Help! CPU and GPU in Gaming/Streaming PC

[PuppyStomper]

I'm going to be using this PC for gaming and streaming mostly FPS's.  I'll be upgrading every 6 months or so, so I'm really just looking for best bang for the buck right now. Trying to spend no more than 1200, but I have no problem spending a lil more if the cost can be justified.

 

I'm no stranger to PC building, but was hoping for some people more knowledgeable than me to weigh in here.

 

CPU: 3700x vs 3600 vs 2700.  I understand the more cores the better for streaming (or basically anything), but how much of a difference am I going to see between these 3 cpu's in games and will really I see any while gaming and streaming with the 2 additional cores? 

 

So should I just spring for the 3700x, or save that for a future upgrade? And if it was between the 6 core 3600 or the 8 core 2700, which would be the best choice for my use?

 

GPU: RTX 2060 Super vs 2070 vs 1660 vs RX 5700. I understand the dedicated Ray tracing is the real seller in the RTX, but no real games are going to utilize this for another year. So I have no problem holding off and saving the money to use on another part. From everything I've seen, seems like Nvidia is the way to go, but haven't seen anything on the new Navi chipset in terms of gaming/streaming, but definitely open to using it.

 

Same question as the last in CPU question: For Gaming/Streaming on the same PC, am I really going to notice a difference between GTX and RTX, if so, which RTX should I do, and if not, besides not being able to run all games on Ultra settings, am I going to see any lag or significant drops in frame rate with the 1660?

 

I've scoured the internet and not found anyone explaining WHY you should pick one or the other for gaming AND streaming in the same set up with the latest hardware. (*hint hint Linus and/or Anthony, how about a video on a set up like this?).

 

Bottom line:  Which would you choose and why?

 

Any insight would be HUGELY appreciated! Thanks in advance!

[Guest]

Here's my $0.02:

• CPU: I'd go with the 3700X for a streaming setup. It's a little strangely positioned in the product stack, but the extra threads over the 3600 will make a difference when streaming. If it came down to the 3600 vs 2700, then for the same reason I'd go with the 2700, even though it's slower than the 3600 for gaming. The difference in IPC is tangible, but it's not life-changing, and those extra threads will help keep the stream from dropping frames when something other than your game and OBS decides to use the CPU. The one caveat to that is if you decide to use GPU encoding instead, in which case the 3600 is the clear choice for better game performance.

• GPU: If you can get the RTX 2070 for cheap, do it. It's faster than the RTX 2060 SUPER in most cases (2060 SUPER IIRC has a clock speed advantage but fewer CUDA cores), and it's discontinued - Meaning chances are there'll be clearance deals soon if they haven't already started. Beyond that, if you're considering the GTX 1660, then I'd lean towards doing the extra spend for the RX 5700 hands-down. It nearly matches the RTX 2060 SUPER in many scenarios, and even its reference design is pretty decent for cooling, unlike the 5700 XT. In our testing, AMD's new hardware encoding engine for streaming wasn't great, but apparently that's a result of poor support in OBS and AMD's insistence to us that it should all just work without any updates. EposVox and Wendell did a video on it, and it actually performs very well.

The caveat to the GPU selection, of course, boils down to whether you want RTX or not. Support isn't widespread right now, but now that Unity, Unreal, and other engines support it out of the box, you can expect that to change rapidly. If you play a lot of Battlefield V, I would argue that at least enabling RTX even at the lowest quality setting not only improves the quality of reflections, but can give you an advantage as long as your frame rate can keep up (really depends on the resolution). The reason is simple: You can see things on reflective surfaces that aren't already in your field of view. That means you can be facing away from someone coming up behind you or around a corner and see their reflection, alerting you to the danger. This is currently exclusive to Battlefield V, mind you; Most other RTX implementations are all about shadows, which are mostly eye candy for better immersion.

 

Making things even more complicated, there's also no reason why AMD couldn't make their Radeon cards do DXR fallback like Pascal and newer GeForce cards without RT cores; It's a feature of DX12 that requires no new hardware, though to be clear the performance penalty is severe (but potentially worth it if you can still achieve 60+ FPS at 1080p).

