Incase you didn't know, I just became an affiliate on Twitch, (feel free to follow me)

 

So i'm taking this streaming stuff a little bit more seriously, i've been using my macbook pro to stream, but most of the streaming tools have bad support for mac. So i'm gonna take the plunge and invest in a pc. I've assembled PC's before, so won't be too much of an issue. I just need help on getting some hardware.

 

So I primarily stream through my PS4 and a capture card to my laptop. So I don't need ultimate specs, just something dedicated for streaming and occasional PC gaming.

 

My budget is around £500 - £700 - this is just a guess so it can increase if necessary, what can that get me?

cup holder?

I recommend running a smaller SSD just for booting and not really anything else, then get a couple cheaper HDDs and run a simple software raid for storage/games. Cheaper and will get faster read-write than an SSD.

If you are going to be doing heavy re-writing to your drives then I wouldn't recommend an SSD. SSDs are great for holding storage to be read fast but if you want to be writing to drives frequently with consistent long term performance then use an HDD. Heavy constant re-writing to an SSD will exhaust the memory cells.

 

If you are set on getting a SSD then get a newer model with large storage space. Their writing algorithms help prevent uneven wear on the memory cells and larger drives with more cells help distribute the wear over more cells allowing for greater lifespan.

I recommend running a smaller SSD just for booting and not really anything else, then get a couple cheaper HDDs and run a simple software raid for storage/games. Cheaper and will get faster read-write than an SSD.

If you are going to be doing heavy re-writing to your drives then I wouldn't recommend an SSD. SSDs are great for holding storage to be read fast but if you want to be writing to drives frequently with consistent long term performance then use an HDD. Heavy constant re-writing to an SSD will exhaust the memory cells.

 

If you are set on getting a SSD then get a newer model with large storage space. Their writing algorithms help prevent uneven wear on the memory cells and larger drives with more cells help distribute the wear over more cells allowing for greater lifespan.

 

 

Modern SSD write speed will dramatically outperform anything but the most overkill of raid arrays. For random read write on a HDD raid array, to match you'd need something severa drives in RAID 0 which oh god no.  It would also cost you vastly more to set up. RAID, while once the hottest shit for gaming is much less of a performance boost day. With RAM being so much more plentiful and DDR3 (let alone DDR4) having much higher speeds, most games just proactively load anything they think they might need into memory anyways well before it's actually needed. even the most stupidly overkill RAID 0 array would only be able to eek out one or two more FPS vs a single HDD. 

 

About the only reason to run RAID today is for redundancy and even that that's questionable. Bulk storage is cheap and for a home user it's much less hassle to simply keep an incremental backup than deal with the headaches that come with RAID. Plus the redundancy of RAID is somewhat of a lie anyways, since it distributes the wear equally across drives, they have an unfortunate tendency of failing close together. I've seen more than one attempt to recover a RAID setup from a drive failure collapse because the extra wear on the remaining drives caused some of them to fail. Unless you've got the kind of network infrastructure you have an actual IT team to manage, RAID of any level is probably not needed. 

 

Kingston rates the drive samus picked for 80TB of rewrites. Manufacturers tend to be conservative with their  TBW, and that will been when performance degradation becomes noticeable, not when the drive becomes degraded to the point of it being an issue. Samus could write 50gb to the drive a day and it would fine for several years. At a still absurd 25gb a day and it would last close to 9 years, which is well past the point you should plan on an HDD lasting. I wouldn't recommend it for any task that involved constant writes to it long term, but for day to day use it's more than sufficient. 

 

While a larger ssd is nice, the number of applications that actually require both the hard drive space and the write speed are minimal. 240gb is a bit small personally, but that's just because i'm a lazy bastard who hates to clean up his files, not because it's that much of an issue. With windows and etc that's still the best part of 200gb of "living room" for day to day use, which is more than enough. Samus will just need to be a bit proactive about deleting junk or moving it to the HDD. Not a big deal. 

 

By switching to the smaller SSD+HDD combo samus managed to save himself what looks like 60 quid. He could proceed to go stuff that under his mattress, and by time the TBW for the SSD becomes an issue, buy himself a new and probably much larger SSD with the money. And i mean, if you want to do RAID, for that 60 plus another maybe 20 or so he could go buy himself a second one of those SSDs and decent external drive, configure the two SSDS into RAID 0 for pure lulz and stupidity. and then just have the external HDD store incremental image copies off the SSD. That'll even extend the life of  the SSDs. HDDS fail mechanical wear and tear, while SSDs fail because of finite writes. so RAID 0 Spreading the wear evenly is actually beneficial to them.  

Every SSD I ever used has bottlenecked when writing to it. I don't have that issue with raided HDD. For my uses, I get the best performance from my setup and that is proven through actual application. That being said it isn't a one size fits all so what works best for me is simply what's best for me.

Just to mention, this PC isn't going to be my main. It'll literally just be for streaming.

