• We’re currently investigating an issue related to the forum theme and styling that is impacting page layout and visual formatting. The problem has been identified, and we are actively working on a resolution. There is no impact to user data or functionality, this is strictly a front-end display issue. We’ll post an update once the fix has been deployed. Thanks for your patience while we get this sorted.

$800 Streaming PC

Status
Not open for further replies.
E

EAGLEye52

Member
My friend has saved up around $800 and he wants to build a pc. He wants it to be able to live stream and play games. I told him that fro that price range he can get an i5 or an fx processor. I don't know how well an i5 is for live streaming so I just your guys help to come up with some possible builds. He likes Nvidia for shadowplay and he doesn't like asrock for motherboard (don't know why). Those are the only things that he told me so Thanks and I appreciate anything that you guys suggest.
 
Live streaming has very little to do with the processor, either family is overkill for that.

Otherwise it's a standard PC build with a little consideration for which gaming video card fits the budget, a PSU and case airflow that can handle it.

Not sure where to start, prices vary a lot based on your friend's location, how much of a rush there is to built it, whether there is a willingness to do rebates and/or look around a few times for sale prices. The latter two can easily shave 30% or more off of prices except for CPU and memory.

Does he have a case and/or PSU he would reuse? Too many variables! I think one of the other recent topics about building a gaming PC will handle the question since the only difference is the streaming aspect which isn't really demanding, just get something with gigabit ethernet and use that for networking, though you might want to put a 2nd storage volume, HDD in it to offload the bulk I/O from an SSD used for OS and as much as possible the gaming... and yet, it might be an idea for a later upgrade, not something to start taking funds away from the video card budget to do.
 
Last edited:
I agree with mindless that the gaming demand will far overshadow the streaming demands... a simple Pentium chip will stream, but not do very well at gaming.

Couple of questions for you...

Are there any parts he will be reusing?
What are his storage requirements (i.e. lots of video/TV/other media storage?)
What games does he intend to play?
 
I believe that he has a 500gb caviar blue that he has laying around but that is the only thing I think he is going to reuse. He'll probably have to get atleast another TB if he wants to record. He likes to play games like BF4, Bioshock Infinite, Crysis 3 and wants to play upcoming games like TitanFall. He is hoping to build it by the end of March so he will buy parts a little at a time.
 
Using Shadowplay, the CPU will be less of an issue than otherwise. If he's streaming but not locally recording, storage will also not be an issue. If recording and streaming, storage could make a pretty hefty difference, depending on games. But storage for recording only can also be added later, to save some money now, and that may not be a problem with the games being played anyway.

What are all the parts of his current PC, that might be reusable? $800 should be doable, but it's not exactly a big budget. Gains from extra money added to the budget, or saved from re-using parts, can get you superlinear performance gains up to around $1000-1200.
 
Currently he has an old Dell XPS 720 he bought two years ago. It has
Intel Core 2 Extreme Q6800
MotherBoard (Doesn't know what it is)
4GB DDR2 Ram (I think)
EVGA 9800 GT
WD 500 GB Hard Drive
Generic Power Supply

So not too much is useable I think
 
Well, start with [thread=2192841]Mfenn's build[/thread]. Take the SSD, HDD, and DVD drive out. (He can steal the DVD drive from his old machine.) Then swap in this cheaper PSU, and you're down to $830 (AR AP). Maybe use the old case too to get under $800?
 
For live streaming the cpu is hit heavily, contrary to what everyone else has said. It is real time x264 encoding and in general playing online games while also having a high quality high res stream takes high end CPUs. Using shadowplay will give you a lower quality stream, but like quick sync takes the load off the cpu.
 
videogames101 said:
For live streaming the cpu is hit heavily, contrary to what everyone else has said. It is real time x264 encoding and in general playing online games while also having a high quality high res stream takes high end CPUs. Using shadowplay will give you a lower quality stream, but like quick sync takes the load off the cpu.
Click to expand...
Right in the OP: "he likes Nvidia shadowplay." Not to mention that, with that budget, there's really no other option. Hopefully it will work ell enough (there still are lots of users with issues).

Ken g6 said:
Well, start with [thread=2192841]Mfenn's build[/thread]. Take the SSD, HDD, and DVD drive out. (He can steal the DVD drive from his old machine.) Then swap in this cheaper PSU, and you're down to $830 (AR AP). Maybe use the old case too to get under $800?
Click to expand...
And/or drop down to a GTX 760, and locked CPU+MB+RAM.
 
Last edited:
Live streaming would probably work better with a TV card with both encoders and decoders. For that matter live streaming depends on what the source of the video is. i.e. satelite, TV, Video Camera, OTA, Cable, etc.
 
piasabird said:
Live streaming would probably work better with a TV card with both encoders and decoders. For that matter live streaming depends on what the source of the video is. i.e. satelite, TV, Video Camera, OTA, Cable, etc.
Click to expand...
"He wants it to be able to live stream and play games." ... "He likes Nvidia for shadowplay"

The source is the video card's frame buffer, before or as it goes out to the monitor.
 
mindless1 said:
Live streaming has very little to do with the processor, either family is overkill for that.
Click to expand...

Charlie98 said:
I agree with mindless that the gaming demand will far overshadow the streaming demands... a simple Pentium chip will stream, but not do very well at gaming.
Click to expand...

To be clear, we're talking about streaming out here, not streaming in. Streaming out via traditional software-only methods is pretty CPU intensive because it requires you to do a real-time video encode and play the game at the same time. ShadowPlay helps out by offloading the encoding to the GPU.

EDIT: I see this has been covered, I should read the whole thread before replying.
 
mfenn said:
To be clear, we're talking about streaming out here, not streaming in. Streaming out via traditional software-only methods is pretty CPU intensive because it requires you to do a real-time video encode and play the game at the same time. ShadowPlay helps out by offloading the encoding to the GPU.

EDIT: I see this has been covered, I should read the whole thread before replying.
Click to expand...

No, that's OK. Now I understand the difference. 🙂

...I see 'streaming' I think HTPC, not gaming. Learn something new every day...
 
EAGLEye52 said:
My friend has saved up around $800 and he wants to build a pc.
He wants it to be able to live stream and play games. I told him that fro that price range he can get an i5 or an fx processor. I don't know how well an i5 is for live streaming so I just your guys help to come up with some possible builds. He likes Nvidia for shadowplay and he doesn't like asrock for motherboard (don't know why). Those are the only things that he told me
Click to expand...
Is he open to both Intel or AMD based systems?
 
mindless1 said:
Live streaming has very little to do with the processor, either family is overkill for that.

Otherwise it's a standard PC build with a little consideration for which gaming video card fits the budget, a PSU and case airflow that can handle it.

Not sure where to start, prices vary a lot based on your friend's location, how much of a rush there is to built it, whether there is a willingness to do rebates and/or look around a few times for sale prices. The latter two can easily shave 30% or more off of prices except for CPU and memory.

Does he have a case and/or PSU he would reuse? Too many variables! I think one of the other recent topics about building a gaming PC will handle the question since the only difference is the streaming aspect which isn't really demanding, just get something with gigabit ethernet and use that for networking, though you might want to put a 2nd storage volume, HDD in it to offload the bulk I/O from an SSD used for OS and as much as possible the gaming... and yet, it might be an idea for a later upgrade, not something to start taking funds away from the video card budget to do.
Click to expand...

This is only true if you don't encode on the CPU. If you're using x264, an i5 or AMD 8-core is a must. I know this from experience.

EDIT: Holy necromancy Batman!
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Back
Top