Spec rec?

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dataz722

New Member
I am in need of a computer (preferably a laptop) that I can do 4k streaming and recording simultaneously, run in studio mode, and have multiple video sources I am switching between. I have quite a bit of experience building pc's so I have a pretty good grasp on components and whatnot, but I honestly have no clue what I will need to handle my needs. I am primarily looking for recs on the CPU and what GPU I should use. I was leaning towards a workstation GPU like an A2000, but I really don't have a clue if that is even enough or if it is just complete overkill. Should I just go with a 4070 or 4080?

I am currently leaning towards a Lenovo mobile workstation with NVIDIA RTX™ 2000 Ada Generation GPU 8GB and i7-13850HX.

Thanks
 
Laptops are significantly slower than their desktop counterparts, even if they have "the same" parts. It'll cost about 1/2, or less, to build or buy a desktop computer of similar performance. If you want to do streaming and recording then you probably don't need a laptop specifically. Perhaps consider buying or building a micro atx computer and just carry it around where you need it. I built one way back that is small enough to fit in a backpack, water cooled, and it uses desktop parts. At the time it cost me around $2500, and it was faster than the $5000 laptop I was looking at.

But as far as parts, if you're gaming in 4K plus you want to record in 4K, I'd get the 4080. For CPU, you don't need a ton of cores for gaming. The 7000X3D series perform really well. You can buy the 16 core if you really want those encodes to go fast, but you don't really need it unless you're encoding in x265. I have a 5950 that can encode a 30 minute 4K video on placebo x264 in roughly 3-6 hours.
 
I'm not using it for gaming at all. It is going to be used for interviews and podcasts and needs to be portable if possible. This is why I was considering an Ada card and not a gaming card.
 
What you tend to get with the ADA cards is more VRAM, which is great in DaVinci Resolve for video editing, but for what you described may not be important, and a RTX card will be fine. My suggestion, *IF* you are going to do 4K video editing on same laptop, look into those requirements (depends on the specific s/w you plan to use), and let that be your guide.
Consider expected PC lifespan, and if system life needs to last to point of most streaming services (CDN, ie YouTube, FB, Twitch, etc) using AV1 instead of H.264. Consider AV1 editing requirements, if applicable.
The comment has been that NVENC is NVENC, it does not get better/faster on upper-end models (ie 4060 and 4080 NVENC perform the same). What you can get is dual NVENC on some upper-end cards, if you need that (I stream Stream and Record at 1080p30 on a 1660Super (single NVENC) just fine, using separate encoding settings (I record at ~3X bitrate as I stream).

Beyond that, it really depends. Someone would need a LOT more workflow details than you posted to even begin to estimate CPU and GPU demands. ex, number, resolution/framerate and type of cameras (NDI, USB, HDMI capture card, etc)... Then, what other workloads other than OBS? OBS Studio has some audio filtering and effects, but certainly not to level of a DAW? Don't under-estimate system impact of browser windows being open, playing 4K pre-recorded videos, etc. For future-proofing, I'd want to start with more than 16GB RAM, to be on safe side.

Laptops are power and thermally throttled, compared to desktops. But, with proper OS, OBS Studio, and other system adjustments, and an attention to laptop model & design (ie cooling capability relative to workload), you should be fine with laptop, *if* your computational demands are reasonable for the system. And beware any estimation of requirements. it will all depends on your exact system setup and workflow. What works for someone else can easily (and reasonably) not work for you.

1. I avoid consumer PC hardware if/whenever possible. period. usually piss-poor build quality, short warranty & support timeframe, etc. I find business class system end up being cheaper in the long run, for my usage approach
2. There are workstation laptops that can run at full tilt for hours and hours... they are expensive, powerful, big/heavy, and naturally have associated relatively short battery life. I'm looking at a mobile workstation based on the i7-14700HX based laptop, for future-proofing... and even then not having PCIe v5 SSDs is annoying. AMD HX CPU would seem to be theoretically better due to lower power draw, but I suspect AMD's limited manufacturing capacity and historically atrocious system software /drivers are limiting Tier 1 OEM adoption on top-end laptops... most unfortunately. As much as I'd like an AMD CPU, I also expect (require) fast USB data transfer (video) and most upper-end AMD laptops do NOT have 40gb/s USB... so they are out. but, whatever.
3. I'd be inclined to set up the entire environment on most powerful PC you have (desktop or laptop). Set up as you would hope your future system could support. Now, with all cameras on, mics, etc Stream and Record while measuring hardware resource utilization... that should give you a good baseline to start considering your purchase requirements.
 
Lawrence_SoCal said:
What you tend to get with the ADA cards is more VRAM, which is great in DaVinci Resolve for video editing, but for what you described may not be important, and a RTX card will be fine. My suggestion, *IF* you are going to do 4K video editing on same laptop, look into those requirements (depends on the specific s/w you plan to use), and let that be your guide.
Consider expected PC lifespan, and if system life needs to last to point of most streaming services (CDN, ie YouTube, FB, Twitch, etc) using AV1 instead of H.264. Consider AV1 editing requirements, if applicable.
The comment has been that NVENC is NVENC, it does not get better/faster on upper-end models (ie 4060 and 4080 NVENC perform the same). What you can get is dual NVENC on some upper-end cards, if you need that (I stream Stream and Record at 1080p30 on a 1660Super (single NVENC) just fine, using separate encoding settings (I record at ~3X bitrate as I stream).
Click to expand...

