Switcher PC Build Recomendations?

A

AronOskarss

New Member
Hi i voulanteer at a local racetrack as a broadcaster, im building a PC specifically for running obs, switching inputs, recording and overlays. Another PC will do the Streaming to YouTube.
I want to take in 8-10 NDI inputs with the 10gb network and 4 HDMI inputs with a Blackmagic decklink quad. all 1080p60.
id also like to record as many of these inputs as i can.

Can you recomend a CPU and motherboard that would be sufficient?
Was thinking to go with the AMD 7700x but now i've moved closer to the 7950x since it seems to me that i will be asking alot from this system and i'll need the power.
Should i rather look at Intel CPU's??

For a GPU we have the Intel a580 i was thinking would do just fine for this since it has been doing well in our current stream pc with 6ndi inputs, 2hdmi inputs and streaming at 4k with the AV1 encoder.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
7950x/A580 is bottleneck city. That GPU is way to weak for either of those processors above. A 4080 or 4090 would be a much better choice for the 7950x, especially if you plan on using NDI HX. For the 7700x, 4070TI/4080 would be a good match.
 
A

AronOskarss

New Member
rockbottom said:
7950x/A580 is bottleneck city. That GPU is way to weak for either of those processors above. A 4080 or 4090 would be a much better choice for the 7950x, especially if you plan on using NDI HX. For the 7700x, 4070TI/4080 would be a good match.
Click to expand...
We don't use NDI|HX we have 10gb network and use full NDI at 120-150mbs.
That's suprising to me altho i admit i can very well be wrong. That A580 has been working well with our 5900x cpu, i've seen some stutters in multiview with 9 sources but as soon as i switch to that source it stops stuttering. Other than that it's been very good even with streaming at 4k to YT with the av1 encoder.
Could it be those stutters are a because of a bottleneck??

Seems like i have a pcie lane problem also, need16x for gpu, 8x for decklink and 4x for the 10gb network card.
Finding a motherboard and CPU combo is getting more difficult as i am avoiding the Threadripper territory.
Was going for the AsRock Live Mixer MB but it only supports 16x, 4x, 4x lane setup and the Decklink card wants 8x and some threads i found regarding issues using it with 4x are throwing me off, with people experienceing restarts and shutdowns.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
Possible, it's not strong enough for that CPU either.

Forget the 10G Network card, get a mobo that has 10G on-board. My Asus ROG Z690 has 2.5G/10G & TB4.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
10G check but this is from the Pro Art's manual. Shared bandwidth on PCI-e slots 1 & 2. Both will be @ x8 if populated. This board won't work for your needs. Kinda thinking you may need to go to TR to get x16 & x8.


1719502045873.png

(2) x16 5.0 slots on this TR board but we're getting expensive.

www.asus.com

Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI｜Motherboards｜ASUS USA

An elite workstation performer with CPU and memory overclocking, 36 power stages, three PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and server-grade remote management
www.asus.com www.asus.com
 
A

AronOskarss

New Member
rockbottom said:
10G check but this is from the Pro Art's manual. Shared bandwidth on PCI-e slots 1 & 2. Both will be @ x8 if populated. This board won't work for your needs. Kinda thinking you may need to go to TR to get x16 & x8.


View attachment 104952

(2) x16 5.0 slots on this TR board but we're getting expensive.

www.asus.com

Pro WS TRX50-SAGE WIFI｜Motherboards｜ASUS USA

An elite workstation performer with CPU and memory overclocking, 36 power stages, three PCIe 5.0 x16 slots and server-grade remote management
www.asus.com www.asus.com
Click to expand...
Thank you for your insight!
Would a 8x/8x setup not be sufficient?, i've read that there's not that much of a difference between 16x and 8x, atleast for gaming.
Trying as hard as possible to not go the TR route as i'm afraid i will get denied funds if i ask for a TR and a 900dollar motherboard.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
x8 will cause a bottleneck with the top end GPU's. My 3090 was nerfed about 30% when I tested it @ x8.

Something to think about, the 4060 only needs x8. The drawback here is no dual encoders.
 
A

AaronD

Active Member
AronOskarss said:
i'm afraid i will get denied funds if i ask for a TR and a 900dollar motherboard.
Click to expand...
My first thought was that your powers that be have guaranteed your failure without explicitly saying so. And they may have deceived themselves as well, with bad information from who-knows-where.
"Even a cheap PC plays movies just fine! That's basically what you're doing, right?" WRONG!!! But it's amazing how many people seem to have that underlying assumption.

