Latest Gaming PC / Streaming PC build for Twitch Stream

Latest Gaming PC / Streaming PC build for Twitch Stream

Its been a while since I built a PC for myself.  I've been buying pre-built PC's and Laptops lately because...well they are so well built and well priced now.  Even 10 years ago there used to be a huge price and quality advantage to building your own PC as opposed to buying a pre-built brand name PC.  Of course there is still a quality and build advantage to building your own PC because you can pick your own components to your needs when building your own PC.  However price is really hard to compete with, especially with all the specials, online competition, and of course most major online and off line outlets offer price matching too.  So for my next build which is going to be used mainly for streaming, I decided to go with building my own.  I had a specific list of things I wanted and needed, so shopping for my parts was not that difficult.

First and foremost on my list of components was the graphics card.  I originally wanted the Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060 6GB, however after pricing everything out and deciding to go with a Intel i7 9700k Processor instead of a i9, we decided to go with the RTX 2070 8GB instead.  For anyone who is thinking about streaming on twitch, or any other gaming site, you should get a RTX 2060, RTX 2070, or even a RTX 2080 for smooth streaming.  If not, you can always use 2 separate PC's and a capture card.  (1 for gaming and 1 for streaming)

When picking out your power supply, it's pretty obvious what will be best for your.  You can check your required wattage of your components, and then generally get a power supply that can handle a little more.  This is for a multiple reasons, but mainly so that 1, your power supply isn't running at maximum output all the time, and 2, you may change or add peripherals in the future which may require more power.   My build probably could have worked on a 600 watt power supply, however I went with the 750 watt RM750X 80 Plus Gold certified from Corsair.  Anything above that probably would have been extra unneeded power.  So does that mean it will use more electricity?  No it does not.  750 is the maximum wattage that my power supply will put out.

I chose a Enermax tower with a pretty standard design that came with 3 RGB Fans in the front and 1 RGB Fan in the back.  I also went with a Enermax Aquafusion Liquid CPU Cooler, which installs perfectly on the Enermax case, and comes with 2 matching RGB Fans for a perfect fit.  

I planted the Intel i7 9700k processor on a MSI Z390-A Pro motherboard, with a Samsung 970 Evo Plus NVME M.2 Drive, 16GB of DDR4 Ram.  I was a little unsure about the 250GB M.2 Drive, and coincidentally found a 1TB M.2 drive on sale the next day, so ended up swapping that out.  I wanted to get RGB ram for this build, but I couldn't get any locally so had to pass on that one.  Most of the newer motherboards have M.2 NVME slots.  If you think SSD is good, NVME is even better.  They also have M.2 Sata drives which are good too, but NVME is the best choice for hard drives at the moment.

This my just be a habit of mine, but once I put all the hardware together, I like to power on the computer and make sure everything is installed properly before I even start to install windows.  Make sure there are no loose screws, or any loose items for that matter before turning on your system.  I actually fried a motherboard before when testing because a small screw fell on the board that I didn't see.  Leave the system on for a few minutes and make sure there are no cables getting in the way of any fans, and make sure all the hardware is in tact.

After everything looked good, I installed Windows, installed all the needed drivers, and downloaded all the updates.  Of course it was no surprise that system runs like a champ.  So far this system plays my games in 4K 60FPS at Ultra settings.  I haven't tried streaming yet, however I am confident this system will handle streaming without a problem.  The MSI motherboard makes it real easy to overclock the processor and the ram, however I don't see a need for any overclocking as of yet.  I will update this post in a week or two once I put this computer into action with actual streaming.  

I love the way this build looks and runs.  I am going to run it for another week or two and make sure everything is good before I clean the messy wires with zip ties.  To complete my streaming build, I still need to setup the  webcam, Yeti microphone, and get the Go Pro Hero 7 going!