Mini-PC for Twitch/YouTube streaming

ROBOCRIPPLE · August 10, 2018

I thought about streaming my gameplay footage on YouTube or Twitch, playing games on PC and consoles. I know I can capture footage from my consoles using a capture card, but when I heard of the idea of using a second PC for streaming/recording footage from a primary gaming PC, I'm like "what?"

I looked into it and the PC spec requirements/recommendations for Twitch on a few websites are pretty steep: "Intel Core i5-4670 processor (or its AMD equivalent), 8GB of RAM and Windows 7 or newer." (Tom's Guide) I have some older hardware that can work; the only components I'm missing are an extra PSU, a good chassis (my old one isn't really good; poor dust filters) and a capture card, of course. I even thought of picking up the Phanteks Evolv X chassis and a PSU that can support 2 systems, but the older motherboard I have is micro-ATX and older CPU is AM3+, which I don't believe will fit in the top of the case.

I also have an Intel NUC BOXNUC6CAYH, which is cheap and draws little power, but isn't very fast, even when running Ubuntu as the OS. I looked at one of these Chinese mini PCs with an Intel Core-i7 processor; they come in 4500U and higher, which I think might be enough for Twitch/YT streaming. Plus, they look like they don't consume as much power as a desktop PC with a 300W PSU... No place to put a GPU, though... The price of a good one with 8GB RAM and 128GB SSD is well over $500 Canadian Rubles, higher than just a new PSU and chassis.

Re-using my old gaming hardware and buying a new PSU and chassis is probably the cheaper solution for me, but probably more power-hungry than the Chinese mini-PC. I'd like to consume as little energy as I possibly can, which is why I'm looking into low-power mini PCs for streaming/recording gameplay footage. I also don't want to spend over $1000 Canadian Rubles. I'd love to use my cheap Intel NUC for streaming/recording gameplay... Which solution do you recommend?

Also, I'd like to run GNU/Linux on my streaming/recording PC; I'm already running Windows 10 on my gaming rig, and I can learn to stream on Ubuntu/Linux Mint. Not to mention privacy issues, as well...