Thank you!!! This is the information I have been looking for for a week. I would like to be able to do AV1, which is why I was looking at those particular cards to begin with. I had read that RTX cards in particular were recommended for AV1 and I guess I had mostly assumed that the ada cards would be better geared for this over one designed for gaming.

Lawrence_SoCal said:
Beyond that, it really depends. Someone would need a LOT more workflow details than you posted to even begin to estimate CPU and GPU demands. ex, number, resolution/framerate and type of cameras (NDI, USB, HDMI capture card, etc)... Then, what other workloads other than OBS? OBS Studio has some audio filtering and effects, but certainly not to level of a DAW? Don't under-estimate system impact of browser windows being open, playing 4K pre-recorded videos, etc. For future-proofing, I'd want to start with more than 16GB RAM, to be on safe side.
Click to expand...

And there lies the problem. I have been tasked with getting all of this up and running and figuring out the workflow as I go. Essentially, running a booth is brand new to me. I do have some a/v experience and a decent bit of photo/video background which is why this has mostly fallen on me.

This is why I really don't know what I need and just want to plan for worst case.

What I do know is we are going to stream 1080/30 but record in 4k/60. The camera is capable of 600 Mbps, but I can't imagine we will ever go that high. At least two local cameras connected with USB 4 and possibly bringing in up to maybe 4 other video feeds. I haven't figured out what program I am going to use for the remote feeds, but to start we are likely just going to use Zoom or something like that. We would like to move to something where we can separate out all of the feeds but still have everyone on the same call.

I'm not worried about any audio tuning, aside from balancing volume maybe, in OBS. We will be using a mixing board to handle that and just feed that straight into OBS.

I wasn't considering anything less than 64.

Lawrence_SoCal said:
1. I avoid consumer PC hardware if/whenever possible. period. usually piss-poor build quality, short warranty & support timeframe, etc. I find business class system end up being cheaper in the long run, for my usage approach
Click to expand...

I couldn't agree more. I've tried so many different ones and most of them are just junk. I have had good experiences with the Lenovo mobile workstations though.

Lawrence_SoCal said:
3. I'd be inclined to set up the entire environment on most powerful PC you have (desktop or laptop). Set up as you would hope your future system could support. Now, with all cameras on, mics, etc Stream and Record while measuring hardware resource utilization... that should give you a good baseline to start considering your purchase requirements.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I didn't even consider that. I could try running some stuff on my personal PC to try to get a baseline. It has an i7 7700, 64GB ram, and a 3070. I should at least be able to see if this is enough to handle most of it. There are certain aspects I can't really test just yet.

Thank you again for all the info.
 
dataz722 said:
I could try running some stuff on my personal PC to try to get a baseline. It has an i7 7700, 64GB ram, and a 3070. I should at least be able to see if this is enough to handle most of it. There are certain aspects I can't really test just yet.
Click to expand...

You'll be CPU limited, but yes, that would be a great place to start. That 3070 should be fine for all but future-AV1 encoding, so will be a fine test in terms of NVENC (using H.264 at the moment), etc.
One thing to be aware of is USB Root Hub overload (in this case, too many cameras/ too much bandwidth, especially when looking at multiple 4K60). if you are looking at a workstation class machine, less of an issue, but even then you may have to be careful.
Beware mixing camera connection technologies (USB, HDMI, NDI, etc) and ending up with varying video feed camera latency. so 1. make sure camera latency is same (not necessarily easy to do), then computer has to decode all that incoming traffic (I'm not exactly sure if/how to control using GPU decode vs CPU). Getting super technical, and depending on exactly how incoming video appears to OS and drivers, etc, then maybe?? will impact if you need a GPU with multiple NVENC decoders?... I'm don't know... I could be way off base, but something for you to research further and confirm one way or the other
As for thinking of using USB cameras, especially that high of resolution models, beware cable length limits.

As for overall PC specs, what is common is that you will figure out what you want/need, and there will be a level of CPU/GPU resource requirements to accomplish that. Then, the natural tendency is to tweak/improve that, increase sophistication, etc.. and that stuff can (usually does) increase h/w resource demands. How much, no way to know.
So you risk either overbuy/overspend now, or having to buy yet another more powerful system way before the end-of-life with the 1st system ... or get it just right... total crap shoot. Personally, I'm the type to overspend on somethign really good, then take care of it for a long time, and get great value. but that is not always the wise choice, especially with where PC technology is at the moment (mid inflection). If your environment is something where spending 50% less now, and then replacing in 2+ years if perfectly acceptable (you have confidence there won't be 'budget constraints' pushing livestream operator with trying to make due with something that is overloaded) that could easily be the smarter move. Some places operate more of 'this is a special project, purse strings open this once' ... so it depends

The 14th gen Intel HX CPUs are slightly warmed over 13th gen chips. And nice discounts are available on 13th gen workstation systems now that 14th gen CPUs released. Personally, I'd like to get a mobile workstation with PCIe v5 SSD and Thunderbolt 5 ports, but that won't be until the end of this year, at earliest (from Tier 1 vendors). so rather than continuing to wait, it probably makes sense for me to step outside my comfort zone and get a discounted 13th gen system now and plan to replace it way sooner than I have any other personal system (ever)
 
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