 

I have a Macbook PRO which is basically my day to day computer cause it's just easier for my job compared to a windows. So i'm literally only going to be streaming for now through this new pc and maybe saving all my content to the hdd.

 

I see people using some wrist strap for "grounding" theirselves against electricity or some shit. I don't get what it's benefits are and if I really need one for building a PC. Would you guys recommend to get that stuff?

You don't really need the strap. I've never bothered, I work with electrosensitive components on a pretty frequent basis. All you've got to do is ground yourself before hand, and  not that hard to just touch the ground terminal on the oscilloscope before fucking with components.

 

In your case just go touch a faucet or a metal bit on a lamp or something. Just do you work off of carpet on a non conductive surface  (so like a wood table) and without wearing a wool jumper or something so you're not building up a static charge while you work. Try to grab parts by things like the heatsinks when moving them around as much as possible. A block of metal will care a lot less about a static shock than the  components on the PCB.

 

If you want to be really paranoid/fancy, stick the power supply on your workbench, plug it into an outlet but keep it turned off while you work. Then just tap it every few minutes. This also gives you an easy to access place to ground yourself if you end up moving around which is a bit more convenient than remembering to tap a lamp again before sitting down. 

 

That said, while not needed, it does still reduce the risk of damage due to ESD, since (provided the other end is properly grounded), you no longer need to think about it. So if you're looking at 900 GBP components and feeling nervous, yea go for it. They should cost you like 5 quid? If you do grab one, do the thing with the power supply, and then just clip the non wrist strap end to it. 

 

If you want an anti static platform to breadboard on, get one if you want, but your motherboard box works pretty good too. .

 

 

Every SSD I ever used has bottlenecked when writing to it. I don't have that issue with raided HDD. For my uses, I get the best performance from my setup and that is proven through actual application. That being said it isn't a one size fits all so what works best for me is simply what's best for me.

 

Write time is not really all that important, nor really is read time. Access time is the point of an SSD, which is why ti causes such dramatic improvements.

 

If you're getting notable better performance out of a raid array vs and SSD, your running on a system without adequate memory, using a program that makes terrible use of available memory, or have a fairly niche application  where you're frequently reading from and writing to many large files. For the home user you're better off installing more RAM into your system, for the cost of a decent RAID 0 setup you can stuff 20 to 30 gigs of DDR4.

 

Infact with modern HDDs RAID  doesn't even provide that big a performance boost (Per dollar) over single HDDs anymore. Larger single drives have *way* better data density and the OS is better able to set the system up for sequential read/writes. two 7200RPM 500Gb HDDS in raid 0 will only provide a moderate speed improvement over a single  5200 RPM 4TB HDD, but it'll cost about same amount of money. You need 3 or 4 of them for it to be that big a deal. And once you're up to 3-4 drives in raid 0 your just asking to lose everything, so now you need more HDDs to run an incremental backup and/or you need even more drives to set up a RAID 10 or etc. And at that point you're now up to the cost of a 1Tb to 2Tb SSD. Might as well just got one of those, since they'll be vastly more reliable and have similar write speeds 

 

And again, this assumes it's even an application where RAID is even useful; Most of where RAID beat out single HDDs in the past was not read/write time but instead  access time, and if that's important SSDs are the clear winners. Games no longer see a noticeable performance improvement in RAID, with the exception of some loading screen times, simply because they've already preloaded the needed assets into RAM. 

 

For samus's expected uses, there's no justification for the added cost and headache that comes with using RAID. A  modern use case for RAID is something like a video production company that needs a server to handle storage and backup of video files.

Anti static wrist straps aren't really necessary if you take steps that RH outlined. I rarely use one since I'll take precautions before hand.

Do guys assemble everything to the motherboard first and then screw that in or screw in the motherboard first?

I add the CPU to the Motherboard, apply the Thermal Paste, and then attach the CPU Cooler. It's much easier not working in the confines of a Case. Once that is assembled I screw in the Motherboard to the Case, then I insert the RAM, GPU, connect the HDD and begin wiring everything in.

 

Now depending on the size/layout of your case it might be easiest to do the Power Supply first. But that is entirely up to you.

Fun story... have a look at Shadow ... that'll save most of your requirements I suspect too.

Fun story... have a look at Shadow ... that'll save most of your requirements I suspect too.

huh

@Samus: if y got all parts, send them to me. I will put it together.

I received all my parts today, excited to get home and put this all together

@Samus: if y got all parts, send them to me. I will put it together.

uh nuh

I add the CPU to the Motherboard, apply the Thermal Paste, and then attach the CPU Cooler. It's much easier not working in the confines of a Case. Once that is assembled I screw in the Motherboard to the Case, then I insert the RAM, GPU, connect the HDD and begin wiring everything in.

 

Now depending on the size/layout of your case it might be easiest to do the Power Supply first. But that is entirely up to you.

