Upgrading a Current Build To Handle Streaming Better

[Norton]

The M9 would be a safe bet, but I think the H7 will work as well.

The M9i is a fantastic little cooler for its price, highly recommended.... get a 2nd 92mm fan for push-pull on the cooler. Also, the PS07 case doesn't come with a rear 120mm fan stock, add one if you want a little more cooling.

Agree with those saying not to delid, only worth it if seeking very high overclocks on a high quality board

 

[Komshija]

I would rather buy an i7 4790 non-K, because it's an H-81 motherboard, which aren't really suited for "K" CPU's.

You will need a good cooling such as Arctic Freezer i32, just make sure that you have at least 152 mm space in your case. Cryorig H7 is in the same class as Arctic Freezer i32, but more expensive.

 

[jboydgolfer]

don't see too much of a reason to go lower unless this will decrease the load on my CPU/card.

It will decrease your network strain, which at that bit rate you're using more than what you actually have for your upstream ,and it might affect your stream performance , but will definitely affect game performance especially if you're playing online. if your Upload Bandwidth is 3Mb/s, the MAX you can upstream @ is 3000Kbps, thats just a fact , not my opinion ( Setting 3000+ Is pointless,you might as well set 30,000+, it wouldnt make a difference, trying to force maximum upstream quality isn't a good idea, but you're welcome to use what experience you have ,this is just what I learned from working w/ obs for several years) . OBS uses Kbps, 3000 Kbps, is 3Mb/s, But using your Max upstream isnt a great idea, as you can get dropped frames, etc. If it were me, id set a max of 2300, or more likely 2000Kbps. However, this should be fine tuned by each user, using a lower setting, and settign to constant bitrate setting is my method. You can use the stream quality meter in OBS, and watch what color it is displaying, and see if it stays green, if it does, you should be fine, just keep in mind, online game play will strain that result more when your not just running OBS. Also keep in mind, what results You see ,arent going to be the same for what others see. Ask your viewers, preferably ones not in your area, and see what their experience of the stream is.

Can you link your channel or some of your streamed videos, so I can look at the quality?

 

[Vyraal1]

The M9i is a fantastic little cooler for its price, highly recommended.... get a 2nd 92mm fan for push-pull on the cooler. Also, the PS07 case doesn't come with a rear 120mm fan stock, add one if you want a little more cooling.

Agree with those saying not to delid, only worth it if seeking very high overclocks on a high quality board

Thanks for the fan suggestions, I'm going to go with only the Cryorig H7 right now since it's the cheapest local option for me, some of the Kabuto and other suggestions ended up being more expensive. For now, I'll hold up on the 120mm rear fan for my case mostly because I'm not sure yet on how the wiring and rear fan will fit once I get the new heatsink installed.

I would rather buy an i7 4790 non-K, because it's an H-81 motherboard, which aren't really suited for "K" CPU's.

You will need a good cooling such as Arctic Freezer i32, just make sure that you have at least 152 mm space in your case. Cryorig H7 is in the same class as Arctic Freezer i32, but more expensive.

Locally the Cryorig H7 is available for $35 while the Arctic Freezer i32 is is a tad bit more expensive at $40(US-MA), if they're the same class I'll just stick with the cheaper local option. Would you still consider getting the non-k 4790 even if it was more expensive than the 4790k? The main reason I got the 4790k in the first place was because it was a deal for me, or is the hassle of managing everything with a 4790k just not worth it even at the price I mentioned in the OP?

It will decrease your network strain, which at that bit rate you're using more than what you actually have for your upstream ,and it might affect your stream performance , but will definitely affect game performance especially if you're playing online. if your Upload Bandwidth is 3Mb/s, the MAX you can upstream @ is 3000Kbps, thats just a fact , not my opinion ( Setting 3000+ Is pointless,you might as well set 30,000+, it wouldnt make a difference, trying to force maximum upstream quality isn't a good idea, but you're welcome to use what experience you have ,this is just what I learned from working w/ obs for several years) . OBS uses Kbps, 3000 Kbps, is 3Mb/s, But using your Max upstream isnt a great idea, as you can get dropped frames, etc. If it were me, id set a max of 2300, or more likely 2000Kbps. However, this should be fine tuned by each user, using a lower setting, and settign to constant bitrate setting is my method. You can use the stream quality meter in OBS, and watch what color it is displaying, and see if it stays green, if it does, you should be fine, just keep in mind, online game play will strain that result more when your not just running OBS. Also keep in mind, what results You see ,arent going to be the same for what others see. Ask your viewers, preferably ones not in your area, and see what their experience of the stream is.

Can you link your channel or some of your streamed videos, so I can look at the quality?

Sure my channel is here at: https://www.twitch.tv/vyraal1/videos/all

 

[Folterknecht]

@OP: Would be nice if you could keep us up to date on how that one turns out.

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To make it clearer what I had in mind - Delidding would be the last resort for him. Ofc you would try to undervolt first, IF there are temperature issues.

A top/down blower like the Kabuto is still the best choice in a situation like his, where the VRMs are relativ weak and small without any heatsinks on it. Sure you 'll find enough coolers that deliver better CPU thermals, but that is only half of the equation.

 

[Vyraal1]

@OP: Would be nice if you could keep us up to date on how that one turns out.

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To make it clearer what I had in mind - Delidding would be the last resort for him. Ofc you would try to undervolt first, IF there are temperature issues.

A top/down blower like the Kabuto is still the best choice in a situation like his, where the VRMs are relativ weak and small without any heatsinks on it. Sure you 'll find enough coolers that deliver better CPU thermals, but that is only half of the equation.

