So you’ve decided that you want to start streaming. You want to work from the comfort of your room, doing what you love most and interacting with people all over the world. To become successful and make it your primary income source should be excellent motivation to put in a concerted effort. Which is something you’re going to need to do considering more people than ever are trying to get into live streaming. However, many might be getting discouraged by the complexity of a full streaming setup as they realize it takes a lot more than just a beefy PC.
The point we’re trying to make is that you don’t need a huge budget to get into streaming, but you will need to invest some time and money to customize your live streaming experience and show yourself more professionally to your viewers. You do not require a super high-end PC, a top of the line microphone or a DSLR camera to start broadcasting. If anything, it’s a smart move to skip such expensive things if you don’t have them already and focus on getting into streaming as quickly as possible!
There’s a limit to what reading about streaming on the internet can do for you. Experience is critical here. If you don’t start streaming as soon as possible with the minimum requirements you can afford, you’re losing valuable time and enthusiasm. Now is the time to decide whether this is a medium you want to try, instead of concentrating on getting the best kit. Run a few test streams and determine whether you like all that streaming involves, from controlling all the devices, joining in the discussion, experiencing all the tension of going online, and becoming a personality. If you’re unlucky and things don’t work out, at least you’re not sitting on gear worth thousands of dollars that would otherwise accumulate dust.
We’re here to portray to readers our idea of what comprises a full streaming setup. We’re also very aware that things like this quickly become time and wallet consuming. Thus, in true PremiumBuilds fashion, we’ll mainly focus on value and performance by only recommending what we think is of utmost importance; you’re always welcome to customize further and splurge! If you’re serious about streaming, here’s our guide to the key items you’re going to need right now to create the streaming rig of your dreams.
The Ultimate Streaming Setup: What you’ll need.
1. A sufficiently strong internet service
Believe it or not, before any other hardware to talk, you’ll need to make sure that your internet speed allows enough bitrate for your favorite streaming service to hit the most popular broadcasting resolution and frame rate. All other variables aside, people will be compelled to stick with your stream if the visual and sound quality is pleasing to them, so a good internet connection needs to be the first step on your checklist.
A 100 MB/s download and upload internet connection should be an excellent starting point. You’ll be able to stream even to YouTube’s 40K 60 FPS broadcasts comfortably, and if you’re looking for a steady 1080p 60 FPS Twitch experience, then you’ll also have a lot of bandwidth left for other activities during the stream. Bear in mind that it’s great to have a buffer in your promised internet speeds since you can still eat through your upload space for the other computers on your network. A 100 MB/s connection should be very accessible price-wise everywhere globally, which is why we recommend it if a 1 GB/s connection is still expensive in your country.
Suppose you’re a little north of 100MB/s, fantastic! If not, to have your bitrate lower than your upload speed, you’re going to have to make compromises to your consistency settings, which will involve downloading or lowering the bitrate to as little as 1MB/s at 480p. While far from optimal, it may be appropriate to test the waters to start. Consider changing your broadband package with an emphasis on increased upload speed until you have a grip on downloading and intend to go forward. That said, we understand that choices might be restrictive in your region. Know at least what kind of upload rates you get and configure your stream to that!
2. Broadcasting software
For the world to see your beautiful face, you’ll need broadcasting tools to prepare your footage to go live. Since it’s (FOSS) free and open-source software, we prescribe OBS at all times since it has strong backing from companies such as Twitch and Nvidia. We won’t be getting too much into the actual stream settings considering how dependant they are on your specific network capabilities and setup. Still, there are many excellent resources and videos on YouTube, like the “Stream Doctor,” Harris over at Alpha Gaming. They have tons of content on specific broadcast software settings, A/V, and networking specifically for new streamers looking to become the next big thing.
Now even though we highly suggest OBS, other options include Streamlabs OBS, a mainline OBS fork with built-in alerts and overlays from Streamlabs, or XSplit with some additional features, but it charges a subscription. You can also try utilizing Twitch Studio, built predominantly with fresh streamers in mind, and completely free. There’s no immediate reason to waste cash at this point on streaming apps; there are other far more important places to spend parts of your budget to get you up and running!
