apoth0r – The Beginning…
Great gear? Obtaining a fit for purpose streaming setup is often not something that happens overnight, for most people, you’re keeping costs low, you’re investing in updating the parts that have the biggest return, and you’re looking to make sure you have an edge in one form or another.
A new game arrives on the market and all of a sudden your absolutely stable 144 FPS rig, no longer gives you the *uNF* you had before. It’s a never ending cycle, so I thought I’d write an opening to a series of future posts, talking about this moment in time, and the progression of my systems.
I hadn’t owned a gaming PC for some time before August 2018 (see the history page for information) and lost complete touch with that side of the gaming industry and it was very much starting from scratch. It’s not always a bad thing to have a break though…!
The rebirth
We effectively started out with an i7-8700k, Zotac GeForce 1070ti, 16GB RAM, and SSD, a 1TB HDD and a mid tower CoolerMaster case (of the quiet variety).
So this is where it started.
Now, 24 months doesn’t seem like a long time, but as it progressed into a hobby and then moving towards something a little more than that, I realised if I wanted to stand out and be a professional, I needed the equipment that would deliver the quality I wanted, the comfort I needed and the peace of mind of my rig handling the majority of new games without too much woe-drop (FPS drop).
So….. I did invest, and I looked at the (near) top of the market, not because I wanted to have the latest and greatest, but I wanted longevity and the opportunity to reuse these components at a later date – either in another role within my setup, or saving my bacon if a component fails. It never hurts to have some spare kit, ESPECIALLY great gear, if you rely on streaming for your income – call it your insurance policy.
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The biggun’
After a period of time, and in fact the release of Apex Legends, I started to realise that my machine had a few kinks, I’d ramped up my use of my machine in running Streamlabs to stream to Twitch, as well as needing to satisfy some stable frames in games. This is when I started to look at my options and see what I needed to obtain to have my machine as ready for the next chapter as possible.
This time it was the time for a custom build – I had some parts that I could re-utilise, as a result, push my current gaming rig into its now comfortable position as a streaming machine.
I had always been an Intel person for a long time, was put off early doors by my AMD build, but the reviews I read and Facebook groups I had joined, it was a clear value for money operation, it hasn’t disappointed.
On one hand I love Intel, on the other I like pennies for other things.
apoth0r – 2020
The Ryzen 3900x was a great purchase and it really is a great all rounder, coupled with a 2080ti it really packs a punch for gaming, video editing and anything else I can throw at it. The case was also an important factor as these components simply do not run cold, they are hot bods, and the previous case, although sound proofed, did not give me the temperatures or the cooling I was looking for.
Cosy Home
The MSI Gungnir 100 was another great purchase and value for money buy – it comes with 3 front mounted 120mm fans and an RGB exhaust – along with the AIO mounted and an additional exhaust for the top of the case.
Really impressed with the cooling “Gungy” achieves, around 57 degrees Celsius for the CPU under load, and the GPU – well – that bad boy runs hot regardless of what you do. I do have the ability to push that air out into the office – making it a bit warm I must add, great in the winter, not so great in the summer (floor standing fan at the ready). We’ll still install 2 additional exhaust fans at the top of the case to get that airflow a little better (now complete!), or invest in a 360mm radiator option to further improve the CPU cooling and a 140mm fan for the exhaust out the back – watch this space.
The mothership
The motherboard is decent, what I would expect from the ROG brand, I feel it could offer a few more features as an established gaming motherboard and ASUS have a long way to come with their software – GPU Tweak is extremely awful and required an uninstall. I know use MSI Afterburner for GPU overclocks and benching.
RAMmin’
The RAM is stable at 3200Mhz and delivers what I need to at this moment in time. We’ll look at the new processor releases in due course and see what those can do – consistently – in the future. The EVO’s are without a doubt a great purchase, stable, reliable and speed that delivers. I’ll be sticking with these and this brand for a while I think (great gear!)
PS. You
Power Supply – The Corsair HX1200 was a bit of an accident, as I only really needed the 1000W version, an oops-basket moment. Happy none the less as it delivers everyday and temperatures remain low – a good addition to your setup – allowing overclocking of your components, drawing that extra power and being consistent.
No Talkies, No Subbies
The Blue Yeti microphone is without a doubt a really welcome addition to the stream – sometimes I have to be quiet when gaming so this microphone allows me to continue to communicate without Discord struggling to pick me up or the stream being fairly unaffected. Thanks to Logitech, I managed to win this one in a competition 🙂
Hear them damn Footsteps!
Sennheiser GSP 350’s are really great all rounders – probably not the best for gaming as they deliver a large amount of bass which doesn’t help identifying those higher frequencies in game, but generally all-round they are great for watching YouTube – identifying those tracks for the video releases – and giving a great sound experience alongside a purchase of Dolby Atmos for my gaming PC.
Great Gear – The Gamer
Case
MSI Gungnir 100
Processor (CPU)
Ryzen 9 3900x
Motherboard
ASUS Rog CrossFire Hero VIII
Memory (RAM)
32GB Hyper X 3200Mhz
Graphics Card
ASUS ROG Strix GeForce RTX 2080 Ti OC Edition 11 GB Graphic Card
M.2
Samsung EVO 970 – 1TB
Samsung EVO 970 – 512GB
Power Supply
Corsair CP-9020070-UK Professional Platinum Series 1200 W ATX/EPS
Processor Cooling
Corsair H80i V2 AIO
Wireless/Wired Networking
WIRELESS 802.11 AC1200 867Mbps 5GHz 300Mbps 2.4GHz PCI-E CARD
Microphone
Blue Yeti X Pro USB Microphone
Gaming Headset
Sennheiser GSP 350
Streaming seemed so simple!
If you are looking to capture your gaming at decent FPS – don’t use the HD60 Pro – its really disappointing to set yourself up with a great gaming PC and then fail on the delivery of content with a sub-par card. I bought the HD60 Pro – realised it was affecting my frames in game whenever I attempted to capture and put a real sour taste in my mouth. A few months later the 4k60 Pro arrived and the smile returned as we captured 1440p at 144hz 🙂 – Think about what you need from your equipment, don’t scrimp on the outputs, as that is what you are promoting. Act quality – be quality – deliver quality
The streaming PC has been cobbled together by a number of ‘redundant’ components as my first PC was upgraded, I’ve added a few extras and upgraded a couple of components from the original purchases as I wasn’t getting some of the features my setup demanded. Mainly the Capture Card.
Great gear – The Streamer
The streaming PC has been cobbled together by a number of ‘redundant’ components as my first PC was upgraded, I’ve added a few extras and upgraded a couple of components from the original purchases as I wasn’t getting some of the features my setup demanded. Mainly the Capture Card.
Case
Silencio S600 Silent MIDI Tower
Processor (CPU)
Intel i7-8700K
Motherboard
ASUS Prime Z390-P
Memory (RAM)
32GB Corsair Vengence LPX DDR4
Graphics Card
Zotac 1070Ti
SSD
Samsung EVO 970 M.2 – 512GB
Kingston M.2 – 256GB
Western Digital – 1TB
Western Digital – 1TB
Adata SSD – 256GB
Power Supply
Corsair 650W
Processor Cooling
Coolermaster MasterLiquid Lite 120
Sound Card
ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HD AUDIO
Microphone
Blue Yeti X Pro USB Microphone
Audio Passthrough
Voicemeeter Potato
Stream Tools
Capture Card – Elgato 4k60 Mk2
Elgato StreamDeck XL
Logitech C922 Pro
Logitech C920 Pro
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