sold out of i7-6xxx for now... unless you can find an i5 about 1.5 times faster, i7 may be better option.
 
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In a word where bigger is better, does this hold true for obs and streaming, or is there a sweet spot in terms of processing power? Where would the sweet spot be? Considering bottle necks caused by other sources, I'm sure a top of the line processor will be limited by something else. I want great use without wasted power considering my intended uses for this machine.
 
i5 may be ok if going for 720p 60fps or 1080p 30fps...

i7 is good for 1080p 60fps. if recording/streaming for YouTube.

Fast CPu may be needed, if using x264 encoder. There is hardware encoders now, mostly from the newest graphics card (intel quicksync, NVENC, and an AMD one)
 
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