3. Microphone and AMP
- 16bit / 48khz recording sampling rates
- Stereo, Omnidirectional, Cardioid and Bidirectional polar patterns
- 20Hz–20kHz frequency response
In your streaming toolkit, besides your sparkling personality (or persona ), the microphone is your single most essential piece of equipment. Your voice and the words you say go a long way to turning your stream from a gameplay feed to something you and your viewers can relate bond over. You’re going to have to get comfortable using a mic and continuously speaking into it; the sooner you get comfortable finding your voice, tone, and communication style, the better for your popularity and your viewers. Microphones could potentially cost thousands of dollars at the top end with some insanely high build quality and cutting edge noise cancellation technologies. If you are on a strict budget, start with what you have on hand unless your microphone causes a lot of distortion or constant ringing. Rest assured, microphones included with most gaming headsets are good enough for a streamer that’s just starting. Whether your mic’s mounted to your head, your desktop, or in your webcam; it’s necessary to get comfortable being on the air if you want to be a booming voice.
Our microphone recommendation for Streaming, the HyperX Quadcast
The HyperX Quadcast is a very intriguing option and one that punches well above its price point. Its snazzy style and the amount of functionality it packs into its compact, modern frame makes it a great option, especially for those who prefer a real gamer aesthetic. It might just be the only microphone you need for your streaming journey.
Thanks to the various interface options you will usually have to pay extra for, the HyperX Quadcast is instantly appealing. It comes with a shock mount integrated into its shell, a pop shield installed within its core, and a lovely robust stand to support it on your desk. You can even install it with a wall or monitor mount arm to better control its position and orientation.
This mic has four polar patterns, rendering it handy for streaming, voice-overs, podcasting, or any other way you may want to integrate Audio streams into your broadcast. The recording efficiency is outstanding, and coupled with the built-in pop protector and the anti-vibration shock mount, this device holds the unwanted noise at bay.
Every part of this microphone is cleverly designed for simple access; quiet features, gain controls, and touch to mute surfaces make it easy to adjust your sound without thumps, clicks and knocks altering your recording or live stream.
The Quadcast is full of kit and available at a reasonable price. If it suits your taste, then this bright beacon microphone that is rendered desirable by its aesthetics and impressive sound accuracy might just be the best choice for your upcoming streaming setup!
Our AMP recommendation for Streaming, the Go XLR Mini
The Go XLR Mini is a hybrid piece of gear that makes mixing on the fly a breeze with its four faders for audio modulation, mute buttons, and censorship buttons to keep your broadcast easily accessible and customizable. This device guarantees excellent audio quality on the fly thanks to its dedicated optical input and MIDAS preamp XLR input. Four 3.5 mm ports for line-in and line-out, mic in and headphone out are also notable features of the Go XLR Mini. One factor that makes this a must-buy for live streamers is that what you hear is the exact stream outputted to OBS or your favorite streaming site, letting you precisely listen to what your viewers are hearing. No playing around with the stream to figure out what is wrong or what is right or why is there no audio at all on it!
4. Camera: Viewers will want to see your reactions and get to know you better
Are you camera shy? We get it, not everyone is prepared to become a streaming superstar, but your portrait, actions, gestures, and reactions are so important to your audience. Since the inception of live streaming, cameras became a mandatory feature on streaming setups as people always want to see the person behind the screen. You can be gaming, vlogging, cooking, or just mowing your backyard. Regardless of the content, people want to see your reactions to hype times, the authenticity in your expression when you tell a serious story, and all the exciting decorations in your streaming space. Sometimes, even your undeniably good looks. Without a video of yourself somewhere on the screen, success would be even more challenging and would require you to compensate by being impeccable on your voice acting heavily.
If you are just entering the streaming world, there may be no need to splurge a huge amount of money on a DSLR or mirrorless camera. In the short term, while you figure it out and get comfortable with streaming, you can use what you have now; your notebook’s camera or any old webcam you got around will do for the first few days or weeks. Construct your virtual streaming environment and build onto that!
Using your smartphone as a streaming camera is another potential option. This choice would be more CPU intensive, but it will allow you to use a great camera that you already have for free. If you are going this route, then there are a few excellent software pieces that will allow you to capture video streams from your smartphone and use them in combination with your other broadcast sources. We recommend the Elgato Screen Link, but there are various ways for this to work.
We are assuming your streaming setup will be indoors, and for that, we have two great recommendations at different price points.
