Question / Help What's the best low-budget laptop for streaming / recording?

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Sidular

New Member
I have an Elgato HD60, and have been running it locally while recording. This of course creates a bit of a hit to my frame rate, which is annoying, as you may imagine.

To remedy this problem, I'm looking to purchase a new laptop that is capable of rendering high definition videos, and streaming to Twitch, also in high definition. The laptop wouldn't really serve any other purpose, so I'm looking to keep the cost down as much as possible. Somewhere between $300-$700 is my budget goal.

Does anyone have any suggestions?
 
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Cryonic

Member
Get a PC instedad. Laptops, specially in this price range, suffer from being crappy.

700$ - its possible to get an i5 with board, 4GB RAM, PSU, case, some small stuff and if needed, even a small GPU. This will be way faster than a laptop.
If it has to be a laptop - try to find something with the strongest CPU that you can fit in your budget.
Other stuff like screen, comfort, battery life etc dont really matter if you want to use it just as a encoding system.
 
S

Sidular

New Member
Cryonic said:
Get a PC instedad. Laptops, specially in this price range, suffer from being crappy.

700$ - its possible to get an i5 with board, 4GB RAM, PSU, case, some small stuff and if needed, even a small GPU. This will be way faster than a laptop.
If it has to be a laptop - try to find something with the strongest CPU that you can fit in your budget.
Other stuff like screen, comfort, battery life etc dont really matter if you want to use it just as a encoding system.
Click to expand...

Yeah, a full desktop is out the question, unfortunately. I need something small; that I can just put into the corner and forget about.

Ignoring my price range, what would you suggest? Recording shouldn't be too problematic with a laptop, though the encoding speed would clearly suffer. But I of course want to stream as well, and at decent enough settings for a pleasurable viewing experience. (ie. no lag / frame stutters)
 
C

Cryonic

Member
It is possible to get a really powerful rig that is not bigger than a console right now (without OC just because there is no room for cooling more than the base TDP on CPU and GPU). Mini and microITX are common, HTPC cases are great, reasonable priced and they dont look like a monsterrig. If you can fit something like a small subwoofer under your desk, it will fit in. And you can use your existent monitor and a cheap wireless keyboard/mice to control the rig. Best bang for $, specially right now when everyone is trying to drop the power consumption and really powerful hardware is small and easy to cool.
Laptop can offer you 2 things: mobility and security in case of a power loss when used without UPS. But it will cost you money (and you dont have much with 700$ max), performance, upgradeability and also better (quieter) cooling compared to a good custom rig. And believe me most cheap laptops with powerful CPUs are horrible at cooling it down under full load, expect throttling or a jet engine sound in the summer. Sitting with 30°C in my room now, i know what i`m talking about, having an Ivy bridge laptop i5 CPU cooking at 90°C while WATCHING a twitch stream, not rendering one :P
 
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