Question / Help What CPU To Buy?

[M0RPH]

hey guys been looking to purchase a new computer recently. The point of the computer will be towards streaming, not gaming (as I game on console) I am really looking to produce the best stream quality.That being said I am not exactly sure what spec(s) of a CPU is most important when wanting to stream. I will be streaming 720p @ 60fps with a new capture card I just bought. Price isn't the biggest concern, BUT I want to be able to set the "x264 preset"to "slow" if not "slower" now obviously if I can buy a $600 dollar processor and a $900 dollar processor, I would prefer to buy the cheaper one.
If I could get some help as two what specs are more important (for streaming only) when choosing processors, and a suggestion as the best processor for the dollar that can run the preset at slow or slower, that would be great.
Thanks- Henry

 

[Blauwhelmpje]

The best perormance/money cpu at the moment is the i7 5820k..and does a better job than the popular 4790k. If you want to be absolutely sure, you could go get the 1000$ 5960x which can do 1080p60fps @slow preset battlefield4. Seen it doing a 1440p/60fps stream yesterday on medium preset and +- 8mb upload(looked superb)

 

[WayZHC]

To be honest, the slow or slower preset doesn't really offer that good quality improvement over medium preset. Not really worth the price of the CPU and the quality difference is more like a placebo effect than an actual improvement. Medium preset might be better goal than slow/slower. Even AMD FX-8350 is really good choise (AMD is great in x264 performance) since you are going to stream at 720p and not gaming on the machine. i7 4790K would be "perfect" choise for your needs.

X99 platform is really overkill and really expensive. CPU $380-1000, RAM (4x4GB DDR4 kit) starting at $200+ and MOBO would be $200+. And a decent cooler (~$50). And honestly not a noticeable difference between fast/medium and slow/slower.

i7 4790k setup would be CPU $280, RAM (8GB is fine for stream pc) $70 and MOBO $150. And a decent cooler (~$50). Should hit the medium preset without a problem.

And you need a GPU as well. Just go with a cheap entry-level gaming GPU.

I just did a test with my Xeon E3 1230V2 (i7 3770) on medium preset (3000 bitrate) 720p60fps and was able to stream just fine even while i actually played on the machine. CPU was at 100% load, but that was because of the game. Stream was stable. i7 4790K is even faster than my CPU at stock clocks and it's overclockable.