Best Budget Webcam for Streaming: The $70 Logitech C920
The Logitech C920 is undoubtedly one of the most popular webcams on the market today; you might also want to check out their updated version of it, the C920S. It’s easy to set up through a USB connection, and you can start compositing your face onto the stream for just $70. We like it very much thanks to how simple it is, and its performance didn’t let us down. If you plan on going the famous route of having your face overlaying the stream on the side, then the Logitech c920 is the best entry-level webcam out there.
Characteristics:
- Native 1080p (Full HD) capabilities
- Good autofocus and light correction in harsh conditions
- Stereo audio with dual mics (even though you’ll use a microphone for your voice input)
- Compatible with tripods
- 78° Diagonal Field of View
- Its glass lens allows for crisper and video quality when compared to other plastic lenses.
Best Overall Webcam for Streaming: The $200 Logitech BRIO Webcam
The Logitech BRIO offers the most polished look that you will receive from a webcam device. You get a camera with a high dynamic range for a fair value price of $200, ensuring the colors and lights are accurate, even in darkness and harsh lighting situations. It has good stabilization and changes exposure and contrast dynamically to compensate for light and backlighting. If paired with a good lighting source, the difference between this device and a professional DSLR is hardly noticeable. You’re only able to record in 4k (think YouTube videos or announcements based on your Twitch channel), but its 1080p streaming performance is still excellent.
Characteristics:
- 1080p60 native streaming resolution
- Great integration with broadcasting software
- 90° Field of View
- 5x Digital Zoom
- Comes with an included Clip and Tripod Mount
- Clear, crisp, and vibrant image
- Great autofocus
5. Lighting (Optional but pretty necessary)
If you are going to use a camera, lighting is incredibly important if you want that professional look. Without sunlight, even incredible cameras will look grainy and have a hard time focusing; in other words, the image will seem inconsistent, and the money you spent on a good camera will seem not a good investment. To begin with, you don’t need a costly lamp either. Simply opening up a window and streaming will function wonderfully throughout the day. You can get away with some artificial lighting through the night, but it will never match a carefully set up lighting area.
Look for what kind of lamps you have lying around if your budget doesn’t allow for lighting expenses. Heck, you could even do a DIY! Basically, for those just beginning out, any light is significantly better than zero lights. Your picture will be more consistent and, when correctly lit, suffer from fewer frame drops and grain. If you are determined to have excellent lighting from the get-go and are ready for the investment, then certain products on the market will help with professional lighting your setup.
The Elgato Key Light Air lighting panels
If your lighting is all over the place, there’s no sense in wasting your budget on a great camera that will perform poorly. Adequate lighting means that the stream has a precise webcam feed that looks professional and lets viewers see what’s going on at all times. Moreover, the best quality image can help you heaps when going for a green screen style feed as the software behind it will have a much easier time separating the background from the back wall.
A perfect option is Elgato’s Key Light Air LED panels. These are precisely engineered compact light sources that can max out at 1400 lumens and accommodate a full cool to hot color spectrum from 2,900 to 7000 Kelvin. Better still, you can control their behavior from your PC, from the app on your phone or an Elgato Stream Deck (which we’ll talk about it in a moment). With a tiltable head and height adjustable pole, it lets you quickly bring them into the correct position, no matter what you’re doing. They’re quick to set up, easy to handle, adjustable, and don’t blind you thanks to the several layers of diffusers; these ensure that when you stream, you have a pleasant and gentle light on your face that does not tire you. It will be like you’re working in natural daylight!
After all, if your face is bathed in colors from your phone and a dim light elsewhere in the room, things will get dirty during the darker scenes. Make sure to adjust your cameras manually to fit better with your lighting setup; a few minutes of trial and error will go a long way!
6. Capture card: The Elgato HD60 S
A high-quality capture card is one of the significant investments you’ll need to make if you don’t have one already. The capture card lets you transfer your HDMI signal through USB to your PC. The new game capture unit from Elgato, the HD60 S ($179.99), uses the unencrypted HDMI video signal up to 1080p at 60 frames per second, enabling you to record it to your computer or stream it to the internet. It is intended for gamers who want to broadcast their games on platforms such as Twitch or post videos to YouTube sites. Its USB 3.0 connectivity and video processing are quick enough to enable you to play through your capture program instead of depending on a video signal to move through. It is exceptionally functional and accurate, and we’re recommending it to everyone who wants to mess around with their broadcast, not just stream their screen.
