Trying to help a friend.

[IkeaGnome]

So I've got a friend that wants to move over to PC gaming from Xbox. I'll start this with saying, this is assuming you can get either GPU at MSRP. I have a card I can loan him until we can get a hold of one at MSRP.

The build that he wants to do ends up putting him in a price range very similar to my build. However, he also wants to stream. He doesn't stream currently, but wants to get into it. I don't stream, so I'm more asking for opinion on a GPU for that. I know NVIDIA is king here. He doesn't plan on editing videos, or using RTX. If just streaming, would it make sense to go 6800xt or 3070. 3080 would be in the question if we could get a FE. Anchorage Best Buy hasn't had a single drop of them since release day though. 6800xt would be a FE. 3070 would have to be AIB. I haven't sat down to figure out his case yet, so let's leave some room there. I might step him up to a D15 for $30 more to just have that peace of mind. He will be building it at my house and I can help him with PBO on that. That's the reasoning for the 5800x. More cores than 5600x and I've got experience with it. He's wanting to stay under $2000 USD. He has a monitor, keyboard and mouse(for his laptop). He would like a UW for single player games, but has a high refresh rate 1440p for his shooter games (COD and R6:S mostly).

PCPartPicker Part List

Type	Item	Price
CPU	AMD Ryzen 7 5800X 3.8 GHz 8-Core Processor	$439.00 @ Newegg
CPU Cooler	Noctua NH-U12S 55 CFM CPU Cooler	$69.95 @ Amazon
Motherboard	MSI MPG B550 GAMING EDGE WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard	$179.98 @ Amazon
Memory	Corsair Vengeance LPX 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory	$191.14 @ Amazon
Storage	Western Digital Blue SN550 1 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive	$104.69 @ Amazon
Power Supply	Corsair RMx (2018) 750 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply	$134.99 @ Newegg
	Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts
	Total	$1119.75
	Generated by PCPartPicker 2021-04-09 18:35 EDT-0400

TL:DR

Is NVIDIA really that much better than AMD for streaming? 

 

[BahnStormer]

Not sure about AMD vs nvidia, but thete are a few random cards that have the Nvec encoder for streaming (e.g. 1660 super)... Note really random though, I don't think the 1660ti does! 

[Lyri]

42 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

TL:DR

Is NVIDIA really that much better than AMD for streaming? 

Yes. AMD has stepped their game up quite noticably in terms of performance, but their supersampling, raytracing and video encoding is still dreadful. I made the jump from an AMD gpu to Nvidia 10 months back for streaming purposes. The efficiency of encoding is better, less performance loss, quality is miles better and I don't recall OBS or SLOBS really functioning that well with AMD's hardware encoder. Not like it does with Nvenc. Besides, if you get an RTX 20 or RTX 30 series card, then you also get the goodies such as Nvidia's RTX Voice (which actually can work on Pascal cards, as well.), Nvidia Broadcast engine.

 

Tell your friend this - if he wants the best streaming quality - get a cheap motherboard, cheap throw away parts for the most part and just get a decent enough Ryzen cpu with enough firepower to do the encoding. The performance loss is quite noticable if you actually try to stream and game on the same rig, but as long as you're doing a two rig stream setup, then it should look amazing. I would say it might be more expensive than doing a single streaming + gaming rig, but if it literally comes down to building a second rig purely for encoding or trying to source a good enough graphics card to do gaming and encoding all at once, then the price difference might not even be that big and the performance, stream quality difference will be noticable.

 

Sorry for the long rant. The rest of the rig looks baller.

[IkeaGnome]

2 minutes ago, BahnStormer said:

Not sure about AMD vs nvidia, but thete are a few random cards that have the Nvec encoder for streaming (e.g. 1660 super)... Note really random though, I don't think the 1660ti does! 

He's wanting a little bit more power than a 1660 super/ti. I have a 2070 I can loan him, so it doesn't really make sense to loan him a nicer card than he's going to end up with and be disappointed with performance when he's looking at spending this much. 

2 minutes ago, Lyri said:

Yes. AMD has stepped their game up quite noticably in terms of performance, but their supersampling, raytracing and video encoding is still dreadful. I made the jump from an AMD gpu to Nvidia 10 months back for streaming purposes. The efficiency of encoding is better, less performance less, quality is miles better and I don't recall OBS or SLOBS really functioning that well with AMD's hardware encoder. Not like it does with Nvenc. Besides, if you get an RTX 20 or RTX 30 series card, then you also get the goodies such as Nvidia's RTX Voice (which actually can work on Pascal cards, as well.), Nvidia Broadcast engine.

I'm pretty well set on NVIDIA over AMD for this, but was curious if something big changed this generation. When I get home later this month I'm going to run tests with my set up to see what performance would be like streaming. It's our Monday at work and he was asking me to give him a hand with this. 

