- Joined
- Oct 28, 2007
- Messages
- 690 (0.12/day)
System Name | Pegasus |
---|---|
Processor | AMD Ryzen Threadripper 1950X @ 4GHz |
Motherboard | ASUS ROG Zenith Extreme |
Cooling | Custom 480mm EK Loop |
Memory | 4 x 8GB G.Skill TridentZ RGB 3000MHz @ 3000MHz |
Video Card(s) | ASUS ROG Nvidia GTX 1080 Ti |
Storage | Samsung 960 EVO M.2 500GB / Samsung 850 EVO 500GB / Samsung 840 EVO 250GB |
Display(s) | 2 x 25" Dell Ultrasharp U2515H / 1 x 15" ASUS MB169+ |
Case | Corsair 900D |
Audio Device(s) | 2 x Tannoy Reveal 502 / Beyerdynamic DT 990 PRO 250 Ohm / Behringer Xenyx X1204 USB / MXL 770 |
Power Supply | EVGA SuperNova G3 1000W |
Mouse | Logitech G903 Lightspeed |
Keyboard | HyperX Alloy FPS / Corsair K95 RGB / Anne Pro 2 / 2 x Elgato Stream Deck |
Software | Windows 10 Professional 64-Bit |
Hey everyone, a few days ago I had an idea for a build for H.264 encoding, mainly for streaming but possibly used for other things as well considering the hardware.
I will outline the build and what I'm looking for further below.
I'll try to keep it as short as possible. The current setup is single PC, consisting of the specs in my profile, to recap here TR 1950X, 32GB RAM, 1080 Ti. The issue is I have to cap my frame rate to 60. Having 60hz monitors this is not a big deal but I have to limit it every single time because OBS/Streamlabs OBS will use some GPU to encode the image before sending it over to the CPU. I'm using the native monitor 2560x1440 canvas size and rescaling it to 900p. Having it rescaled to 720p uses about 8% of the GPU anf 900p about 11%. If I do 1080p this will shoot up to around 18%.
In some games this isn't an issue, BF1 on 1440p Ultra with VSync on leaves lot a of space for encoding but if I fire up AC: Origins, even at 60fps the applications are fighting each other for the GPU power ending up in lost frames on the encoder and frame lag in game. This is purely a GPU issue since the CPU pulls 900p60 on the h.264 slow profile with about 25% usage. The idea when streaming, contrary to what we do when trying to avoid GPU bottlenecks, is not to let the game use 100% GPU. If I were playing in 1080p this would probably not be an issue at all (which is why I see no complaints by people playing at this resolution) but I don't want to downgrade to a 1080p monitor nor do I want to have my 1080 Ti in there being restricted.
My idea was to build a separate streaming machine, I do already have a capture card so we don't have to go into the merit of transferring the image. Before anyone mentions NDI, yes I know it exists. The problem with NDI is you still need OBS open on the sender side which pretty much means the GPU encoding issue is still present.
On to the build, I have many components from decommissioned machines I can use because I hoard parts since I find it difficult to sell them off. I'm trying to stay on the DDR3 side of things since I have a lot of spare sticks and wouldn't like to invest in DDR4 at the moment. The idea is to re-use most of my idle components and spend as least as I can to get the build done. Now my problem is, if this ends up being worse encoding than my 1950X is doing it will end up being a total waste, even though I could use the machine for VMs or something.
My list of available components as follows:
And this leaves me with a CPU and motherboard problem. Since I have DDR3 available and Xeons are available I was thinking of going dual 2011. I would be willing to buy a new Chinese X79 board with dual sockets however they seem to all have only 4 DIMM slots which is ok, I don't need more than 16GB to encode but if I wanted to use the machine for VMs later that would leave me a bit limited, so I'm stuck without board options right now. It should additionally have PCIE x16 slots for capture cards (currently only 1 internal) and a good number of USB ports (let's say 6+) for the peripherals to be added, keyboard, mouse, webcam, stream decks and so on.
As for CPUs, I set my eyes on 2 models, one being the E5-2680 v2 2.8Ghz 10c/20t, the other E5-2650 v2 2.6GHz 8c/16t. I was going to go with a single CPU at first and see how that goes and maybe later add the second one. What worries me is how will h264 scale across the threads? I know a dual 2650 v2 setup will give me 16c/32t just as my 1950X gives me but there's a clock difference between 2.6GHz and 4GHz (not sure of Ivy Bridge EP IPC).
