€1300 Pre-Built Desktop for Livestreaming and Video Editing - Opinions?

IrishIrish

Hi all,

I posted this in an existing thread on the computers and technology main forum but would like to get a few more opinions before I press ahead and make the purchase. As stated in the title the desktop would mainly be used for livestreaming, video editing and running financial trading software. Perhaps some light gaming and possibly a media center to stream to other devices.

I've read online that i7 processor and at least 16gb RAM are best for Livestreaming which is why I have gone with the below build. I'd appreciate any suggestions on upgrades or downgrades and also opinions on if the overall build is reasonable value for money.

Case: InWIN 703 MID TOWER GAMING CASE (BLACK/RED)
Processor: (CPU)Intel® Core™i7 Quad Core Processor i7-6700k (4.0GHz) 8MB Cache
Motherboard: ASUS® Z170 PRO GAMING/AURA: ATX, LG1151, USB 3.1, SATA 6GBs, RGB Lighting
Memory (RAM): 16GB HyperX SAVAGE DDR4 2666MHz (2 x 8GB Kit)
Graphics Card: 2GB NVIDIA GEFORCE GTX 960 - DVI, HDMI, 3 x DP (Special!!)
1st Hard Disk: 2TB SATA-III 3.5" HDD, 6GB/s, 7200RPM, 64MB CACHE
1st DVD/BLU-RAY Drive: 24x DUAL LAYER DVD WRITER ±R/±RW/RAM
Power Supply: CORSAIR 550W VS SERIES™ VS-550 POWER SUPPLY
Power Cable: 1 x 1 Metre UK Power Cable (Kettle Lead)
Processor Cooling: CoolerMaster Hyper 212X (120mm) Fan CPU Cooler (€36)
Thermal Paste: ARCTIC MX-4 EXTREME THERMAL CONDUCTIVITY COMPOUND (€12)
Sound Card: ONBOARD 6 CHANNEL (5.1) HIGH DEF AUDIO (AS STANDARD)
Wireless/Wired Networking: WIRELESS 802.11 AC1900 1,300Mbps/5GHz, 600Mbps/2.4GHz PCI-E CARD (€61)
USB Options: MIN. 2 x USB 3.0 & 2 x USB 2.0 PORTS @ BACK PANEL + MIN. 2 FRONT PORTS
Operating System: NO OPERATING SYSTEM REQUIRED
Operating System Language: United Kingdom - English Language
Office Software: NO OFFICE SOFTWARE
Anti-Virus: NO ANTI-VIRUS SOFTWARE
Browser: Microsoft® Edge (Windows 10 Only)
Monitor: ASUS VE247H 24" LED DISPLAY (€136)
2nd Monitor: ASUS VE247H 24" LED DISPLAY (€136)
Warranty: 3 Year Standard Warranty (1 Month Collect & Return, 1 Year Parts, 3 Year Labour)
Delivery: 2 - 3 DAY DELIVERY TO REPUBLIC OF IRELAND (€24)
Build Time: Standard Build - Approximately 6 to 8 working days
QTY 1
€1,278.05 ex VAT
€1,572.00 inc VAT and Delivery

Joshua J

The lads who know their stuff will be along shortly so pay no heed to my limited knowledge but the thing that stands out to me is that you've got the bones of a high end machine with a low end GPU.

SterlingArcher

Not great value for money.

I'm not seeing 1500 odd euro here.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/aw/d/B015TBE5FU/ref=mp_s_a_1_23?ie=UTF8&qid=1473101626&sr=8-23&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=gaming+pc&dpPl=1&dpID=5132WwHEX1L&ref=plSrch#

Look at this it is not so far behind your 1500 one. Costs 630 ish. It has an ssd. Add a gpu(better than that 960) another stick of 8gbram hdd and it still coming in under 1000. All easy tasks.

I'm kinda doing stuff right now so maybe I'm missing something.