The Elgato Game Capture HD60 S is a lightweight, capable game capture system for streaming and recording your easy to set up and use games. 1080p60 content can be managed with ease and be used for both content pass through to your TV or live video on your PC. A lack of traditional or analog video choices is the only real drawback, but it has become a ubiquitous feature of HDMI capture devices. Suppose you’re trying to capture or broadcast your games with much more freedom and capacity than your PC’s streaming capabilities alone. In that case, you can pay some careful attention to the HD60 S. It is a valuable and reliable gaming streaming and recording platform.
7. Green Screen: The Elgato collapsible green screen
If you already made up your mind on a decent camera and ample illumination, then a green screen is the reasonable next move – with our recommended Green Screen being the Elgato Green Screen. This is something you do to cover the mess in your space or to improve the harsh background conditions for the sake of your camera image and focusing quality.
You can use a Chroma Key Filter with a green screen to make everything green transparent and, therefore, clearly show you the chair and everything else you choose to bring between you and the green wall behind you. It can help many specific effects and actions that you may want to improvise during streaming. The Elgato collapsible green screen can be easily stored or moved, and it essentially creates a small streaming room without much effort; the viewer doesn’t need to know or focus on other items in your room.
Green screens may typically be a bit of a faff since you need to have the illumination correct and make sure that the green screen panel is crease-free for the best results. The collapsible green screen from Elgato is a perfect option. It’s massive, but it can be folded back into a heavy base that can be held while it is not in service, out of the way. This green screen style ensures that you do not have to think about pinning up a content screen or doing anything dramatic, like painting a wall.
It’s tall enough to stand in front of and wide enough sufficient to fill the view of your frame while still robust and robust. Convenience is our favorite aspect of this piece of equipment because it’s so easy to set it up or take it away when you’re done streaming and need the extra space in your room.
8. A gaming headset
A headset for gaming is almost necessary. You don’t want to be gaming on speakers and allowing up all the sound from your mic to be pushed into your broadcast. A good headset will often make you look even better and keep things interesting with your chat and listeners. If you don’t have a separate microphone already, a good pair of headphones can be a pleasant and cheaper solution for your broadcast’s voice aspect. Many current headsets include a decent microphone, so if you don’t want a dedicated
microphone system yet, it’s an excellent choice.
Best Gaming Headset for Streaming: The Steelseries Arctis 1 Wireless Headset
If you’re the kind of gamer who loves playing on a multitude of different computers, then you could find the wireless Steelseries Arctis 1 extremely attractive. Its a portable headset for gaming that not only fits on a PC but is also compatible with your computer, console, or Nintendo Switch. You get all this flexibility with a single pair of headphones, plus the Arctis’ sound range is rich for such a fantastic price.
This wireless headset has lots of connectivity possibilities. You can either plug it in via Micro-USB (which also doubles as the charging cable) for PC gaming or use the wireless USB-C ultra-low latency dongle. The same dongle fits into tablets, Android smartphones, the Nintendo Switch, and even the upcoming PS5 and Xbox Series X (via an accompanying connector cable). There’s even a 3.5 mm socket for other gadgets that you may use for your entertainment means.
A detachable microphone, mute mic button, and volume controls on the left ear cup are also included in this headset’s feature set. The power button also serves as a key for media access, a single click for audio play/pause, double press for skipping, triple press for rewind. It is very smartly engineered for ease of use. This headset also sounds fantastic in the game and on calls thanks to its crisp audio. We’ve tested a variety of different games, and it’s surprisingly powerful. Its integrated microphone does background noise mitigation, but a slight amount of ambient pollution appears to be picked up. Hence, we still advise you to use the microphones we’ve recommended earlier for truly professional results.
It’s a relatively inexpensive headset that’s well worth considering, easy to use, and feature-packed. Steelseries is a massive name in this industry and if you want a headset that can attach to many different devices, has a decent battery life, and powerful audio, then this is pretty much it!
9. Comfy Chair: You will likely be sitting for many hours at a time so that a comfy chair will go a long mile
If you are serious about streaming and it all goes well, you’ll want an excellent chair to entertain your viewers for many hours comfortably. To ensure you can keep going without getting back pain or fatigue, it is indeed pretty necessary to have some decent seating. If you are using a green screen, gaming chairs will also be captured in the frame, so you want yours to be snazzy enough to make a good impression on stream. If you are sitting on a wooden chair or a stool, then your body might hate the extended hours on stream. If this makes sense for you and is willing to invest in ample seating, then we have a good recommendation for you!