 

A final note: Regardless of which build you go with, I'd recommend getting the fastest RAM you can afford, up to a point. We have a video on that on Floatplane right now, but the TL;DR is the tighter you can push the timings, the better, even if it's otherwise "slow" memory (eg. DDR4-2133). Aim for 3200 or preferably 3600 and use DRAM calculator for Ryzen to try and dial in the timings. It's worth noting that the type of DRAM your memory modules use is important; Samsung B die is ideal, but Micron E die is reportedly good, too. With tight enough memory timings, you can get a significant performance uplift over stock or even "default" XMP in many games.

 

Overall, I don't think you can really go wrong at this budget level right now. Things have been shaken up so completely that the pricing and performance is now such that even if you don't get current-gen, you can get something that was hot gear last gen for relatively cheap (like the 2700). It's a really good time to build a PC.

[PuppyStomper]

Anthony... (*tears up) ...you're my hero.  

[PuppyStomper]

Follow up quick question: If I go with the 3600, with the GPU encoding on with the RTX 2070, how much of a drop in game performance will I see?

 

As of now, I'm leaving towards the 3700x with the 2070, but trying to decide if the 3600 would be the better overall choice.

 

You're the man Anthony!

[Guest]

32 minutes ago, PuppyStomper said:

Follow up quick question: If I go with the 3600, with the GPU encoding on with the RTX 2070, how much of a drop in game performance will I see?

 

As of now, I'm leaving towards the 3700x with the 2070, but trying to decide if the 3600 would be the better overall choice.

 

You're the man Anthony!

In this case, if you're not doing much else than gaming, then the RTX 2070's new x264 fast-like encoder will provide you with... Well, comparable quality to CPU encoding, particularly for streaming. There's little reason to go with AMD's on-stage demo of x264 slow for a stream, so really GPU encoding is a good option all around so long as it works for you.

 

As for performance impact, rough estimate around 5%. It's possible you'd get a lower perf impact with CPU-based x264 encoding with enough threads, but... Well, that depends greatly on what the system is doing.

 

For overall performance, the 3700X has more "headroom" for system threads and other things (like having a Chrome tab open while streaming to monitor chat / stream quality for example, and for any overlays you might have in your stream setup), but won't significantly differ from the 3600 in scenarios where the extra threads aren't being used. If you have the budget headroom, I'd suggest the 3700X for "future proofness", if such a thing exists, since more and more games are known to take advantage of higher numbers of threads and will likely continue to do so as the "traditional" consoles roll with 8 cores.

 

In terms of priority, here's what I'd do:

1. RTX 2070 if you can get it for cheap; Otherwise, RTX 2060 SUPER or RX 5700, depending on if you think RTX is worth the extra $50+ USD. If you can help it, do not go lower than this performance level at this budget.
2. Quality memory, preferably something with Samsung B die or Micron E die. On its own, it won't make a huge difference, but the extra performance (and performance consistency) you can squeeze out of the CPU by tightening the timings is quite tangible.
3. Finally, the CPU choice. If you do anything other than streaming and gaming, or if you're worried about headroom for future titles, aim for the 3700X for the extra threads. If gaming is all you care about and your stream output is being taken care of by GPU encoding, then the 3600 is the obviously better choice, since it's much less expensive and similar in performance per thread.
4. Of far lesser significance is the chipset, unless you're going with an older B450 or attempting an A320 build. You'll want to do your homework on the motherboard and whether or not it'll run your CPU and crucially run it well. Many B450 boards have poor VRMs, which could make overclocking the 3700X (including via Precision Boost) less viable, and you can forget about it entirely with A320. In addition, I may be wrong, but I don't believe the B450 chipset supports Precision Boost Overdrive. That's not a big deal if you plan to assign per-CCX clocks (recommended), but something to keep in mind. It's worth noting that there are new B450-series boards being produced by multiple vendors with expanded BIOSes to support the whole lineup and implement newer features.
   • In making your decision here, do not care one iota about PCI Express 4.0 right now. It's not worth worrying about unless you absolutely need very fast storage (game load times will likely not improve and GPUs can only take advantage of it in an academic sense).