Any opinions are greatly appreciated, I feel a bit lost since if it ends up not being worth doing I would have rather just waited and built separate gaming PC and use my current machine for the encoding.
Additionally, I never owned a dual socket system to I thought it would be cool to have one to play around with but it also means I don't know much about them in practice. Besides, I'm always trying to find an excuse to build something.
I will outline the build and what I'm looking for further below.
I'll try to keep it as short as possible. The current setup is single PC, consisting of the specs in my profile, to recap here TR 1950X, 32GB RAM, 1080 Ti. The issue is I have to cap my frame rate to 60. Having 60hz monitors this is not a big deal but I have to limit it every single time because OBS/Streamlabs OBS will use some GPU to encode the image before sending it over to the CPU. I'm using the native monitor 2560x1440 canvas size and rescaling it to 900p. Having it rescaled to 720p uses about 8% of the GPU anf 900p about 11%. If I do 1080p this will shoot up to around 18%.
In some games this isn't an issue, BF1 on 1440p Ultra with VSync on leaves lot a of space for encoding but if I fire up AC: Origins, even at 60fps the applications are fighting each other for the GPU power ending up in lost frames on the encoder and frame lag in game. This is purely a GPU issue since the CPU pulls 900p60 on the h.264 slow profile with about 25% usage. The idea when streaming, contrary to what we do when trying to avoid GPU bottlenecks, is not to let the game use 100% GPU. If I were playing in 1080p this would probably not be an issue at all (which is why I see no complaints by people playing at this resolution) but I don't want to downgrade to a 1080p monitor nor do I want to have my 1080 Ti in there being restricted.
My idea was to build a separate streaming machine, I do already have a capture card so we don't have to go into the merit of transferring the image. Before anyone mentions NDI, yes I know it exists. The problem with NDI is you still need OBS open on the sender side which pretty much means the GPU encoding issue is still present.
On to the build, I have many components from decommissioned machines I can use because I hoard parts since I find it difficult to sell them off. I'm trying to stay on the DDR3 side of things since I have a lot of spare sticks and wouldn't like to invest in DDR4 at the moment. The idea is to re-use most of my idle components and spend as least as I can to get the build done. Now my problem is, if this ends up being worse encoding than my 1950X is doing it will end up being a total waste, even though I could use the machine for VMs or something.
My list of available components as follows:
- 44GB of RAM, split into 10 x 4GB sticks and 2 x 2GB sticks, different manufacturers, different speeds ranging from 1333Mhz to 2133MHz
- A couple of Silicon Power 120GB SSDs, don't need much storage
- NZXT Hale82 850W Bronze PSU
- A few spare GPUs, my spares are all AMD but I think I'll go for the HD7850 1GB, if I need to go beefier I have a 290 but I doubt I'll need it and would rather keep the temps/power draw lower
- Some cases available but this isn't an issue
And this leaves me with a CPU and motherboard problem. Since I have DDR3 available and Xeons are available I was thinking of going dual 2011. I would be willing to buy a new Chinese X79 board with dual sockets however they seem to all have only 4 DIMM slots which is ok, I don't need more than 16GB to encode but if I wanted to use the machine for VMs later that would leave me a bit limited, so I'm stuck without board options right now. It should additionally have PCIE x16 slots for capture cards (currently only 1 internal) and a good number of USB ports (let's say 6+) for the peripherals to be added, keyboard, mouse, webcam, stream decks and so on.
As for CPUs, I set my eyes on 2 models, one being the E5-2680 v2 2.8Ghz 10c/20t, the other E5-2650 v2 2.6GHz 8c/16t. I was going to go with a single CPU at first and see how that goes and maybe later add the second one. What worries me is how will h264 scale across the threads? I know a dual 2650 v2 setup will give me 16c/32t just as my 1950X gives me but there's a clock difference between 2.6GHz and 4GHz (not sure of Ivy Bridge EP IPC).
Any opinions are greatly appreciated, I feel a bit lost since if it ends up not being worth doing I would have rather just waited and built separate gaming PC and use my current machine for the encoding.
Additionally, I never owned a dual socket system to I thought it would be cool to have one to play around with but it also means I don't know much about them in practice. Besides, I'm always trying to find an excuse to build something.