Recommended Gaming Chair for Streamers: The Secretlab 2020 Titan ($399)
Since they are built to appeal to various body sizes, Secretlab’s chairs come in three distinct versions. The Omega, Titan, and Titan XL variants cater to anybody size from the lightest to larger people; for us, the middle ground Secretlab Titan is a great sweet spot. For various factors, the Titan is a great pick thanks to its incredible building quality, smooth NAPA leather, and SoftWeave cloth. Multiple color options and combinations mean that you can customize it to match a theme or, better, to your heart’s desire. We were impressed by this chair’s exquisite stitching, quality fabrics, and superb lumbar support.
Its 4D armrests offer plenty of adjustment and can easily tilt and rotate to any angle suitable for any streaming conditions. The head pillow used is also insanely soft. It’s a very soft comfort memory cushion cleverly filled with soothing gel to hold your head secure and relaxed in your seat as it encourages good eating habits. Little additional details make this chair perfect for us as its design language screams premium. The 5-year warranty is also icing on the cake, and you can be sure this chair won’t get unstable or begin screeching just in a few months of use.
Its 4D armrests offer plenty of adjustment and can easily tilt and rotate to any angle suitable for any streaming conditions. The head pillow used is also insanely soft. It’s a very soft comfort memory cushion cleverly filled with soothing gel to hold your head secure and relaxed in your seat as it encourages good eating habits. Little additional details make this chair perfect for us as its design language screams premium. The 5-year warranty is also icing on the cake, and you can be sure this chair won’t get unstable or begin screeching just in a few months of use.
10. Adequate and easily accessible streaming controls
Once you have mastered the fundamentals of streaming, you will quickly want to spice things up by including alerts, sequences, changes, emotes, and all kinds of other items to keep the viewers amused. You may also be delighted to know that you can make all this work far more easily than you may think, without Alt-Tabbing out of the game or having to mess with the broadcasting software or app commands manually. It can be tough to realize how easily a stream deck can improve your streaming experience before actually using one.
Best Stream Deck: The Elgato Stream Deck
The Elgato Stream Deck is a tiny control box that connects with your PC and helps you allocate various shortcuts to the adjustable LCD buttons that fill the deck’s front. With a little bit of tinkering and adjusting for your needs, you will shortly start using these buttons to control functions such as stream starts, pauses, highlights, or even elements on your broadcast.
Flipping between scenes, playing videos, controlling chat, or even interacting with your other gear such as the camera, lights, or microphone has never been easier. Thanks to its multi-action buttons, all the settings and bling you may want to adjust on the fly are made easy with the 15 available buttons. For example, you can bind a switch to turn on the lights, camera, OBS, and Discord. This way, you’ll never have to do this ever again manually.
With many other variants starting from light and thin six-button Stream Deck Mini to a vast 32 button Stream Deck XL, there’s a Stream Deck for everyone!
11. Finally, you will need a high-performance PC; the heart of your streaming setup
What’s an elaborate lighting setup or an excellent streaming deck without someplace to plug them in? Here at PremiumBuilds, we specialize in giving our users the absolute best performance for their money. Those flashy pre-built computers you may have seen in advertisements or low effort lists from sponsored sources? You may as well forget about those because they almost always disappoint in crucial areas and cost well over the actual price of the components. Our system recommendations are drafted by people with great expertise who have built their PCs and have gone through the process countless times. The systems you are getting from us are lists that we would use for our rigs.
It doesn’t matter if you’re an experienced builder or someone willing to build their computer from scratch for the first time; we’ll take the absolute most accessible route to provide you with very well researched and compatible components that will take your streaming experience to the next level. A gaming and streaming PC will need both CPU and GPU horsepower to function correctly in the most intense situations. We need to care about bottlenecks and carefully balance the processing power with the graphical rendering power. Particular emphasis needs to be put on the CPU performance since we will be building a streaming PC where every frame will pass through the processor; it needs to handle all the stress you’re going to put on it for every little effect, overlay, or transition. The GPU is also vital for actually providing excellent gaming performance and accelerate the stream encoding process.
Without further ado, let’s get into the parts list and component descriptions!
