Upgrading rig for Streaming

[acerinpa]

One of my Sons wants to upgrade his rig so he can stream ( 720 HD, 30 FPS video) while gaming. His current specs are :

CPU = AMD Phenom 965 Black with a stock cooler
MOBO= Asrock 970 extreme AM3+
PSU= Corsair 650 PSU
GPU = AMD 290
RAM= 2 x 4 GB ( 1600 Ripjaw X)

The biggest question is should he stay with the AMD MOBO and just get a new AMD CPU , maybe an 8 core. OR spend the cash for a new Intel MOBO/CPU set up.

Obviously, staying with the old AMD mobo will be cheaper- but will it do the job properly and for how long? I told him that since the Phenom is starting to get dated, and is at times struggling to do the job in some games ( overheats at times) , just spend the money on an Intel setup and do it right. If, he goes Intel will he need the i7 due to the streaming or will an i5 do the job fine ( have read/heard that the streaming kicks up the CPU needs) ?

This is an option- cheaper way to go :

http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=4904561&Sku=A79-8350[/url]

Thanks again as always.

 

[PP Mguire]

He's not gonna like this, and you can show him my posts and proof (my Dragon Age dual core Youtube test), but going Nvidia is the way to go for streaming.

An i5 4440 and H81 board would speed up some games slightly but for the money getting a 970 not only would bump up actual performance from the 290, but would also allow him to use NVC for streaming using OBS. It has pretty much a 0-2% performance loss depending on the profile used.

 

[acerinpa]

Ya, your right he is not going to like that, nor is he going to purchase a new GPU - hopefully he will be able to do it with the 290. So, you think the LInked AMD processor is the way to go and not Intel?

 

[PP Mguire]

CPU encoding is called streaming the hard way these days. Either CPU you get will be pretty slow for it but should work. The i5 would be a more future proof solution.

 

[acerinpa]

hmmmm.... I don think he knew that, I didn't. I thought streaming was CPU intensive and had little to do with the GPU ( as long as it was playing the game well). He may have to rethink this whole idea then.

 

[PP Mguire]

Nvidia when they released their Shadowplay software inside Geforce Experience also released their codec that handles game recording/streaming. It's called NV Codec or NVC as you can find on OBS. It uses the codec on the GPU to handle all that processing since the GPU is much faster at doing it and there is way less overhead. Hence why I say "0-2% performance loss". That's why I said, a 970 would be a performance jump over the 290 and allow him to use NVC for streaming.

 

[PP Mguire]

Oh yea, don't forget that you need at least a 5Mb upload to stream a 3500 CBR setup.

 

[acerinpa]

Well- supposed to have that with Comcast "blast" but I just tested and our upload was at 2.67 = hmm...

AS i said- he may have to rethink this whole idea. Buy the time he buys a new MOBO, an i5 CPU and a 970 GPU - even if we worked it out with Comcast why our upload is slow - he is past his budget. Oh Well...

 

[PP Mguire]

If he gets a 970 he doesn't need to upgrade the rest. NVC uses 0 CPU.

 

[iParanormalx]

I can stream 720p @ 60 fps @ ~ 1800kbps.. OBS has an indicator on the bottom right that shows a light and the datarate if the datarate is exceeding your internet upload capacity the light indicator will turn yellow or red depending on the loss of frames.

I was pretty suprised though after streaming for almost 5 hours I only lost one frame which was less than 0.01% and I have 30 mbps down and 3mbps up.