CyberpowerPC may have been following the rest of the pack with the release of its Archus 34 AIO gaming PC (it seems like everyone has one of those nowadays), but the company also debuted a new system at CES that seemed unique to the current market. The ProStreamer is two PCs in one: a dedicated mini-ITX streaming system and a high-performance micro-ATX gaming rig in one chassis using one power supply (and one water loop if you desire).
The ProStreamer is aimed at amateur and professional streamers and is intended to be a solution to a problem. The company explained that most professional streamers use a dedicated streaming system due to heavy CPU usage from some games and many video encoding devices. Streaming from the same system often results in reduced performance, so serious streamers started buying large and powerful companions rigs that were dedicated to their game-broadcasting workloads. CyberpowerPC wanted to make streaming easy and affordable to the masses by combining a high-performance gaming PC and a dedicated streaming system into a single, preconfigured package.
The company also sort of let the cat out of the bag concerning streaming system hardware requirements – streaming doesn’t require extreme graphics configurations or high memory capacities in order to be effective. It relies primarily on the host processor. Delegating that workload to a dedicated system makes for a much smoother gaming experience and stream quality.
The ProStreamer’s mini-ITX PC can be configured with an Intel Core i3-6100, i5-6500 or i7-6700 processor, but that is the only configurable option in the streaming system. An H110 chipset, a 128 GB SSD, an Avermedia capture card and 8 GB of DDR4-2133 are non-negotiable features of the streaming half of the rig.
However, even minimally equipped with a Core i3 processor, Cyberpower PC believes the streaming component of the ProStreamer features adequate horsepower to produce lag-free broadcasting (if you have equally-sufficient broadband Internet). In addition, the company said that the ProStreamer is ready to start streaming to services such as Twitch or YouTube Games right out of the box and is preloaded with OBS and XSPLIT.
Here are the three baseline configurations for Cyberpower PC’s ProStreamer-series gaming PCs:
| Model | Pro Streaming I100 | Pro Streaming I200 | Pro Streaming I300 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Processor (mini-ITX system) | Intel Core i3-6100 | Intel Core i5-6500 | Intel Core i7-6700 |
| Processor (micro-ATX system) | Intel Core i5-6600K | Intel Core i7-6700K | Intel Core i7-5820K |
| Motherboard | GIGABYTE GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 | GIGABYTE GA-Z170MX-Gaming 5 | GIGABYTE G1 Gaming X99M-Gaming 5 |
| Memory | 16GB DDR4-2800 | 16GB DDR4-2800 | 32GB DDR4-2400 |
| Graphics | Nvidia GeForce GTX 970 4GB | Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 4GB | Nvidia GeForce GTX 980 Ti 6GB |
| Storage | 128GB SanDisk Z400S SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM HDD | 256GB SanDisk Z400S SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM HDD | 256GB SanDisk Z400S SSD, 2TB 7200 RPM HDD |
| Power Supply | Corsair CS850M | Corsair RM1000i | Corsair RM1000i |
| Cooling | Asetek 550LC Liquid Cooling CPU Cooler | ||
| Price | $1899 | $2635 | $3119 |
The micro ATX PC is much more customizable than the mini-ITX streaming system; the gaming rig can be configured with Intel Z170 or X99 chipsets, increased memory and storage capacities and speeds, multiple graphics cards (including closed-loop liquid cooled GPUs), custom water cooling loops, LED fans and custom SLI bridges (from EVGA and MSI). The micro-ATX system can be the beast of your dreams (if you have the cash flow) or the budget build you need to get into the streaming game.
At its core, CyberpowerPC’s ProStreamer series is nothing more than a Phanteks Mini XL dual-system case preconfigured with a streaming PC and a gaming rig. A determined DIY enthusiast could attempt to recreate the ProStreamer with their own hand-picked parts, but CyberpowerPC seems to be one of the only companies even offering to build a dual-system streaming solution, and not everyone who streams is a seasoned system builder. The product solves a particular problem for a particular market segment, albeit a still fairly untested one.
The ProStreamer seems like it could either be the next big thing or the next big fad, and CyberpowerPC may be the first to test the two-in-one streaming system waters. With the popularity of streaming and eSports rising, it may yet pay off.
The ProStreamer series is available now at CyberpowerPC’s website, and it starts at a price of $1,899.
Derek Forrest is an Associate Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware and Tom’s IT Pro. Follow Derek Forrest on Twitter. Follow us on Facebook, Google+, RSS, Twitter and YouTube.