Recommended Streaming PC Build – The Parts List
CPU: The Ryzen 9 3900X
We’ve been previously talking about how important a suitable CPU is for a streaming setup. When just gaming, you’ll likely be using your processor resources for that game alone, and nothing else will disturb that. Because of this, six-core CPUs are still the most popular choice for people who just want to game—introducing the 12 core 24 threads Ryzen 9 3900X, an excellent processor selection for streamers and content creators alike. It has enough horsepower to handle a gaming session while streaming without breaking a sweat; it’s tough to max out this CPU. We bet you’ll never be able to do it without some heavy rendering added on top of gaming streaming. And because it’s built on a cutting edge 7nm fabrication process, it stays cool and silent even during heavy utilization.
We’re fortunate to be living in a time where we can get such a capable processor for a little over $400. Not so long ago, we would be forced to splurge upwards of $1500 on such a CPU or have to resort to two PC setups, one for gaming and one for streaming. The 3900X takes it to the next level, and it might just be the only CPU you’ll need for your streaming journey, and that’s for many years to come.
You can do everything with the 3900X from efficiently powering through even the most intensive game scenes thanks to its stellar single-core performance coming from its high 4.4GHz clock speed and class-leading IPC (instructions per clock), to streaming in parallel with high quality presets and using the footage generated by your broadcast to edit and render high-quality videos for your YouTube channel. On a side note, you can get away with the eight-core Ryzen 7 3700X, but you might just cut it too close if you plan on offering your viewers the best stream presets and quality. The ~$430 Ryzen nine 3900X easily deserves its money, and its value for a content creator is undeniable.
It may not hold the crown for the fastest FPS numbers in pure gaming (it’s within 5% of the best), but when it comes to gaming and streaming at the same time, few CPUs handle that heavy load like the 3900X. If we were to go with a similarly priced Intel Core i7 10700K or an Intel Core i9 9900K, those CPUs would rapidly lose their gaming performance lead due to the impact game streaming has on them; the 3900X isn’t affected that much thanks to its additional four cores and eight threads. In our experience, it never dropped frames on the highest bitrates making it a truly smooth experience for your viewers.
We got the CPU part sorted out and explained; let’s go ahead and discuss what CPU cooler and motherboard we’ll be pairing this processor with!
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-U12S SE-AM4
The Noctua NH-U12S is an excellent air cooler and a great pairing with the Ryzen 9 3900X. In terms of pure cooling efficiency, it may not be the greatest, but it’s high up there, and its silent operation is a great selling point. The cooler is brilliant for its performance on both stock and overclocked clock speeds, performing exceptionally well against far more costly rivals. When you look at the noise, it makes, or the lack thereof, the fact that it works as well as it does is astonishing. This cooler is quiet for the most part. The NH-U12S is the right option if you care about microphone sound quality during streaming as the NH-U12S will never be louder than your case fans. Keeping noise levels down is imperative for a streaming setup since you’d never want to annoy people with ambient sounds besides those you intend for them to hear.
As another fan improves the cooling power of the NH-U12S much further, the option to install a second fan to boost cooling efficiency is also an excellent option to have. Best of all, with a dual-fan, noise levels barely rise, rising by only 1-2 dBA at most. Noctua is famous for its sturdy and straightforward way of mounting hardware; it makes it quick to build, and the excellent design also adds additional value to this component. The only way to fully appreciate the difference between a Noctua NH-U12S and its competition is to keep the cooler in your hands and see it for yourself. It may sound as we’re sponsored, but we can pretty much guarantee you’ll be using a Noctua cooler for the rest of your builds.
Motherboard: Asus TUF GAMING X570-PLUS (WI-FI)
Although the ASUS TUF Gaming X570-Plus (WiFi) might not be a flagship giant of a motherboard, functionality and features are not missing. Extra features have been introduced by ASUS to give this a gamer vibe, without including anything that you don’t need and thus bumping up the price. You may be inclined to go out and buy a much more expensive X570 motherboard for the Ryzen 9 3900X in hopes of better performance or far better features. Still, the truth is, the TUF Gaming X570 WiFi has an excellent value and everything that you would need for successfully putting together your streaming setup. Its PCIe 4.0 technology granted by AMD’s X570 chipset future proofs the motherboard, and its I/O is sufficient for additional devices you may want to connect to your PC. Plus, the VRM and cooling systems are capable enough to allow for extended hard usage or overclocking. Memory support has given us no issues.
This motherboard scores similarly to other more expensive motherboards in synthetic benchmarks like 3DMark. Its also a motherboard that has been repeatedly praised for its consistent performance in games, proving that you don’t need north of $300 motherboard for a high-end desktop system to extract the most performance from your other components.
