The Cohhilition

Ok, so I've been given the thumbs-up by the boss (my wife, of course) to drop a lil cashola on a 2nd PC to give streaming a shot.. However, I'm about as close to being a PC Hardware guy as I am to being an astronaut. Sooooo anyone that can improve upon what I've put together, and keep it at $700, will get, cookies or something


PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i5-4430 3.0GHz Quad-Core Processor ($175.99 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Cooler Master Hyper 212 EVO 82.9 CFM Sleeve Bearing CPU Cooler ($28.49 @ OutletPC)
Thermal Compound: Arctic Silver 5 High-Density Polysynthetic Silver 3.5g Thermal Paste ($6.74 @ Amazon)
Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-H97M-D3H Micro ATX LGA1150 Motherboard ($76.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Crucial 8GB (1 x 8GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($68.99 @ Amazon)
Storage: Seagate Barracuda 2TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($82.77 @ OutletPC)
Case: Thermaltake Commander MS-I ID ATX Mid Tower Case ($34.99 @ Micro Center)
Power Supply: Corsair CX 750W 80+ Bronze Certified Semi-Modular ATX Power Supply ($59.99 @ Newegg)
Other: AVerMedia Live Gamer HD ($164.99)
Total: $699.94
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-02 20:38 EDT-0400

are you gaming on this machine, there is no graphics card?

this is actually a second pc so using the integrated GPU in the CPU is all that's needed, I think

Should work out pretty well. Your $700 total isn't right, lots of mail in rebates in that list, and we all know how that goes.

I would swap the hdd for an ssd, unless you need the storage space.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 12K1RJ7416

750W power supply is overkill! You could get something smaller and save some $$$. You are looking at about 200W peak power consumption if you aren't overclocking.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139049

(Video Conversion - x264 HD Benchmark)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7189/choo ... ber-2013/5

Some advice from my own personal struggles with setting up a dual pc streaming setup--

Since I see people rate this capture card poorly because they don't understand the wording from Avermedia. If you are using their software it will use very little cpu, if you are using OBS/XSplit/FFSplit/etc. you will be encoding on the cpu when using x264. If you aren't using overlays/notifications/etc. on your stream, just use their software if low CPU usage is important to you. You can also use QuickSync or NVENC if your hardware supports it, but the quality of those, even at 3500kbps is pretty terrible compared to x264 at even lower bitrates.

Another common misread is the FPS, people see 60fps Input/PassThru and mistakenly think it can capture/stream at 60fps.

For the mic I use two, the nice one for my stream, which is an Shure SM58 with an xlr-to-usb adapter for the stream audio, plugged into the streaming pc and setup in OBS. The other is on my headset, A40, I use it for ingame chat and hooked to my gaming pc.

EDIT: I don't use the same capture card, I didn't realize it has audio in/out. That makes it very easy to deal with! I would stick with my current method either way tho, I like the audio quality from my sound card -> headphones. You can ignore the wall of text below this.

Setting up the sound with a dual streaming system can be a little tricky. Since you chose a capture card that has instant preview routing the sound in whatever way you like should work without a problem. Personally I like to do this with software called VoiceMeeter (DonationWare), I push the sound out to the HDMI and my sound card. This avoids having to split the audio with wires, which can lead to some issues and ties all the volumes together. With VoiceMeeter you can push out to 3 hardware devices and 2 virtual devices at the same time, all with their own independent controls. You can also VirtualAudioCable ($25) to accomplish the same thing, just not as nice looking and confusing at first. You can also use the built-in windows StereoMix to "listen" to your computer sound over the HDMI. This can be problematic, for me it would cause an audio delay in the stream that wasn't consistent, so I couldn't account for it in the capture software. Yet another way, if your monitor has a sound output, you can plug your headphones in there and push all sound to your HDMI. A more expensive route, getting a hardware mixer, personally I don't like all of the wires.

Lots of fun things to consider when doing a dual pc setup.

designgears wrote:Should work out pretty well. Your $700 total isn't right, lots of mail in rebates in that list, and we all know how that goes.

I would swap the hdd for an ssd, unless you need the storage space.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 12K1RJ7416

I'm actually thinking about putting the 2tb in my gaming pc and an SSD in the streaming, since I don't need much storage space in the streamer. Still bouncing around ideas for that

750W power supply is overkill! You could get something smaller and save some $$$. You are looking at about 200W peak power consumption if you aren't overclocking.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6817139049

Good call on the PSU.. No need to waste money (or electricity bill) on 750 I guess

(Video Conversion - x264 HD Benchmark)
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7189/choo ... ber-2013/5

This makes my eyes and brain hurt..