But...the more you know about how stuff works in general, the better you can allocate the funds you have. Maybe "Motherboard X" has eyebrow-raisingly low specs on things that you don't actually need, but it does have just enough of what you do need, and it's under budget. If you don't know system internals like that, then you have to buy things that you'll never use, just to be sure of having enough of what you do.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
I had to look up the 5900X, it benchmarks between a 12700k & 13700k. More than enough for what you want to do. Upgrade the GPU to a 4070TI for the dual encoders & call it a day. PC # 2 won't be needed either.
 
L

Lawrence_SoCal

Active Member
And to protect that gear at the venue, I recommend getting a pure sinewave UPS (battery backup)... does wonders for protecting hardware. Not living in a place with lightning (once every 5-10 yrs?) my experience has been under-voltage, not spikes, causing damage. And one needs an AVR device to protect for such

Any decent auto-voltage regulating (AVR) UPS will help, but a higher quality unit which supports pure sinewave avoids some other cheap internal parts... not that pure sinewave itself is important (can be, depends on device power supply)
I've not had problems with older APCC units, but have a handful of CyberPower units which were much cheaper (had an issue with only 1 of them). But, I've heard during COVID supply chain issues some real dropping in internal build quality of some units... so ymmv [in my mind, all the more reason to be safer and spend a small amount extra for the pure sinewave model]

You don't mention, so just curious what, if anything, you are doing for local recording of the video(s)?
Consumer (free) Content Delivery Networks (YouTube, Facebook, etc) all HIGHLY compress video.
If you want to ever go back and see something at higher quality, you'll want the original (not streamed) content
That many video inputs would require a LOT of Disk I/O if real-time saved on same device at high fidelity. something to consider/balance, depending on use case
 
A

AronOskarss

New Member
AaronD said:
My first thought was that your powers that be have guaranteed your failure without explicitly saying so. And they may have deceived themselves as well, with bad information from who-knows-where.
"Even a cheap PC plays movies just fine! That's basically what you're doing, right?" WRONG!!! But it's amazing how many people seem to have that underlying assumption.

But...the more you know about how stuff works in general, the better you can allocate the funds you have. Maybe "Motherboard X" has eyebrow-raisingly low specs on things that you don't actually need, but it does have just enough of what you do need, and it's under budget. If you don't know system internals like that, then you have to buy things that you'll never use, just to be sure of having enough of what you do.
Click to expand...
They fully understand, we are a small racing club in Iceland so the funds aren't endless. the camera system cost far more, i could proppably get the TR system if it was needed
rockbottom said:
I had to look up the 5900X, it benchmarks between a 12700k & 13700k. More than enough for what you want to do. Upgrade the GPU to a 4070TI for the dual encoders & call it a day. PC # 2 won't be needed either.
Click to expand...
Im also looking to record these cameras and use for replay if that changes anything?
Was thinking i'd have #1pc as a switcher and recorder and plug the 4th monitor port into a capture card in the stream pc and fullsccreen the output to that screen. having the #2pc stream to YT at upscaled 4k with AV1 at 51.000kbs and record the cameras that #1pc can't handle, if so.
hopefully making the #1pc fully capable of all that i want, that was the idea with the 7950x build atleast.
Still think one pc with 5900x and a 4070 would be sufficient?
Thank you for your continued help today ! greatly appreciated !
Lawrence_SoCal said:
And to protect that gear at the venue, I recommend getting a pure sinewave UPS (battery backup)... does wonders for protecting hardware. Not living in a place with lightning (once every 5-10 yrs?) my experience has been under-voltage, not spikes, causing damage. And one needs an AVR device to protect for such

Any decent auto-voltage regulating (AVR) UPS will help, but a higher quality unit which supports pure sinewave avoids some other cheap internal parts... not that pure sinewave itself is important (can be, depends on device power supply)
I've not had problems with older APCC units, but have a handful of CyberPower units which were much cheaper (had an issue with only 1 of them). But, I've heard during COVID supply chain issues some real dropping in internal build quality of some units... so ymmv [in my mind, all the more reason to be safer and spend a small amount extra for the pure sinewave model]

