Building a live streaming computer

[Magnus Stout]

Can’t beat the AMD 3900x (12-cores, 24-threads) for price/performance. I tend to like Asrock, Asus and Gigabyte for AMD motherboards (in that order). I would suggest 16GB of Crucial ECC DDR4. I prefer nVidia over AMD videocards. Samsung Nvme SSDs are reliable and fast (Intel datacenter SSDs are better for servers). Most Gold-rated power supplies are fine (500 watts is perfect). Spend at least $80-$180 to get a decent case (check eBay and Craigslist).

 

[king bast]

^ Problem with 3600 chip is that you can't use B450 motherboard. Upgraded motherboard is about $80 more.

You can, it just MAY require a bios update if it comes from older stock. I bought a b450 motherboard over 6 months ago, and it came shipped with the update already installed, so anything manufactured since then will be the same.

 

[EvanWilson]

Do you have anything that you plan on using for a backup set?

My preference in recent years is something like Acronis True Image and make full disk images when I do a backup. The images can be mounted and files accessed or a full drive restore done from an image.

 

[armenia4ever]

I might be able to send you alot of the spare stuff I have lying around if you are looking to save some money.

I've definitely got some quality Corsair fans as well as a GTX 960 lying around. (Not the best graphics card but will do till you can fork over cash for the newer ones.

I'd also advise going with AMD for the CPU. Their CPUS are often better for programmers, developers, and people that are using multiple programs at the same time.

 

[Roosh]

I ended up buying from Cybertron PC: https://www.cybertronpc.com/

Here are the specs:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450 Gaming Plus motherboard
4x8GB DDR4-2666 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB
Intel 512GB 660pm PCIe 3.0 NVME M.2 drive
3TB Seagate Barracuda HDD
EVGA 650W power supply
MSI Wireless 802.11ac Bluetooth 4.2
Windows 10 Home

Total cost: $1220 shipping included. I should get it within 2 weeks.

If I built it myself using the same parts, it would have been only about $100-200 cheaper.

 

[Mountaineer]

Very good setup, I'm building something very similar. If you plan on using the W10 go over it with one of these tools like Debotnet to remove Bill's telemetry and spyware embedded in the system.

 

[murmurmur]

I ended up buying from Cybertron PC: https://www.cybertronpc.com/

Here are the specs:

AMD Ryzen 5 3600
MSI B450 Gaming Plus motherboard
4x8GB DDR4-2666 RAM
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 6GB
Intel 512GB 660pm PCIe 3.0 NVME M.2 drive
3TB Seagate Barracuda HDD
EVGA 650W power supply
MSI Wireless 802.11ac Bluetooth 4.2
Windows 10 Home

Total cost: $1220 shipping included. I should get it within 2 weeks.

If I built it myself using the same parts, it would have been only about $100-200 cheaper.

The mobo should come pre-flashed for you, so that is good. I suspect the stock AMD cpu fan they'll be using will be poor, so if you find sluggishness during rendering/constant heavy load, that's the first place to look for change.

Six cores is OK for streaming, but if you ever feel sluggish in the future, there are two avenues for improvement:
Faster ram (in terms of speed): AMD's ryzen processors make good use of faster speeds; 2666 Hz is on the low end.
Swap out the CPU for the 3700x when prices fall to about USD 215, which they will when the 4000-series come out. Same per-core clock, but it has 8 instead of 6 cores.

 

[Zep]

Do you have anything that you plan on using for a backup set?

My preference in recent years is something like Acronis True Image and make full disk images when I do a backup. The images can be mounted and files accessed or a full drive restore done from an image.

This.

I have two SSDs on my Dell "Business Line" laptop ... it is a Tank. Someone above said you can't compare consumer Dells to Business Dells and they are right. For hard drives I have two Samsung Evos, 1 for the OS, and a 2nd in the place where the DVD player used to be as storage and for an "Image" of the OS on SSD 1.

I found out you must "Image" your OS rather than "Clone" it. Can't remember why now, but that is what I did using Macrium Reflect, and .... IT WORKS!!! I disappeared a complete OS on purpose to pull in the Image of the OS and it worked flawlessly. Say you spend hours and hours like I do tweaking your OS, setting it up just perfectly, and you image it, and for whatever reason, i.e. a hard drive failure, your OS gets ruined. Booo. Just pull in the Image! and with Solid State Drives ( SSD's ) you can do this in no time. The imaging takes about 20 minutes with SSD's on the same machine, the transfer speed was something like 1.3gbs per second? minute?, I know I saw 1.3gbs, going from one SSD to another on the same 5 yr old Dell laptop.