ASUS didn’t pack everything they can with this motherboard, but there’s no single feature that we feel is missing for the price. Plus, the motherboard has surprisingly good audio thanks to the excellent Japanese capacitors and S1200A chipset; bonus points for your streaming experience. You can go ahead and choose other more expensive motherboards if you need more superior features but consider the TUF Gaming as its an overall excellent package.
Graphics Card: RTX 3070
Nvidia’s latest launch included the RTX 3070, a competitor in the gaming graphics sector’s mid-high end sector. It will be available during October and is advertised as a graphics card that will match the performance of RTX 2080 Ti, which is the top-end GPU from one generation ago. We have no benchmarks of the RTX 3070 yet, but if we were to believe Nvidia’s claims, this would be a significant performance leap, a $499 card that can give you the performance of an $1199 GPU is nothing to slouch at. The 3070 will likely be okay in 4K and excellent in 1440p. It’s based on the GA104 die; it’s built on Samsung’s latest 8nm process, features hardware-accelerated ray tracing, and variable rate shading. In other words, it will be able to easily handle any popular Twitch game that you might want to get into, and it’s capable of accelerating the streaming performance by taking over some of the encoding overhead from the CPU.
The power connector for this GPU has been redesigned for this generation. The majority of PSU manufacturers will include the adapter needed for the RTX 3070; Nvidia also will, in the RTX 3070 package, so PSU compatibility will not be an issue. It draws power from a 1 x 12 pin connector with power draw ratings of up to 220 W. Display outputs include 1 x HDMI, 3 x DisplayPort, and 1 x USB-C on some models.
This card supports and prefers PCI Express 4.0 interfaces on motherboards like the B550 and X570 chipsets. AMD offers support for PCIe on their AM4 socket, and you will be able to fully take advantage of that with our CPU and motherboard of choice. It is unknown yet if the difference between PCIe 3.0 and PCIe 4.0 will affect performance, but early benchmarks will surely test this. What’s important to know is that if it affects performance in any way, you will be covered anyways. Available October 15th, 2020, the RTX 3070 is truly a step forward in price/performance, equaling the RTX 2080Ti for a fraction of the price. It will come in both Founder’s Edition and AIB models, but availability won’t be excellent, especially at launch.
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 32 GB (2 x 16 GB) DDR4-3600 CL16
If you could get away with a 16GB memory kit on gaming-focused systems, a streaming PC needs many more resources to function correctly and with no freezes caused by a lack of RAM capacity. Similarly to a workstation build, your streaming PC will need to handle the applications that are necessary for the looks and feel of your broadcast; those consume system resources, especially in an encoding environment, and thus, 32GB of RAM is almost mandatory for a high end oriented and professional streaming build.
Besides the actual streaming process, a large memory capacity like 32GB will allow you to quickly process the clips you need for your other social media channels or video platforms. People with 16GB often run into issues when editing, previewing, and rendering not because of CPU or GPU speeds but because the editing software doesn’t have enough memory capacity to perform smoothly. The total we’re recommending here is a sweet spot for such a build as it can easily handle a rendering or content creation machine. Still, more specialized applications may go well over that.
This kit also has a low 8.889 memory latency thanks to its DDR4-3600 CL16 specifications. The general application and gaming performance, primarily gaming 1% lows, improves a lot for a CPU like the Ryzen 9 3900X, which loves great quality memory. If you feel like these memory kits’ stock performance is not enough, you can further tweak them by increasing voltage but know that the overclocking headroom may vary with such RAM.
We can’t stress this enough, but Dual Channel memory is also mandatory at this budget and performance level. Shy away from single DIMMs because you’ll be losing half the bandwidth of a Dual Channel memory kit, and applications will not be happy about it. If you want even more RAM for your streaming setup, 64GB or even 128GB kits are supported on the X570 motherboard chipset, and its best to achieve those capacities with 2 x 32GB or 4 x 32GB.
Storage
We will be using a very fast M.2-2280 NVME for the OS drive to give your system the speed it needs to open and multitask through any main applications in no time. The secondary SSD is a SATA drive used for other secondary applications or rapid file storage while editing or rendering any footage. In some cases, if you need a lot of extra storage for all your videos and footage, you can buy some big capacity HDDs and use them in combination with these two fast SSDs.