3 minutes ago, Lyri said:

Tell your friend this - if he wants the best streaming quality - get a cheap motherboard, cheap throw away parts for the most part and just get a decent enough Ryzen cpu with enough firepower to do the encoding. The performance loss is quite noticable if you actually try to stream on the same rig, but as long as you're doing a two rig stream setup, then it should look amazing. I would say it might be more expensive than doing a single streaming + gaming rig, but if it literally comes down to building a second rig purely for encoding or trying to source a good enough graphics card to do gaming and encoding all at once, then the price difference might not even be that big and the performance, stream quality difference will be noticable.

With him wanting to hit 144hz at 1440p, I don't know if we can quite fit a dual system into this budget, correct me if I'm wrong. The other reason I was leaning away from a dual set up is that he's not set on streaming yet. He wants to give it a go with another friend and if it works it works. I'm not against a dual set up, I'm just trying to keep that 144 1440p goal with a more simple set up(he is a mechanic after all. If it doesn't work it gets the hammer treatment). It also seems like(from what I've read) on more modern hardware a single computer for streaming should work fine as long as you're not expecting amazing things out of it(4k high refresh rate both ways). 1440p might be the limits on this. I don't really know.

[Lyri]

10 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

He's wanting a little bit more power than a 1660 super/ti. I have a 2070 I can loan him, so it doesn't really make sense to loan him a nicer card than he's going to end up with and be disappointed with performance when he's looking at spending this much. 

I'm pretty well set on NVIDIA over AMD for this, but was curious if something big changed this generation. When I get home later this month I'm going to run tests with my set up to see what performance would be like streaming. It's our Monday at work and he was asking me to give him a hand with this. 

With him wanting to hit 144hz at 1440p, I don't know if we can quite fit a dual system into this budget, correct me if I'm wrong. The other reason I was leaning away from a dual set up is that he's not set on streaming yet. He wants to give it a go with another friend and if it works it works. I'm not against a dual set up, I'm just trying to keep that 144 1440p goal with a more simple set up(he is a mechanic after all. If it doesn't work it gets the hammer treatment). It also seems like(from what I've read) on more modern hardware a single computer for streaming should work fine as long as you're not expecting amazing things out of it(4k high refresh rate both ways). 1440p might be the limits on this. I don't really know.

Completely understandable, bud. I am doing a single rig streaming and gaming setup myself on a Ryzen 5600X with a 1080Ti while streaming at 864p60/6k bitrate, using nvenc encoder. Funny enough, I noticed a big step up in the picture clarity and stream quality just going from a Ryzen 3800X to the 5600X even though I haven't used the CPU for encoding.

 

And if you do end up finding out anything that contradicts my statement in terms of AMD vs Nvidia in terms of video encoding, then do shoot me a message. I am planning to upgrade my GPU down the line myself and I was reading up on the topic myself, since I've always been more of an AMD/Radeon kind of guy at heart. As far as I gathered through the research I did, though, I was not able to find out anything that supports the idea of AMD having improved their encoder.

 

I personally still game on 1080p 144hz screen. I know it might sound atrocious to some, but I spent years gaming on 1080p 60hz screens, so 1080p 144hz or 1440p 120hz still sounds like a big step up to me. A lot of new cards are still going to struggle to achieve those 144fps at 2K depending on game optimization, so I generally think it's a niche that is not fully utilized, anyhow. 144 might be the realistic limit of what he could squeeze out of the system with say, a 2080ti, 3070 or a 3080 in select titles and without a stream running in background.

 

All I can say wholeheartedly, though, is that the end result will still be trivial regardless of whether he's running at 144hz or a mere 100, as it will still be a big step up from console gaming.

[IkeaGnome]

15 minutes ago, Lyri said:

And if you do end up finding out anything that contradicts my statement in terms of AMD vs Nvidia in terms of video encoding, then do shoot me a message. I am planning to upgrade my GPU down the line myself and I was reading up on the topic myself, since I've always been more of an AMD/Radeon kind of guy at heart. As far as I gathered through the research I did, though, I was not able to find out anything that supports the idea of AMD having improved their encoder.

That's why I posted this thread. It was more of "is there anything big I haven't heard" If I remember while I'm home next month, I'll let you know how my 5800x and 6800xt does as far as streaming. I've always been Intel/Nvidia. I dove deep into AMD this time and am loving it so far. But I don't stream or use RTX or CUDA. It wouldn't surprise me if NVIDIA is still king here and the price makes it make more sense. If he's wanting to stream, why get a 6800xt for $650 when a 3070 might do worse when not streaming, but do better while streaming. I'm comfortable "making" him settle for the non streaming performance if it means he keeps more of that performance while he is streaming. 

15 minutes ago, Lyri said:

All I can say wholeheartedly, though, is that the end result will still be trivial regardless of whether he's running at 144hz or a mere 100, as it will still be a big step up from console gaming.