Roosh, is there a reason you chose an old style hard-drive instead of a SSD? I don't know about building computers so maybe there's something I'm missing here. I just know that people said the greatest performance gain you can make to any computer is to put a SSD in it, they were right. My laptop just flew after swapping out the old 5400 rpm to a solid state drive, so maybe there's a reason you went for a mechanical hard drive.

 

[PixelFree]

I would highly recommend buying a pre-built Ex corporate lease Dell.

They tons of power and have undergone many hours of compatibility testing so these things just work and work.

you can get a lot of grunt in a very small package for quite cheap on eBay.

they even come with legit Windows 10 registered to no one.

eg https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Dell-Op...-512GB-M-2-SSD-500GB-Win-10-Pro-/333588483121

dell optiplex 9020 i7: Search Result | eBay

Find great deals on eBay for dell optiplex 9020 i7. Shop with confidence.

www.ebay.com.au

A good option unless you need a big graphics card which you only need for games.

 

[Roosh]

Roosh, is there a reason you chose an old style hard-drive instead of a SSD? I don't know about building computers so maybe there's something I'm missing here. I just know that people said the greatest performance gain you can make to any computer is to put a SSD in it, they were right. My laptop just flew after swapping out the old 5400 rpm to a solid state drive, so maybe there's a reason you went for a mechanical hard drive.

The computer has two hard drives. One 500gb SSD and one 3TB regular HDD. The bigger drive will be for storing/editing videos.

 

[Magnus Stout]

Next build: FreeNAS system.

You need a magical filesystem (ZFS) to protect that data: https://research.cs.wisc.edu/wind/Publications/zfs-corruption-fast10.pdf

Simple: build your personal cloud. https://www.freenas.org/freenas-mini/

I store so much data; it’s much cheaper and safer than using a public cloud. Plus, on-site data is (theoretically) subject to a warrant (Cloud stuff is not).

 

[Feyoder]

Hey Roosh, did you get this computer set up already?

 

[Roosh]

Hey Roosh, did you get this computer set up already?

Still waiting for it to ship. Company says delays are due to coronavirus.

 

[Mountaineer]

It's quite possible because the hardware supply is very sensitive to such disruptions.

 

[Roosh]

The new computer is finally in. Did a test live stream and it's incredibly fast, no lag when playing videos. My laptop usually hovers at 20-30% CPU when live streaming... this one was at 2%. It looks like the graphics card (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660) absorbs most of the work.

 

[Admiral]

Just learned the hard way, make sure you have a backup of your 3TB drive. I made a raspberry pi NAS, to store all of my files for a reasonable price.

 

[Roosh]

Just learned the hard way, make sure you have a backup of your 3TB drive. I made a raspberry pi NAS, to store all of my files for a reasonable price.

I do remote encrypted backups of important files.

 

[budoslavic]

The new computer is finally in. Did a test live stream and it's incredibly fast, no lag when playing videos. My laptop usually hovers at 20-30% CPU when live streaming... this one was at 2%. It looks like the graphics card (Nvidia GeForce GTX 1660) absorbs most of the work.

Roosh, I just watched your "Roosh Hour #48 - America Burning" this morning. One could tell right away that your new computer has made a huge difference in improving your livestream's video and audio capabilities. The video's picture quality is crystal clear without interruptions - nice!

You mentioned whiteboard and I noticed how awkward to hold it while writing on a board in front of the camera. Have you consider looking at a portable USB digital graphics tablet with stylus pen as an alternative for your livestream - i.e., XP-Pen Deco 01? Just my two cents.

 

[Earplugs]

I'm happy you went with Ryzen. Not much you can't do with the setup you've purchased. Don't forget to optimize your monitor and camera setups.

 

[Roosh]

I'm happy you went with Ryzen. Not much you can't do with the setup you've purchased. Don't forget to optimize your monitor and camera setups.

It looks like I shouldn't have a problem with a 4K camera. When I stream at 1080p, the GPU is around 15% usage.