Question / Help Suggested Hardware for 2 PC setup

[grufftech]

So, being that my games (MMORPG's) are very CPU-demanding, I see a pretty significant framerate drop when I start streaming with OBS, which makes me twitch.

I'm looking at setting up my old 2600K, giving it a mild overclock, and having it actually stream the broadcast while I play on my main machine.

Now -- I've got a handful of capture cards right now, (AverMedia Live Gamer Portable, Live Gamer HD, BlackMagic Intensity Pro, ect) -- Is there a recommended / suggested Second-PC capture device / setup for OBS?

As a second question -- Specifically for the Live Gamer HD, Should my stage resolution be 1080 (since i game in 1080) or 720p (streaming) -- It looks like if i set my stage resolution the card is capturing in 720, but I assume that's using the capture encoder to resize the footage?

 

[dodgepong]

Of those choices, I definitely recommend capturing with the Live Gamer HD. If you're gaming in 1080p on the gaming PC, then you have the choice on the streaming PC of setting the Live Gamer HD input to 1080p or 720p in the video capture device properties, because the card can do onboard downscaling. In that case, 1080p vs. 720p is simply a matter of opinion with regards to what looks best, assuming your CPU can handle both.