Question / Help Stream with x264 with this specs?

Kari126

New Member
Hey! I want to buy an AMD graphics card (R9 390) and wonder if it will go well to stream with x264 with these specs?

i7 4790k
z97-a
8gb ram
r9 390

And what are the differences between NVENC and x264?

Thank you! :)
 

Jack0r

The Helping Squad
NVENC is a hardware encoder (needs an nvidia graphics card) while x264 is a software encoder that uses your CPU to do the encoding instead. x264 will in most cases give you a better resulting video quality at the same bitrates compared to nvenc. This of course depends on a lot of different factors but we generally recommend x264 for streaming if your hardware allows it.
To your general question, of course this system will be able to stream, but its more a question of the games you run at the same time (or software) and the settings you want to use. In general I would say you will be able to stream most current games at 720p with 30 fps on that system.
More or less might be possible depending on your final setup.
 

Cryonic

Member
That rig will do 1080p 30fps without any issues at all, even with the stock speed on the CPU. The 4790k is the second most powerful quadcore out there, beaten by the new 6700k in some cases (!). And even with the hardest, unoptimized games (early access, betas and new stuff like star citizen) you will always have enough CPU power left to push out 1080p 30fps on the default preset.
I can do 1080p 60fps on faster preset on a i7 5820k @4,5GHz - so similar "per core" performance, i just got 2 cores more to work with. Working with the default, veryfast preset, gives me around 17-20% cpu usage from OBS in heavy motion scenes it spikes to 25% max. For you it will be 45%, not more.

So in that case NVenc will never catch up on quality and your CPU can handle x264 without any drawbacks ingame.
 

FaHu

Member
I dont believe so cryonic. I use a streaming pc with a 4790k i7 and its almost on max. Power if i stream in 1080p 60 fps. And there is mo gane running in background. I play a lot of games. If i still have one pc i see/have a big problem to play and stream newer games like batllefront or company of heroes. You feel the different and it cost a lot of gameplay experience. But if i think right ,you probably play LoL which doesnt need any cpu usage. Or you dont stream really much
 

Cryonic

Member
I do stream pretty often. But you are right, LoL is one of my games. But also new tripleA titles, pretty demanding stuff.
But like i said, i have the i7 5820K @ 4,5Ghz now and i had the 4770K @ 4,3Ghz before that, so i know the load really well. The 4770K is almost the same CPU, just with worse thermal compound inside and slower clock speed, but the difference between them is around 5% when OC`d to similar speeds.
The 4790K is a beast of a CPU, one of the strongest processors that you can actually buy without getting into 1000$+ range. And it can handle 1080p 60FPS @ veryfast without hitting the limit, no matter what game is used to stream.
But dont forget additional load from the browser, teamspeak and other crap in the background - that can add up and actually start hitting your ingame performance.
 
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