imasauce

Honorable
Jan 6, 2013
11
0
10,510
I currently have an AM3+ Mobo; I was wondering if I should grab an FX-8350 and pair it with a HD 7970 Vapor-X, or simply do an entire new Mobo + CPU combo. I'm dead set on the 7970, but I don't want to bottle neck it with my current setup.

I plan on playing some games, but I'll also be streaming!(This is a must) My 980 BE just isn't capable of streaming at the settings I want without getting a significant performance drop.

I could also wait until June/July and spend $2000 on an entire new build.

Any suggestions?

 

imasauce

Honorable
Jan 6, 2013
11
0
10,510



Think the FX 8350 will allow me to stream at 1080p while gaming? I will be OC'ing.
 


Your streaming the game itself? Ok.

The 8350 does seem well suited for this task. Though I have zero experience actually doing it.
 

popatim

Titan
Moderator
Nope, not without a dedicate capture or encoder card. You're into the software only streaming I mentioned and at 1080 your looking at very expensive i7 processors to game at 1080 and encode at 1080. You're better option is the dedicated capture card. Thought to give some credit to AMD the 8350 could handle some games and encoding at the same time just not games like BF3 multiplayer.
 



This, even on the highest end Intel platforms, encoding hits FPS hard if we accept that Intel is the more efficient architecture and takes hits you can assume that AMD will take the same hit. Discrete capture device is the route to go, most youtubers do that.

 

imasauce

Honorable
Jan 6, 2013
11
0
10,510
I appreciate the replies, any capture/encoding cards that you could recommend? How much do capture cards actually help? I've looked at quality encoding cards and most of the high-end cards are pretty damn expensive. I have seen some capture cards sell for cheaper, but I'm wondering if it's an actual worth while purchase or simply going to be a slight increase in performance. It doesn't seem that using OBS I take a big hit when i'm just capturing, but when I actually begin to stream/encode is when I see the CPU usage spike.

If a CC is capable of shaving off even 10% of the CPU usage it would be a worth-while investment.

Thanks for all the help!