Sure, definitely keep you guys updated, least I can do for all the help/suggestions. The cooler should arrive by Wednesday US EST, and I'll get the CPU from my friend Thursday. I was a bit slow on realizing why the Kabuto was worth mentioning (didn't think about the VRM heat to be honest), but the closest one with shipping that I could find was about $20 more than the Cryorig H7. I can also try to add in a rear case fan if temperatures aren't what I like.

 

[Toothless]

Sure, definitely keep you guys updated, least I can do for all the help/suggestions. The cooler should arrive by Wednesday US EST, and I'll get the CPU from my friend Thursday. I was a bit slow on realizing why the Kabuto was worth mentioning (didn't think about the VRM heat to be honest), but the closest one with shipping that I could find was about $20 more than the Cryorig H7. I can also try to add in a rear case fan if temperatures aren't what I like.

Should add the rear fan anyway to get some kind of flow in your case.

 

[Caring1]

Are the drive bays removable from in the case, that should also improve air flow and costs nothing, as does tidy cable management.
If possible, mount a fan on the side of the case blowing in towards the VRM area, an extra fan on the rear also can only help.

 

[Komshija]

Locally the Cryorig H7 is available for $35 while the Arctic Freezer i32 is is a tad bit more expensive at $40(US-MA), if they're the same class I'll just stick with the cheaper local option. Would you still consider getting the non-k 4790 even if it was more expensive than the 4790k? The main reason I got the 4790k in the first place was because it was a deal for me, or is the hassle of managing everything with a 4790k just not worth it even at the price I mentioned in the OP?

Than whichever option is cheaper. Over here and in many EU countries Cryorig H7 is some 15% more expensive than Arctic i32.

Again, if you can get a perfectly working i7 4790K cheaper than its non-K version, than I would say go for it. But keep in mind that i7 4790K is overclockable, so you can't be sure about what the previous owner did with it (which voltages & which clocks were applied to this CPU).

 

[Vyraal1]

So just an update to those who are still interested - had quite a few clumsy moments as someone who rarely touches the internals of his computer.

This is what the system was like on the inside - still with the i5-4430, tracking temps via Speccy back then (switched only to HWINFO64 after some users told me it was better), it would regularly thermal throttle.

Apologize for the case/dust gore.


Cleaned it up actually, and ran water through the heat sink to get out all of the clogged dust bunnies. I didn't reapply thermal paste after cleaning out the fan, as I didn't have any, and my Cryorig H7 was arriving the next day regardless. Oh yeah, I also broke one of the corner mounting pins (the white clip portion that pokes through the motherboard).

Despite the non-re-application, and being mounted only on 3 pins, the stock fan still did well and had it idling in the 30s, but funny enough for that one night of using the CPU, it would regularly thermal throttle, and I had to physically reach into my case (I left the side panel off since I knew I was going to work on it tomorrow anyways), and lightly press the fan down where the blue sticker is to make better contact with the CPU heatsink. I could actually see in real time the temperature go from 90s to 70s, which maybe some of you might think is barbaric, but I found the experience pretty amusing.

Anyways, my heatsink arrived this morning along with the CPU. After installing it, I found the size disparity pretty amusing.


And then re-added my GPU. Apparently if you have a mountain on top of a tiny plains, adding a second mountain doesn't make the first one blend in better.


Anyways, I got it back in the case now, I also didn't re-mount the hard drive bays (I was concerned about air ventilation on my first startup with the 4790k).


After a small panic and flipping through several manuals, I realized I reversed the reset case switch and the power switch connectors to the motherboard, and then she fired up. The entire cleaning process and fan installation took about 3 hours, unfortunately my motherboard is so damn tiny in this case, the designed exposed slot for motherboards in my case is waaay off center, so to attach the backplate of the Cryorig H7 I have to remove the entire motherboard out first. As you can see, my mobo doesn't even clear the gap.


However she boots up just fine, first time in my BIOS recognizing (I bought my board in 2015, so didn't need to update the BIOS for the Haswell Refresh, although it is only v6.6 [latest for my board is 2015 v6.7]) my mobo kept reading the CPU temperature in the high 30s - low 40s on idle.

After resetting and starting up HWInfo, the temperature comfortably reads in the mid 30s on idle. I haven't put it on load yet, but loading up my modded instance didn't even seem to push it past 60% of utilization.

Ingame, areas ofmy base where I used to struggle at around 5-10 fps is comfortable around 40-50. I can also alt+tab in and out of the game easier than before (important when I usually want to do scripting or testing for modpack development). Pretty happy with the results, and happy that it only really costed me about $240 to upgrade, hopefully this can carry me a couple more years. New mic and audio interface coming this weekend. Didn't originally mean to turn this into a blog post, but it's a small victory that I'm happy with.

edit: Does anyone have any single thread benchmark reports of the I5-4430 versus the i7-4790k? Or are benchmarks not as reliable? I'm happy with the frame improvement but I was wondering if I could find anything else that had a more technical report on it, there were some graphs on CPUbenchmark, but wasn't sure how reliable those were. The reason why is because I know the 4790k blows the 4430 out of the water in terms of multithreaded performance, but wasn't exactly sure how much better in single thread department.,

Also I have turbo boost off, don't think I need it, so figured might as well leave it off.

 

[Vario]

The single thread is about the same. Multithread only really better if you use over 4 cores. It will show on benchmarks as better but in terms of real life observable usage, probably not a whole lot of difference. 4790K is really a quad core just like the i5 the only difference is 4 extra threads which are not the same as 4 extra cores. I think you are having better results because no more thermal throttle as you have a better heatsink. You could experiment and try the i5 in place of the 4790K but with the heatsink and see if the end result is the same. The stock heatsink is a piece of junk and very hard to mount in such a way where it has any clamping force unless you modify it with nuts and bolts.