That's my thought exactly, however with this being his swap from console, I'd like it to be as smooth as possible. He understands that streaming will hit his performance, but I'd rather it be a smooth hit(theoretical here but 144fps to 130vs 160 to 110)

This is also why I'm modeling his build as close to mine as I can. I know on a 1440p UW I can get 90+FPS in Cyberpunk if I don't crank everything. I also know I can hold a steady 350FPS in Overwatch(or 400 if I turn textures down a notch). It takes it from "Videos say with this build you get xxx performance" to "I know even with undervolts to CPU and GPU you will get xxx performance. Since you're going ATX and larger cooler we won't have to UV you to where you lose frames so you should get more"

 

I also have yet to have issues with AMD drivers. Granted I wasn't part of the 5700xt issues, and some people have popped up with some 6800xt driver issues, but without skipping updates I haven't hit them yet(knock on wood)

[Lyri]

2 minutes ago, IkeaGnome said:

That's why I posted this thread. It was more of "is there anything big I haven't heard" If I remember while I'm home next month, I'll let you know how my 5800x and 6800xt does as far as streaming. I've always been Intel/Nvidia. I dove deep into AMD this time and am loving it so far. But I don't stream or use RTX or CUDA. It wouldn't surprise me if NVIDIA is still king here and the price makes it make more sense. If he's wanting to stream, why get a 6800xt for $650 when a 3070 might not do as well when not streaming, but do better while streaming. I'm comfortable "making" him settle for the non streaming performance if it means he keeps more of that performance while he is streaming. 

That's my thought exactly, however with this being his swap from console, I'd like it to be as smooth as possible. He understands that streaming will hit his performance, but I'd rather it be a smooth hit(theoretical here but 144fps to 130vs 160 to 110)

This is also why I'm modeling his build as close to mine as I can. I know on a 1440p UW I can get 90+FPS in Cyberpunk if I don't crank everything. I also know I can hold a steady 350FPS in Overwatch(or 400 if I turn textures down a notch). It takes it from "Videos say with this build you get xxx performance" to "I know even with undervolts to CPU and GPU you will get xxx performance. Since you're going ATX and larger cooler we won't have to UV you to where you lose frames so you should get more"

 

I also have yet to have issues with AMD drivers. Granted I wasn't part of the 5700xt issues, and some people have popped up with some 6800xt driver issues, but without skipping updates I haven't hit them yet(knock on wood)

Hopefully not to deter from the thread, but I've pretty much exclusively been a pc user since early 2000's and I built my first rig together with my old man in 2007. Ever since then it's been kind of a mix match of throwing together upgrades on already existing parts and occasionally going all out and building completely new builds. 

 

I've enjoyed my fair share of Intels and AMD's, as well as ATI's, Radeons and Geforces over the years, I personally haven't had that many problems with drivers for AMD and I had more of a grudge against Intel and Nvidia if you consider the prices they make you pay for their parts, especially in the days when Nvidia was the original R9 290 "heat your entire house with it" meme.

 

Knowing how AMD cards tend to progress over the years, a 6800XT could be real good value once the drivers mature. I sure remember getting a good kick out of my R9 290. The bigger question is whether your friend just wants raw performance for the buck or all the features that come with the card, I suppose. If I had to get a new graphics card right now knowing I want to commit to streaming, then I'd probably bite the bullet and just grab an RTX 3070, but if it is a case of him not knowing whether he even wants to commit to streaming (because it does take a lot of consistency and effort), then I really do see the overall value in a full out AMD build, especially with how well the 6000 series cards overclock and who knows, the Smart Access Memory feature between the GPU and CPU might improve over time and grant even more additional performance along with the FidelityFX supersampling they are supposedly adding across their range of cards now.

 

A real good part of me just wants to say "F*ck it" and take the gamble on a 6800XT. I know damn well I could live without the niche Nvidia features at least for a couple of more years.

[IkeaGnome]

14 hours ago, Lyri said:

, but if it is a case of him not knowing whether he even wants to commit to streaming (because it does take a lot of consistency and effort), then I really do see the overall value in a full out AMD build, especially with how well the 6000 series cards overclock and who knows, the Smart Access Memory feature between the GPU and CPU might improve over time and grant even more additional performance along with the FidelityFX supersampling they are supposedly adding across their range of cards now.

 

14 hours ago, Lyri said:

A real good part of me just wants to say "F*ck it" and take the gamble on a 6800XT. I know damn well I could live without the niche Nvidia features at least for a couple of more years.

These two are the reasons I'm questioning Nvidia here. I think I'm going to hold off until someone that streams with AMD chimes in, or I get home and can actually test to see how it does. Then it won't really be a gamble. 

If we know Nvidia does well streaming, and I can physically test almost the same configuration for streaming, there's no reason to gamble