You don't mention, so just curious what, if anything, you are doing for local recording of the video(s)?
Consumer (free) Content Delivery Networks (YouTube, Facebook, etc) all HIGHLY compress video.
If you want to ever go back and see something at higher quality, you'll want the original (not streamed) content
That many video inputs would require a LOT of Disk I/O if real-time saved on same device at high fidelity. something to consider/balance, depending on use case
Click to expand...
I'll look into the power stuff but we generally have pretty stable power here in Iceland unless you are on a campsite :)

Great point! 1TB Samsung 980 Pro NVMe is what i had in mind.
We intend to record all the cameras for use in replay and for the steward to look at. all cameras at 1080p60 at 10.000-12.000kbs, as of now we have 6ndi cameras, Dji Transmission system and a drone (2xhdmi inputs). we will end up with 10-12 inputs in the next couple of years.
 
R

rockbottom

Active Member
Personally I don't upscale, think it's a waste of resources & the end result is inferior to true 4k. Keep in mind that any GPU installed will be running @ x8 4.0 & that will impact 4k performance so I do recommend that the main system operate @ 1080p.

If it's in the budget, get a 4070TI or TI Super, both have dual encoders & either 12 or 16GB of VRAM. The 4070 & Super only have a single encoder & since there's no iGPU in the system, that second encoder will come in handy for replay & any additional encodes. If prices are too high in your area, either of the 4060's are also a good option but like the 4070, they lack the 2nd encoder & have only have 8GB of VRAM. There is also 4060TI variant with 16GB.

With only a single encoder, the 2nd PC most likely will be needed for the outgoing stream(s) while the main system is recording the program & replay(s).

Good choice, the 980 Pro is plenty fast enough for just about anything you're going to throw at it. But, I do recommend a larger drive if you plan on recording Lossless in the future. 1GB can get chewed up real fast.
 
A

AronOskarss

New Member
Good point, i only upscale the stream to YT to get cleaner 1080p on YT, saw a video with benchmarks and that's about the only reason why i do the 4k upscale.

My dearly loved Intel A580 has dual encoding, 256bit memory, gen4 16gb pci speeds, i'll see if if does the job since i have it and if not go get a 4070ti or better for the switcher pc build, really dragging me down that 8x pci issue with the Decklink card and now im looking into the option of having two pci4x cards with 2x hdmi each since i can "gain" a slot if i get a MB with 2.5/10gb LAN.

I have a extra computer at home that has a 5600x and im going to put the a380 into that and see what the old 5900x with the a580 can do as a #1pc next weekend, will only have 5 cameras going since it's DragRacing but hopefully i can record and replay from all of them and see how much headroom i have.
i went through last year with a single computer and it was mostly fine, but could not record and replay all cameras with the stream going also, definetly other issues but mostly the pc did fine, but having 2 usb capture cards is not working well and we intent to use more hdmi inputs in the future and record all cameras so i need to make this work somehow. Maybe a TR build is just the way to go..
 
A

AronOskarss

New Member
@rockbottom Thank you dearly for your help! it was valuable for me to understand better what i can and can't do, Thank you again.

Last weekend went fine, Only used one computer since i didn't have time to setup and test the 5600x stream pc at the track.
Recorded 4 cameras and streaming at 4k30 with the a750, could probably record more, gpu usage was at about 60 and cpu at 50-60%
I was wrong about the GPU type, we have the A750 not the A580.

I have ordered a https://www.blackmagicdesign.com/products/decklink/techspecs/W-DLK-39
it's 1 lane pcie generation 2 and i can fit that into almost any motherboard among the GPU and my 10gb network pcie, then i could add a single usb capture card when needed.
This way i can build a cheap stream pc and use the 5900x for the swither pc, i fitted a single hdmi input pci capture card into the stream pc so i can grab that signal from the 4th screen output on the swither pc if NDI/Beam is to heavy.
This seems to be able to run what i need altho i haven't tested everyting together yet i have tested these two machines seperatly and feel quite confident this will work, and if the swither pc can't record all cameras i can record the rest with the Stream pc, hopefully.

- YouTube

Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.
www.youtube.com www.youtube.com
Here is the stream, i have to figure out how to trim the replays before i show them but all considdered it went well.
Also will set the switcer pc to 1080p60 instead of 4k30 so the replays hopefully will be recorded in 60fps but will need to test that.
Then i will test and see if i still see a big difference with the 4k upscale vs 1080 to YT and if not i may just stick to 1080p60 everywhere.

Have a fantastic day!
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top