Whats the best graphics card for streaming for the money?

Whats the best graphics card for streaming for the money?

GTX 770 2 or 4 GB 

or the AMD R9 280X 

or is the 780 the best bet for this type of system.

I plan on building a system for my friend. The streaming rig will have 8 gigs of ram and a AMD 8350 but trying to stay and 600w PSU and a 256 gig SSD in 1200 USD range but I have yet to decided on video cards he will be gaming at 1080p and wants to be able to stream with no capture card. 

 

Any input would be good and thanks.

 

Pretty sure your cpu choice will effect your streaming capabilities more than gpu since it handles the encoding assuming you don't have a dinosaur of a gpu.  The 780 will be a little bit overkill if you plan on only gaming at 1080 imo but if you have the bread/plan on eventually getting an 1440p display I'd say go for it.  I think amd prices for their higher end cards are still not very competitive due to the mining of digital currencies so prices are pretty ridiculous, (and the retailers that don't have inflated prices good luck finding any with stock).

I would say the 770 would be a better pick and get the 2gb is enough vram for what you're going to do.

Without a Intel CPU for quicksync he is going to be leverageing those extra cores for transcoding unless he goes with a newer GTX card (they have shadowplay with onboard transcoding and enhanced streaming features) that will let his cpu focus on the game instead of the stream. At that resolution a 770 is a great value for what he is looking to do. If he isn't considering going with a larger monitor or multimonitor down the line the 770 looks like a perfect fit.

The only point of a 280x looks like mantel support but if your paring that with increased cpuload for transcoding my instinct/best guess is that it will kind of me a wash. (but as a team AMD fan I approve all mid to highend AMD GPU's :P)

and as the last poster stated the 780 looks a little overkill for what he is looking to do.

 if the 780 is in your price rage so is the R9 290 (non x) but it also seems a bit overkill as well as being quite loud if your friend will be actively commenting on his stream so I would put it behind the 780 for this scenario if he decides to step up a GPU teir.

The 290 is the best card.

How would you figure a 290 being the "best" card for someone who is streaming on an AMD processor? No transcode on cpu or gpu as well as the fact that it is going to be noticeably loud if he has an open mic for commenting while he streams. If he gets a custom cooler version of the 290 hes spending enough that he could get an overclocked 780. I'm as big a fan of AMD as anyone but recommending a product poorly suited to someones intended task helps no one.

Id go 780, cant see why other people think its over-kill? (And 290 is a bad chose most of the time, especially here)

quicksync is total shit anyways,

i wouldn't... nvidia drivers have problemz with streaming.... unless you use shadowplay, which is total junk.

there are non-reference 290s, bro.

well, considering your psu, go with a 280x...

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/gaming-graphics-card-review,3107.html

You think Showplay and now resolved driver issues are so bad its worth buying a significantly worse preforming, hotter, nosier card? 

If you're going to be streaming then the GTX 770, or the GTX 780 would be good ways to go. Nvidia shadowplay lets you stream/record and has plenty of options including adding a face cam. As someone who  uses shadowplay, I can tell you there is absolutely zero FPS decease when using it to stream or record.

Here's some random gameplay of mine recorded with shadowplay:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OwLj6pefmFE

the nvidia shadowplay has become very good. so far, in most demanding games, it is only causing a 1-2FPS drop while streaming. in virtually all cases, it does not cause any noticeable drop in performance, and the quality is good.

 

I will add a clip that I recorded with shadowplay using the witcher 2 on max settings with uber sampling enabled. this will make it easier to see how it handles textures and colors while there is action.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOKd88EvdtY without the youtube compression, the video has no blockiness or other issues.

 

if you would like to see the original quality, check the mega.co.nz link (only file hoster that would accept a 1.6GB file in one go (1.6GB for 5 minutes of video)  the original video basically gives like 10 times the texture detail and sharpness, especially on the characters cloths.

https://mega.co.nz/#!apZAQS5Y!lpBbM644HxGEOCjiFaBkHEHNv29qBFd8rYMtN2VOWbY

 

anyway, my system specs are a Phenom II x6 1075t, GTX 760, 12GB DDR3 1600 RAM, game was installed to a 1TB 7200RPM hard drive.

I know but their lack of a shadowplay alternative and the fact that they will cost more than a non reference & overclocked 780 makes them a poor choice for a streaming rig.

Lol @ the idea that the 290 performs worse (never mind significantly worse) than the 780.

but IMO your dead on about the heat and noise.

Disregard most of what Rabidz says.

A 290 is better than a 780.

Have you considered a 3dfx voodoo5 5500AGP?

I do want to add that while ShadowPlay is excellent with video encoding with little to no performance hit, there are a few flaws that may discourage you from using it as a main source:

  1. Only 1080p recording. 1440p or 4K is not available.
  2. Only can do fullscreen recording. If you tab out of the game, it will stop recording. Can't do borderless either.

Best case, get yourself a great processor like a Xeon 1230 v3 or an FX-8350 and encode with something like OBS. 

Also, Battlefield 4 is terrible to record on processors as it caused many stutters on my FX-8320. Just throwing it out there.