Spear

When you say livestreaming, do you mean you're the one doing the encoding, or do you mean just watching Twitch/Netflix etc?

No need for an i7 or 16GB for the latter at all in that case.

TerrorFirmer

Where are you buying that from? I'm usually respectful of the fact that retailers have to make a profit on top of the unit cost, but considering that that's a 1.2k rig taking out the monitors, has no operating system, no SSD, and the GPU is a GTX960, I'm inclined to say that's a frontrunner for the 'Worst value PC of 2016' award.

JoyPad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Where are you buying that from?

Looks like a PCSpecialist quote.

SterlingArcher wrote: »

Not great value for money.
I'm not seeing 1500 odd euro here.

I think it's the two monitors that push the quote up.


@IrishIrish the best value at pcspecialist is in the reviewed systems, which are discounted quite a lot. In your price range, you should look at the BlackPanthaa, for example. If you order it as is, it costs €1260, and then you can add the two monitors on top, and come at about the same price as your selection above. The main advantage is that you get an SSD for your OS, which you don't have.

TerrorFirmer

JoyPad wrote: »

I think it's the two monitors that push the quote up.

It's still 1.2k for a €650 machine, which is a bit much.

JoyPad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

It's still 1.2k for a €650 machine, which is a bit much.

You're exaggerating on purpose, right?
The i7 CPU alone costs 350 euro. Add a motherboard, RAM, power supply, and you're already over €650.

TerrorFirmer

Sorry, you are right to fair I was being a bit - or a lot - dramatic. Building it new with the same parts costs €930. Minus the monitors, that comes to 1,300.

All for retailer needing a slice but €400+ is pretty mad all the same.

JoyPad

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Sorry, you are right to fair I was being a bit - or a lot - dramatic. Building it new with the same parts costs €930. Minus the monitors, that comes to 1,300.

Some people, myself included, prefer to pay a bit extra to avoid the problems that may come from self-assembly, and to get the peace of mind from the warranty that comes with a pre-build and well-tested system. Maybe OP is another.

TerrorFirmer

Understandably and I've always advocated that position myself here on the forum but nigh on 50% markup is pretty excessive when other places take a 10-15% cut. Loads of sellers on Ebay will offer the same system for around 1-1.1k.

JoyPad

The markup seems to be insane for handpicked parts, but not so high on review systems.
As an example, the Define X1 which I ordered cost me £1561 including VAT, shipping, and 3 years Silver warranty (1 year collect & return, 1 year parts, 3 years labour). If you want to make any changes to it, you see that they would ask for £1800 for the same parts. When you try this, you get the warning that you lose the "review system discount".

The same parts, added to the UK part picker, cost £1543: http://uk.pcpartpicker.com/list/Q47k9W
And that's just the parts, no shipping included, and you'd have to go to 6 different suppliers for everything. I picked the cheapest supplier for each part, I think, which is why you get 6 different ones.

Like I said above: if you go for a review system, there's plenty value there, as long as you're happy with the box.

IrishIrish

Spear wrote: »

When you say livestreaming, do you mean you're the one doing the encoding, or do you mean just watching Twitch/Netflix etc?

No need for an i7 or 16GB for the latter at all in that case.

Yeh I'd be the one doing the encoding.

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

Where are you buying that from? I'm usually respectful of the fact that retailers have to make a profit on top of the unit cost, but considering that that's a 1.2k rig taking out the monitors, has no operating system, no SSD, and the GPU is a GTX960, I'm inclined to say that's a frontrunner for the 'Worst value PC of 2016' award.

It was PCSpecialist.

JoyPad wrote: »

@IrishIrish the best value at pcspecialist is in the reviewed systems, which are discounted quite a lot. In your price range, you should look at the BlackPanthaa, for example. If you order it as is, it costs €1260, and then you can add the two monitors on top, and come at about the same price as your selection above. The main advantage is that you get an SSD for your OS, which you don't have.