Some advice from my own personal struggles with setting up a dual pc streaming setup--

Since I see people rate this capture card poorly because they don't understand the wording from Avermedia. If you are using their software it will use very little cpu, if you are using OBS/XSplit/FFSplit/etc. you will be encoding on the cpu when using x264. If you aren't using overlays/notifications/etc. on your stream, just use their software if low CPU usage is important to you. You can also use QuickSync or NVENC if your hardware supports it, but the quality of those, even at 3500kbps is pretty terrible compared to x264 at even lower bitrates.

Another common misread is the FPS, people see 60fps Input/PassThru and mistakenly think it can capture/stream at 60fps.

For the mic I use two, the nice one for my stream, which is an Shure SM58 with an xlr-to-usb adapter for the stream audio, plugged into the streaming pc and setup in OBS. The other is on my headset, A40, I use it for ingame chat and hooked to my gaming pc.

EDIT: I don't use the same capture card, I didn't realize it has audio in/out. That makes it very easy to deal with! I would stick with my current method either way tho, I like the audio quality from my sound card -> headphones. You can ignore the wall of text below this.

Yeah I'll have to fight through the Audio setup and get it figured out as I go I'm sure.



Lots of fun things to consider when doing a dual pc setup.

Another route I've considered is an AMD FX-8350, which is a beast of a CPU, but would, of course, need to put money into a GPU. But I think this route would maybe allow for a better stream? Not sure. Might have to increase the budget a bit!

edit: My replies to specific points in your post are in the quote btw

the_mixitman wrote:Another route I've considered is an AMD FX-8350, which is a beast of a CPU, but would, of course, need to put money into a GPU. But I think this route would maybe allow for a better stream? Not sure. Might have to increase the budget a bit!

edit: My replies to specific points in your post are in the quote btw

The FX-8350 is one of the few that bests the 4770K in x264 encoding, would be a really good choice for a streaming pc. Downside being the video card. You could throw in a "cheap" sub $100 video card at that point tho.

Also, on the audio, with that capture card you just need a male-to-male 3.5mm stereo cable from your computer to the capture card and then plug your headphones into the capture card.

In my case, my headset has the mic (in-game mic) and headphones cable all in one with an optional splitter to break them apart, so I would have to run a male-to-female 3.5mm stereo cable back over to my gaming pc from the capture card audio out so I could plug my mic in to the gaming pc. The splitter cable is only a few inches long. It would be a pretty clean setup tho.

In some cases when connecting two computers together you will get a ground loop which will cause a lot of static, you can fix that with a ground loop isolator. That all depends on your hardware tho. My capture pc is a bit older, running a socket 1366 i7-970 and the onboard audio has static issues on top of the ground loop which is why I push everything thru HDMI as well.

My setup is pretty crazy at the moment because I also have my PS4, HDMI splitter/switch and at the push of a button I can swap everything to the PS4 without having to swap cables around.

Just want to add to the mix that the FX8350 does encode like a champ. I have one in my streaming rig and it's awesome. Granted, I've since cut out the streaming rig to save on power / heat. I will probably be using it again this winter to act as a space heater tho

I'm wondering, if maybe just upgrading my current PC to something like below would work.. The GPU would be 2x GTX 660..I've already got a 240G SSD.. hmmmmmmm

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($174.98 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H55 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($68.99 @ Newegg) <- would bring total to 16GB
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($159.99) <- Would be two of these.
Power Supply: FSP Group 750W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply ($96.30 @ Newegg)
Total: $724.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-04 03:57 EDT-0400

the_mixitman wrote:I'm wondering, if maybe just upgrading my current PC to something like below would work.. The GPU would be 2x GTX 660..I've already got a 240G SSD.. hmmmmmmm

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: AMD FX-8350 4.0GHz 8-Core Processor ($174.98 @ SuperBiiz)
CPU Cooler: Corsair H55 57.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler ($54.99 @ Newegg)
Motherboard: Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 ATX AM3+ Motherboard ($119.99 @ SuperBiiz)
Memory: Team Vulcan 8GB (2 x 4GB) DDR3-1600 Memory ($68.99 @ Newegg) <- would bring total to 16GB
Storage: Western Digital Caviar Blue 1TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive ($54.98 @ OutletPC)
Video Card: EVGA GeForce GTX 660 2GB Video Card ($159.99) <- Would be two of these.
Power Supply: FSP Group 750W 80+ Silver Certified ATX Power Supply ($96.30 @ Newegg)
Total: $724.23
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2014-10-04 03:57 EDT-0400

I would go with an i7/i5 if you are going to doing everything on one PC. While the FX-8350 can push x264 pretty well it won't multitask well while doing it. With the intel stuff you can use QuickSync, it doesn't look as good as x264 but it also won't hurt the performance of your game.

Ok.. so in the interest of continued PC upgrades, I decided to grab an EVGA GTX770 4GB, a 3 TB hdd, and 16gb memory..

so far, streaming like a champ!

After the holidays, I'll upgrade the moboard, PSU and case.. maybe go the water-cooling route..

Thanks a TON for all the info here folks. Really gave me some insight on this hardware stuffs