Question / Help THE BEST PC HARDWARE FOR OBS?

[Gregory Hauguel]

Hi,

we are looking to get the best available hardware for our streaming PC. The game & caméras are dealt elsewere, so it's just an encoding device.

As we are looking for 1080p 60fps or 4k, we want something strong enough.

We are looking towards in order:

1. Intel i7-6950X
2. Xeon E5-2687w
3. i7-5960X
4. i7-4960X
5. other options?

Wich one would you pick? Is there an other better option?

Is it still thrue that graphic cards have a low impact on encoding for streaming? We are looking towards the GTX1070 is it a good option? 1080 or the titan x would have an impact?


Thanks for your advices

 

[Rodney]

Well first of all why even consider something several generations old like the i7 4960X?

The GTX 1070 is massively overkill for "just" an encoding machine, obs uses the GPU for composition, not for encoding. A GTX 750 Ti or 1050 Ti/non-Ti is completely fine. Cheaper cards should work too, just not some of the very low end ones such as a GT 610 etc.

For CPU, well, I can't say I have any data on that. My gut feeling says a 6950X might be the best choice. It's a bit cheaper than the xeon and is only a little bit slower in benchmarks. A 6900K might work fine too. The thing to keep in mind here is that more threads give you diminishing returns with x264. Quality also gets slightly worse.