6-core or 8-core for five-boxing and streaming

[Grail]

Hi everyone,

After a multi-year delay, I am thinking of building my new system soon, and besides five-boxing WoW, I am interested in trying my hand at streaming. I am wondering if the i5 9600K with six cores or the i7-9700k with eight cores is the way to go. Then there is the i7-8600k with six cores and twelve threads. I want to save money if possible, so if the i5 will do what I need the cores to do, I will be happy.

I did do a search on this topic but the threads I found were mostly older and I am not sure applicable.

Thanks in advance for any pointers,

-Grail

[WOWBOX40]

You dont mention what kind of resolution the games will run at, fps? Gfx settings?

It sounds like a 2 pc setup would be the best. Maybe you have a pc already: use that to stream and buy a new 6 core/12 threads or better pc to multibox on.

What kind of budget are we talking about here btw.

And how good do you want the stream to be in. 1080p 30 fps?

[Ughmahedhurtz]

If you're gonna do 1080p DX11 on the clients with a good slot-swap macro that limits the background fps to ~12-15 and sets renderscale to like 0.6, the 9600 should be enough, though I'll admit to not knowing how much impact streaming software has. I'm on a 6600K (non-OC) + 980Ti setup (configured as noted) and my CPU rarely ever exceeds ~50% total even if I'm watching Netflix.

[Grail]

Thanks for the reply WOWBOx40,

I will be happy running at 1080 or less resolution. Happy to set team at 15-20 FPS if necessary. Looking to get the 1070 if that is what you meant by gtx settings. Unfortunately I do not have a pc currently. Surviving on an ipad. Mini. Looking to spend 1100 to 1600 on the rig. And just learning about streaming, but the bottom end of good quality is fine with me as in resolution and FPS. Just would want it to be enjoyable for the viewer. Not absolutely determined to start streaming right away, So could add a second pc down the road. But wanted to know if todays processors like the ones I mentioned were capable of streaming while handing the load for five=boxing. If i assigned one core per man, leaving three cores on the i7 9700K 8 core cpu for general cpu usage and encoding and whatever else is involved in streaming, would those three cores be capable? Or is it still asking a lot for cpus in the 250 to 400 dollar price range?

On a side note, I am looking to build a m-itx system. 32 GB ram, 1070, 512 SSD, etc

[WOWBOX40]

You will need another pc if you want to stream with ok settings. You can stream on 1 pc, but you will get dips in fps. It wont be a completely fluid experience though. Not from my experience. Get the best pc you can afford and go from there.

[Grail]

Thanks Ughmyhedhutz,

That helps a lot. Looks like all three cpus have the possibility to stream, but might not do it as fluidly as I like. At least I will get to try.

Thanks also for your input WOWBOX40, i won’t worry too much about streaming right now. I guess I will learn a lot once I see what the system I build can do.

-Grail

[Kayley]

You will need another pc if you want to stream with ok settings. You can stream on 1 pc, but you will get dips in fps. It wont be a completely fluid experience though. Not from my experience. Get the best pc you can afford and go from there.

If he gets the 1070 like he mentioned and uses the on-board NVENC he would literally have a 1% fps drop. Pascal lineup can do 4k@30 fps with no real performance hit; at least using Shadowplay. OBS can be a bit of a resource hog HOWEVER when I last used it (6ish months ago) they had enabled NVFBC, so OBS captures from the front frame buffer (like shadowplay does). Meaning it's all done on the GPU/dedicated nvenc chip so there is no shuffling around to the CPU/GPU causing all that god awful fps lag.

But as WOWBOX40 mentioned.. just get the best you can afford and play around. I think you'll be happy with the results on one PC myself.

[Ughmahedhurtz]

OBS can be a bit of a resource hog HOWEVER when I last used it (6ish months ago) they had enabled NVFBC, so OBS captures from the front frame buffer (like shadowplay does). Meaning it's all done on the GPU/dedicated nvenc chip so there is no shuffling around to the CPU/GPU causing all that god awful fps lag.

That's quite interesting. I stopped messing with it a while back as it was just too much of a hog. Thanks for that tidbit.

[MiRai]

My biggest gripe about OBS is that it eats into your GPU without it even doing anything. And, no, it is not the preview window - it's never been the preview window (for me, at least). So, if you're already pushing ~80% load on the GPU while multiboxing, OBS is going to eat up the rest of that for, seemingly, no apparent reason. However, I do see that the "ghost" load has gotten better, as it looks to only eat up ~17% of my GPU just sitting there idle, when it used to eat up ~30% in older builds.


As for the CPU, it'd be a toss up between the 9700K and AMD's 2700X, as they're both very similar in performance, yet the 2700X is ~$100 cheaper. So, if you're looking to free up some budget for a better GPU, then the 2700X may be worth taking a look at, but I'd recommend an 8-core over a 6-core any day of the week if you want better multitasking capability.

[Grail]

Thanks Kayley, Ugh and MiRai, each time I read over the conversation, I get a little better idea of what might be involved. I went with the i7 8700. I am building a mini ITX in the Thermaltake Core V1 Snow ITX case; if you know the one. I wanted to have a quiet and cool rig, so I chose the 8700 as I think it will do fine for a number of years even without the ability to overclock. 6 cores, 12 threads. I will take my chances. Still waiting on the RAM. 32 GB Corsair Vengeance DDR 4 RGB at 2666. I thought it was a good deal. Sticking with the MSI Aero 1070. Also loading windows 10 on a 970 evo 500GB. Motherboard, CPU cooler, etc, and it was a little more than I wanted to spend in the end, but I think the little rig will do me proud. Thanks for all the input everyone.
-Grail