The Sabrent Rocket 4.0 500 GB
To leverage the availability of PCIe Gen 4 on the motherboard, we chose the Sabrent Rocket 4.0 that is compatible with Gen4 motherboards like the ones with the X570 chipset. With speeds above 4GB/s read and write, this SSD often scores higher than many other more expensive drives like Samsung’s 970 lineups. It brings a performance edge and a sense of snappiness to your system as you’ll never be forced to wait for anything to happen when you launch an application or make big transfers. Even at low queue depths, the massive performance uplift for random writes is due to a DRAM chip available as speedy temporary storage for the drive’s internal mapping tables. This drive works well, even in the most hardcore usage scenarios. The throttling aspect over long periods of utilization time is handled by a copper foil-based heat spreader with thermal dissipation; it helps the drive run at max speed four times longer than without any heat sink.
The Crucial MX500 1Tb
A prevalent device from Crucial, the MX500 1Tb assures you have enough storage over the primary NVME drive capacity. It’s still high-speed, double the capacity, and never slows down due to its DRAM cache implementation. You will be able to reliably access resources at a constant pace while rendering or accessing big files or applications. If you feel like you’ll need more storage than this, we recommend splurging towards the 2Tb version of this drive or getting some separate HDDs like we already mentioned. We can’t know your full storage needs, so we’re just recommending what most users will use for a high-end streaming setup.
PC Case: Fractal Design Meshify C
We have previously mentioned and argued about the importance of a silent build in your streaming room. You don’t want unwanted ambient noise in your room that will interfere with your microphone clarity, so we’ve chosen a case with outstanding airflow ratings to ensure your components are cooled very well. We are especially interested in creating a balanced pressure inside the case to aid the CPU cooler and GPU to have lower fan speeds; the lower the rates, the lower the decibel levels emitted by your case. The Meshify C is one of the best airflow solutions on the market thanks to its cleverly placed vents and meshes front side. The Meshify C will tidily fit the Noctua NH-U12S, the upcoming RTX 3070, and any type of cable management you plan to do. It also looks good, and its well thought for any maintenance and upgrades.
Together with the set of case fans included in our building list, you will achieve shallow levels of sound coming from your case even in the most intense gaming, streaming, or rendering situations.
PSU: EVGA SuperNOVA G1+ 650W
We have estimated the total max power that this build can pull at 450W during 100% CPU rendering and full GPU utilization, so it’s safe to say that a 650W PSU will easily handle this streaming setup with the additional headroom. And it, not any other 650W PSU; its a top tier power supply coming from EVGA, a very trustworthy company with a long history of great products and excellent customer support. The G1+ 650W is a modular power supply that allows you to use the cables that you need for the build to manage the wires better away from the front of the case. Its premium sleeved cables scream quality, and you will have an easy time setting it up and powering your components. The G1+ ranks S tier (the highest tier) in PSU ranking lists for its excellent protection against surges and excellent build quality.
Conclusion
This has been a long journey, and we thank you for still being with us. We’ve gone over the main components you need for a professional streaming setup and how they will impact your streaming experience. You can be sure about the compatibility of all the products we’ve listed here, and it’s also not mandatory that you order everything at once. We’ve also described why and how you can benefit from all the products in this full streaming build, and if you, for example, already have some of the components, you can just get the ones you don’t already have.
Starting streaming is not as hard as some people make it seem, but there’s a steep curve to becoming a professional in this business. You can refer back to this list anytime you want additional information, or anytime you have a budget on hand and upgrade the experience you are creating for your viewers. From our perspective, every product in this list is an investment since successful streamers start making a very respectable income early on, which can entirely cover the initial investment.
As a short recap, the perfect streaming setup includes a quiet room with access to stable internet and great lighting sources. A comfortable seating product like the gaming chair we’ve recommended will go a long way in assuring you won’t hate the time you spend in front of your audience. The high-end camera and microphone combination will make sure your viewers will see you and hear you without any latency or distortion issues. The powerful system in this article will be totally in charge of using the resources you’ve invested in creating and delivering the best content that you’ll be able to make creatively. In other words, the only pressure will be on you and your ideas, not the gear you have because that will get totally up to any task and load. That is a great thing to have since you won’t have bad times being bottlenecked by your gear.
With the mindset that this product list can also be our streaming rig, PremiumBuilds has created this article and buying list suited for aspiring content creators aiming for excellent performance and working conditions. We love to answer in the comments box below to address any questions or suggestions you may have!