Need Advice For a Friend's Streaming Build

[Gileotine]

1. Budget & Location

$500-700 USD

2. Aim

My friend seems to want to do a lot of things. First and foremost I'd like him to be able to game properly-- for him this means running decent frames in PUBG. As a secondary he's expressed interest in streaming, both from his computer and from a console (not at the same time though, I think?)

3. Monitors

He wants a 1080p 144hz monitor. You can suggest one for but now I'd like to focus on the computer itself-- he can use the monitor he has.

4. Peripherals

He'll need an OS, since he can't transfer his windows license from his laptop, I'm guessing. Keyboard and mice are something I think he already has / I'll give him a cheap version of, but if you can find a good set for like, 20 bucks, I'm sure he would go for that.

5. Why are you upgrading?

My friend has never had a proper PC before. He has expressed high interest in getting one for streaming but since that can get old quick without viewers I just think a solid computer would be good for him. While he's willing to spend 700 bucks on this thing max, if you can pull it closer towards 500 I think he would be pretty happy. I know that 500 bucks doesn't leave a lot of room to wiggle, so any advice would be appreciated.

 

Other note: My friend has a GTX 1060 mini that his friend is giving him, so I'm not sure if that changes things.

 

Here is the build he sent me, it's based on the replies in this thread from over a month ago, but he JUST decided to pull the trigger now. So any final thoughts?

 

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Ahop/saved/V6YvnQ

[Billy Pilgrim]

6 minutes ago, Gileotine said:

1. Budget & Location

$500-700 USD

2. Aim

My friend seems to want to do a lot of things. First and foremost I'd like him to be able to game properly-- for him this means running decent frames in PUBG. As a secondary he's expressed interest in streaming, both from his computer and from a console (not at the same time though, I think?)

3. Monitors

He wants a 1080p 144hz monitor. You can suggest one for but now I'd like to focus on the computer itself-- he can use the monitor he has.

4. Peripherals

He'll need an OS, since he can't transfer his windows license from his laptop, I'm guessing.

5. Why are you upgrading?

My friend has never had a proper PC before. He has expressed high interest in getting one for streaming but since that can get old quick without viewers I just think a solid computer would be good for him. While he's willing to spend 700 bucks on this thing max, if you can pull it closer towards 500 I think he would be pretty happy. I know that 500 bucks doesn't leave a lot of room to wiggle, so any advice would be appreciated.

Congrats you included budget and uses cases!

What about keyboards and mouse.

I would definitely look at AMD Ryzen for streaming because of the core count. Do you want to overclock or do you not feel comfortable with that?

[Slottr]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$164.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock - B450M PRO4 Micro ATX AM4 Motherboard	$83.98 @ Newegg
Memory	G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory	$92.99 @ Newegg Business
Storage	Team - L5 LITE 3D 240 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$31.49 @ Newegg Business
Storage	Western Digital - Caviar Blue 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$44.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	PowerColor - Radeon RX 580 8 GB Video Card	$169.99 @ Newegg
Case	Cooler Master - MasterBox Q300L MicroATX Mini Tower Case	$39.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair - CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	$39.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$708.31
	Mail-in rebates	-$40.00
	Total	$668.31
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-22 22:01 EST-0500

 

2700 would be optimal for streaming, though the 2600 will do fine.

 

Not a bad deal on the 580, if your friend can, pick that up asap.

[ch3w2oy]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD - Ryzen 5 2600 3.4 GHz 6-Core Processor	$164.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard	ASRock - B450 Pro4 ATX AM4 Motherboard	$75.88 @ OutletPC
Memory	G.Skill - Sniper X 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3200 Memory	$119.99 @ Newegg
Storage	Crucial - MX500 250 GB 2.5" Solid State Drive	$44.99 @ Adorama
Storage	Seagate - BarraCuda 1 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive	$44.89 @ OutletPC
Video Card	PowerColor - Radeon RX 580 8 GB Video Card	$169.99 @ Newegg
Case	Fractal Design - Focus G ATX Mid Tower Case	$39.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair - CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply	$39.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total (before mail-in rebates)	$760.71
	Mail-in rebates	-$60.00
	Total	$700.71
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-22 22:03 EST-0500

 

[The_Big_Grape]

6 minutes ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Congrats you included budget and uses cases!

What about keyboards and mouse.

I would definitely look at AMD Ryzen for streaming because of the core count. Do you want to overclock or do you not feel comfortable with that?

the ryzen 5 2600 is nice 6 cores 12 threads and it around 200$

[mariushm]

The RX 580 is the best deal for 1080p gaming right now, so I agree with the above configurations. Ryzen 2600 is also a very good cpu, probably best performance for money.

May want to add a HDMI capture card, so that he can get the output of his console into the PC and stream it using the PC while he's playing on the console.

I don't know what's the best value for money in the capture cards department these days though.

