Upgrade - Need a PC for TF2 and Streaming

Hello guys and girls and experst alike from tek syndicate!

Im here to ask your help in (upgrading) building a rig. At the moment I have a i7 920 C0 @ 3.6ghz with a GTX 480.

The game i play most is Team Fortress 2, and this setup isnt that great for streaming since TF2 requires a ton of CPU power.

What i planned to do was getting the i7 920 and its mobo and do a fulltime server and upgrade the cpu and motherboard.

The components i plan to keep are:

  • Graphics Card - Asus GTX 480
  • Power Supply -  OCZ 700W ModXstream Pro
  • Case - Antec 300

What i plan to buy:

  • The CPU
  • Rams
  • Motherboard

i have like 500$ to spend so id like some ideas also the rig is for streaming while playing and its a CPU intensive game.

 

Cheers.


Get a RIVBE. 500$ Get 32GB of 2400MHz DDR3. 300$ Get a 4930KKK edition. 500$ Build a custom loop. 300$ Get a soldering iron 50$ Volt mod the hell out of that 480 untill it's as kwik as a 780ti. 0$ Stick a big phat TEC into the 480. 400$

tf2 will run maxed out in 4k on an actual idaho potato, i think you mean streaming requires a decent amount of cpu power, but the i7 should still handle it more than capably

Id like to see where you got the info on that. Hop into a 32 player server with that and tell me the framerate :D

There was not a single question in that post. Please try again. And if the most important part of the build has already been decided (the CPU for your CPU-intensive tasks) then you are simply wasting our time.

Well, i did asked that i need a cpu memory and a motherboard.

 

Try this:

http://pcpartpicker.com/p/1ko0m

I recommend you wait though. Save up a bit more and grab something like a R9 270X to go with it. I also suggest waiting for better deals. $80 for 8 GB of RAM is preposterous. Not too long ago I saw some G.Skill RAM on sale for $50.

[Edit]

Make sure you OC that 8320. 4GHz or more is a reasonable target to aim for.

My FX 8350 Black has no trouble playing TF2 and streaming at 1080p using Xsplit.

There must be something wrong as i have played TF2 with a C2Q and two 9800 GTX's in a busy server and had no lag. This is at 1080p 60 FPS.

Once again that was a statement. The original asking was also not a question, but a statement of intent. A question, almost invariably within the English language, ends in a question mark.

in the past I played on an atom w/ powervr graphics, not going to claim it ran well, but it certainly ran

so to do some actual benchmarking I simulated a potato with what I had available, that would be the computer in my profile, I set it as a 2.0GHz dualcore (keep in mind that because this chip was not designed to run like this, there is a fairly good chance that a cpu designed to run at this speed will run a bit better (closest I could find is an a4-5300 @3.4GHz))

so I loaded up tf2, max settings 1080p, played on 3 different servers with players in the high 20's low 30's, ran a fraps benchmark for 2 minutes, during which time I played normally, not exactly a scientific benchmark

the averaged framerates where: MIN: 6fps MAX: 62fps AVG: 42fps

not great, dips were really bad, but keep in mind this is equivalent to a $50 chip WITH it's clockspeed nearly cut in half WITHOUT integrated graphics (probably should have matched that chip, instead of looking up a similar chip after the fact, but oh well)

This is the kind of stuff that runs people away from the forums. It's not difficult to figure out what the OP needs help with. He clearly wants someone to give him upgrade advice. Griping about a question mark doesn't really add anything to the discussion.

Thank you for your help.

How good are your framerates with the 8350? With this i mean do you use Frames Config or Default and the game runs smooth, only reason i ask this is because i need the 120 fps for my monitor or else the game gets tearing.

cheers

You really won't see much of a difference from i7 920, you'll regret the minor "upgrade" after spending 300$+ on just 20-30 fps. I recommend you optimize your system before drawing to any conclusion. 920 is a strong enough chip for most new games.

Look at my specs in my profile. I get (using cl_showfps 2) min 15 max 299 and the average is actually 110-140 in a 32 player dustbowl server. Keep in mind the hd 4870 1gb is equivalent to gtx 460 768, which is about 2 times slower than a gtx 480. I was playing on 1920x1200 on maxed settings with picmip 0 and 4x AA 16x AF FOV 90.

There are ways to get high stable fps by messing with cvars, it's called optimization. Do this first before doing anything else.

http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=3145527

Thank you TropiKo, i do use a fps config i dont have any problems with fps, its just that i wanted to stream and aparently the i7 920 isnt good for both while maintaning a lag free gameplay.

 

You could try using 4 threads on tf2 and 4 on the streaming program manually.