 

Similar. Backplates exist and if you're dealing with that, might as well just install the whole cooler at the same time.  I'll also stick the ram in before putting the thing in the case, but that really doesn't matter that much.  Just habit from ye olde days of breadboarding builds first. 

 

Having the CPU cooler attached to the motherboard gives you a nice handle to move the mobo around by which goes back the whole "try and touch the big electrical insert block of metal and and not the little itty bitty electrosensitive components" thing. Also just having it as a handle can be useful. 

 

power supply has its own area in the case covered by a  shroud, so put that in roughly whenever. Looking at your case, point the PSU fan downwards. 

 

You might want to look up a build guide done in your  case. Not so much for the "how to build" but to get an idea of how to run cables from the PSU. You've got the pretty glass case after all, don't want wires all over.   

Thanks for advice guys.

 

Just to reiterate, some people have advised I return the cooler I bought and just use the cooler that comes with the CPU instead as i'm primarily only streaming on this PC.

 

What do you think?

Depends on how good the airflow is in your case. But honestly watercooling is significantly better and much easier to just do it how you want it to start with than change coolers down the line.

 

Shadow: https://shadow.tech/gben

Thanks for advice guys.

 

Just to reiterate, some people have advised I return the cooler I bought and just use the cooler that comes with the CPU instead as i'm primarily only streaming on this PC.

 

What do you think?

 

 

I'd have to see what cooler you got.  I think most are saying if you didn't want to spend the money, try the cooler that comes with it and see how your temps get.  Water cooling is likely more efficient, but some have restraint of having water with all electronics inside if something would happen like a leak.   I believe I have the same/similar case as you, so I can show you how I've set mine up.  I think it's pretty good wire management, but no expert on it.  You just need to mainly figure out where things plug into your MB, and make sure you run cord through the openings in back that are closest.  

 

Also, congrats on your first build.  But make sure you don't rush through building it, and take it step by step.  Mine took me awhile the first build I did, with a lot of reading tutorials while doing it, and videos.  

https://m.twitch.tv/directory/game/PC Building Simulator 

Edited February 12, 20197 yr by joe44

Even for gaming, the stock cooler is probably fine. I think i mentioned that a few pages back? They're rarely *good* coolers, but they do work well enough. Worst case of using it is that your CPU starts to throttle itself to manage heat. It's not going to melt itself or anything

 

You *might* have an issue with fan noise. AMD coolers in my experience have tended to be quiet loud, although that was some years back. If that's still the case it might be an issue for streaming, unless you're going for the  "games next to a jet engine" ambiance.

 

If you want, leave the cooler you bought in the box, stick the stock cooler in, and run the system though a bench mark. See how hot the CPU gets and how loud the fan gets, see if anything starts to throttle. Fart around with it for a few days.  If it's not an issue, return the aftermarket cooler. If it is an issue...well it'll take you like 10 minutes to swap the part out. Just make sure to clean off and replace the thermal paste when you do. 

 

Watercooling is really nice (and so damn quiet!) but so very not needed unless your overclocking. 

Since you're using this PC mainly for streaming, you could give the Stock Cooler a try and it will probably give you decent Temps. Not as good as the aftermarket, but unless you are running some software that is CPU intensive, you shouldn't have problems.

hmm...who care nowadays ab buggy games? 

pants down and earn tech!  

 

I also need help for laptop purchase.

 

Is a processor with 1.6 GHz speed with Turbo 3.4 better than a 2.4 ghz processor?

Can you recommend any laptops models with the following specs.

 

8 GB ram

1 tb hdd

6-8 mb cache

2.4 ghz or more processor.

 

I dont need for gaming. Just for surfing, ms office and watching movies.

Oh come on guys.

Oh come on guys.

where have you searched?

I also need help for laptop purchase.

 

Is a processor with 1.6 GHz speed with Turbo 3.4 better than a 2.4 ghz processor?

Can you recommend any laptops models with the following specs.

 

8 GB ram

1 tb hdd

6-8 mb cache

2.4 ghz or more processor.

 

I dont need for gaming. Just for surfing, ms office and watching movies.

Clock speed isn't the sole factor in determing processor power and efficiency. To theorize, let's say a 8 Core AMD CPU has a clock speed of 3.2 GHz, whereas a 4 Core Intel CPU has a clock speed of 3.0ghz. You would think that by looking at raw numbers the AMD CPU would win, but in reality the Intel processor will be the better choice as the Intel architecture is superior to AMD CPUs and will offer better performance (but at a higher price).

 

If the Turbo is Factory Overclocked that is always Overclocked, then it might be worth it. Just remember that Laptops can get pretty hot as is, so an Overclocked Processor on a full load will really heat up. Take extra steps to insure it remains cool.

 

The specs you listed will be adequate for what you planned to do with it. No need for a high end processor if you only plan to have one or 2 low intensive tasks running at a single time.