 

You don't need 6 cores and 12 threads for streaming, you can stream and compress the video using the hardware encoder on the video card (so the cpu will only be used by games), but 6 cores and 12 threads is good in general for games. More and more games these days take advantage of cores and threads, so it helps produce those frames.

[The_Big_Grape]

1 minute ago, mariushm said:

The RX 580 is the best deal for 1080p gaming right now, so I agree with the above configurations. Ryzen 2600 is also a very good cpu, probably best performance for money.

May want to add a HDMI capture card, so that he can get the output of his console into the PC and stream it using the PC while he's playing on the console.

I don't know what's the best value for money in the capture cards department these days though.

i have heard elgato is nice

[Gileotine]

17 minutes ago, Billy Pilgrim said:

Congrats you included budget and uses cases!

What about keyboards and mouse.

I would definitely look at AMD Ryzen for streaming because of the core count. Do you want to overclock or do you not feel comfortable with that?

Sorry about that, I didn't include keyboard and mouse since I'm just going to get him some cheap 5-dollar keyboard and mouse.

[Gileotine]

Also I don't think he's going to try to overclock it, but I only say that because I'm already terrified of overclocking stuff already lmao. Alright so those builds you guys listed seemed reasonable, thanks so much. I'll send that list to him with the included prices and see if he'll bite.

[Slottr]

1 minute ago, Gileotine said:

Also I don't think he's going to try to overclock it, but I only say that because I'm already terrified of overclocking stuff already lmao. Alright so those builds you guys listed seemed reasonable, thanks so much. I'll send that list to him with the included prices and see if he'll bite.

If you need my list knocked down somewhat closer to 500, drop the ram down to a single 8GB 3000mhz stick and get an RX 570 8GB.

 

Good luck!

[Gileotine]

So my friend apparently found a 1060 for free from one of his friends building a computer, would that change the build really at all aside from just chopping out the RX?

[mariushm]

Maybe put a few more dollars on the mechanical drive then, the best price per GB seems to be at around 3-4 TB these days.

If he plays several games, that 1 TB drive can fill up fast... and you can never have too much free disk space.

And maybe he'd want to keep a copy of what he streams to Twitch to hard drive as well.

For example, he can stream on Twitch at 4-6mbps and can save on disk the same stream, or he can encode a second copy at higher bitrate (like 10-20mbps) using cpu or second video card and then edit the video saved on disk to create "episodes" for uploading on Youtube. 

Even at 6mbps, that's almost 1 MB/s of data, so one hour of streaming would use 3.6 GB of disk, an afternoon of streaming could be 10-25 GB of disk space. 

[Gileotine]

6 minutes ago, mariushm said:

Maybe put a few more dollars on the mechanical drive then, the best price per GB seems to be at around 3-4 TB these days.

If he plays several games, that 1 TB drive can fill up fast... and you can never have too much free disk space.

And maybe he'd want to keep a copy of what he streams to Twitch to hard drive as well.

For example, he can stream on Twitch at 4-6mbps and can save on disk the same stream, or he can encode a second copy at higher bitrate (like 10-20mbps) using cpu or second video card and then edit the video saved on disk to create "episodes" for uploading on Youtube. 

Even at 6mbps, that's almost 1 MB/s of data, so one hour of streaming would use 3.6 GB of disk, an afternoon of streaming could be 10-25 GB of disk space. 

Would the ~170 bucks he would save by not getting a gpu help in other parts? 

[Herman Mcpootis]

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel - Core i7-8700 3.2 GHz 6-Core Processor  ($304.99 @ Amazon) 
CPU Cooler: Deepcool - GAMMAXX 400 74.34 CFM CPU Cooler  ($16.99 @ Amazon) 
Motherboard: ASRock - H370M Pro4 Micro ATX LGA1151 Motherboard  ($69.99 @ Newegg) 
Memory: G.Skill - Aegis 16 GB (2 x 8 GB) DDR4-3000 Memory  ($92.99 @ Newegg Business) 
Storage: HP - EX900 250 GB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  ($46.89 @ OutletPC) 
Storage: Seagate - Barracuda 2 TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive  ($58.50 @ Amazon) 
Case: Thermaltake - Versa H18 Tempered Glass MicroATX Mini Tower Case  ($49.96 @ Newegg Business) 
Power Supply: Corsair - CXM 550 W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply  ($39.99 @ Newegg) 
Total: $680.30
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2019-01-23 02:09 EST-0500

[Gileotine]

https://pcpartpicker.com/user/Ahop/saved/V6YvnQ

 

Evening folks. I don't mean to rez this thread but my friend has just decided to start buying the parts. This build he sent me is based off the advice I got in this thread, so I would like to know if you have any final thoughts before I tell him to jump for it.

[mariushm]

It looks good.

 

Maybe tell him to go for a 2TB or 3 TB mechanical drive, 1 TB won't be enough and the price difference is just 5-10$.  Seems silly to lose 1TB for 5-10$.