Cheers for the feedback, I had another look around various websites and took a look at the specs on the BlackPanthaa. I think i'm getting closer step by step to a better value machine. I came across the below build today which looks to me to be better than what I had posted above previously and includes the SSD. I understand the graphics cards aren't great but I will be doing very little gaming. Has anyone got any opinions on this?

Spear

IrishIrish wrote: »

Yeh I'd be the one doing the encoding.

I understand the graphics cards aren't great but I will be doing very little gaming. Has anyone got any opinions on this?

If it's only for light gaming, what's being live streamed?

IrishIrish

Spear wrote: »

If it's only for light gaming, what's being live streamed?

Main livestream will be work related financial trading software and general processing. May also look at Elgato HD60 from PS4 to Desktop for streaming FIFA.

Spear

IrishIrish wrote: »

Main livestream will be work related financial trading software and general processing. May also look at Elgato HD60 from PS4 to Desktop for streaming FIFA.

Financial trading software uses a video stream? You sure about that?

IrishIrish

Spear wrote: »

Financial trading software uses a video stream? You sure about that?

That's what I have been told anyway. I will be setting up the system to allow me to work from home and this was included as a preferred requirement. Since I am spending a reasonable amount of money on the machine I'd like the added possibility of being able to livestream my FIFA games at a good quality for personal use. The graphics card seems to be the main thing thats letting this system down but the only offered upgrade to choose from on the ChillBlaster site was an extra GBP 190.00 and I've already stretched my budget as far as I can.

Maybe i'm just trying to cover too many bases and i'm being unrealistic with my hopes with my current budget.

Spear

IrishIrish wrote: »

That's what I have been told anyway. I will be setting up the system to allow me to work from home and this was included as a preferred requirement. Since I am spending a reasonable amount of money on the machine I'd like the added possibility of being able to livestream my FIFA games at a good quality for personal use. The graphics card seems to be the main thing thats letting this system down but the only offered upgrade to choose from on the ChillBlaster site was an extra GBP 190.00 and I've already stretched my budget as far as I can.

Maybe i'm just trying to cover too many bases and i'm being unrealistic with my hopes with my current budget.

It sounds extremely unlikely that the financial software uses video encoding, it sound more like someone is misapplying the term to it.

You can drop the i7 to an i5, it's over kill for this.

K.O.Kiki

PS4 can stream its own gameplay.

Though why anyone would want to stream their own play I've never understood.
You are not as good as you think you are. :pac:

K.O.Kiki

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

CPU: Intel Core i7-6700K 4.0GHz Quad-Core Processor (€340.84 @ Mindfactory)
CPU Cooler: Scythe Shuriken Rev. B 3 11.8 CFM CPU Cooler (€32.44 @ Mindfactory)
Motherboard: ASRock Z170 Pro4S ATX LGA1151 Motherboard (€106.81 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws 4 Series 16GB (2 x 8GB) DDR4-2800 Memory (€81.39 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Storage: Sandisk SSD PLUS 480GB 2.5" Solid State Drive (€99.00 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Video Card: XFX Radeon RX 470 4GB HS Black Edition Video Card (€209.97 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Case: Phanteks ECLIPSE P400 ATX Mid Tower Case (€81.43 @ Mindfactory)
Power Supply: EVGA SuperNOVA G2 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply (€106.85)
Monitor: BenQ GL2460HM 24.0" 60Hz Monitor (€137.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Monitor: BenQ GL2460HM 24.0" 60Hz Monitor (€137.90 @ Amazon Deutschland)
Total: €1334.53

Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2016-09-07 13:32 CEST+0200


I'm assuming your work will supply the OS.

Will outperform the prebuilt handily; RX 470 is 1 tier above the GTX 960.

Xenoronin

I'm getting a distinct feeling this "livestream" is a VNC client in order to work on a server cluster.

Shlippery

When you say livestreaming, do you mean connecting via remote desktop? or a virtual machine? Surely a stable internet connection is the main requirement there!