• Log InLog In
  • Register
Liquid`
Team Liquid Liquipedia
EST 20:00
CET 02:00
KST 10:00
  • Home
  • Forum
  • Calendar
  • Streams
  • Liquipedia
  • Features
  • Store
  • EPT
  • TL+
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Smash
  • Heroes
  • Counter-Strike
  • Overwatch
  • Liquibet
  • Fantasy StarCraft
  • TLPD
  • StarCraft 2
  • Brood War
  • Blogs
Forum Sidebar
Events/Features
News
Featured News
HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview12Rongyi Cup S3 - Preview & Info3herO wins SC2 All-Star Invitational14SC2 All-Star Invitational: Tournament Preview5RSL Revival - 2025 Season Finals Preview8
Community News
Weekly Cups (Jan 26-Feb 1): herO, Clem, ByuN, Classic win2RSL Season 4 announced for March-April7Weekly Cups (Jan 19-25): Bunny, Trigger, MaxPax win3Weekly Cups (Jan 12-18): herO, MaxPax, Solar win0BSL Season 2025 - Full Overview and Conclusion8
StarCraft 2
General
Stellar Fest "01" Jersey Charity Auction StarCraft 2 Not at the Esports World Cup 2026 Weekly Cups (Jan 26-Feb 1): herO, Clem, ByuN, Classic win HomeStory Cup 28 - Info & Preview Weekly Cups (Jan 19-25): Bunny, Trigger, MaxPax win
Tourneys
HomeStory Cup 28 RSL Season 4 announced for March-April PIG STY FESTIVAL 7.0! (19 Feb - 1 Mar) StarCraft Evolution League (SC Evo Biweekly) $21,000 Rongyi Cup Season 3 announced (Jan 22-Feb 7)
Strategy
Custom Maps
[A] Starcraft Sound Mod
External Content
Mutation # 511 Temple of Rebirth The PondCast: SC2 News & Results Mutation # 510 Safety Violation Mutation # 509 Doomsday Report
Brood War
General
[ASL21] Potential Map Candidates Can someone share very abbreviated BW cliffnotes? BW General Discussion Liquipedia.net NEEDS editors for Brood War BGH Auto Balance -> http://bghmmr.eu/
Tourneys
[Megathread] Daily Proleagues Azhi's Colosseum - Season 2 Small VOD Thread 2.0 [BSL21] Non-Korean Championship - Starts Jan 10
Strategy
Zealot bombing is no longer popular? Simple Questions, Simple Answers Current Meta Soma's 9 hatch build from ASL Game 2
Other Games
General Games
Nintendo Switch Thread Battle Aces/David Kim RTS Megathread Path of Exile Mobile Legends: Bang Bang Beyond All Reason
Dota 2
Official 'what is Dota anymore' discussion
League of Legends
Join illminati in Luanda Angola+27 60 696 7068
Heroes of the Storm
Simple Questions, Simple Answers Heroes of the Storm 2.0
Hearthstone
Deck construction bug Heroes of StarCraft mini-set
TL Mafia
Mafia Game Mode Feedback/Ideas Vanilla Mini Mafia
Community
General
US Politics Mega-thread Things Aren’t Peaceful in Palestine European Politico-economics QA Mega-thread The Games Industry And ATVI Canadian Politics Mega-thread
Fan Clubs
The herO Fan Club! The IdrA Fan Club
Media & Entertainment
Anime Discussion Thread [Manga] One Piece
Sports
2024 - 2026 Football Thread
World Cup 2022
Tech Support
Computer Build, Upgrade & Buying Resource Thread
TL Community
The Automated Ban List
Blogs
Play, Watch, Drink: Esports …
TrAiDoS
My 2025 Magic: The Gathering…
DARKING
Life Update and thoughts.
FuDDx
How do archons sleep?
8882
Customize Sidebar...

Website Feedback

Closed Threads



Active: 1377 users

Upgrade either CPU or GPU?

Blogs > BDF92
Post a Reply
Normal
Kezzer
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1268 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 19:12:42
April 19 2010 19:04 GMT
#1
Hey guys I know there are about a million of these threads and I've done a search, but haven't found anything specific to my situation. I'm interested in streaming with livestream in HD quality without lag and a pretty solid 40 FPS+. What I am wondering is if I should upgrade my CPU first or my GPU? I have a e8500 which is a 3.16 GHz dual core, and a nvidia GTS 8800.

I'm pretty sure I should upgrade my GPU first but I don't know too much about streaming so I might want to go for the CPU instead. If it is the GPU, any reccomendations for a new one will be gladly accepted but I think I have an idea from the threads I've searched, which one to get.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130339

P.S. I run dual screen and if i have a game running and a video running my screen goes black, I'm thinking its because of my GPU getting overheated. A faster GPU like the one I linked would take care of that problem, right?

Thanks again for reading!

***
CrimsonLotus
Profile Blog Joined June 2008
Colombia1123 Posts
April 19 2010 19:08 GMT
#2
I think streaming benefits from 3 or 4 cores, but the fact is that your processor is better than your GPU and i don't see how it would be a good idea to bottleneck your computer even more.

444 444 444 444
spinesheath
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Germany8679 Posts
April 19 2010 19:09 GMT
#3
I suggest that you try recording your CPU / GPU usage while streaming for a while. Raw data should easily tell you which is the most performance critical.
If you have a good reason to disagree with the above, please tell me. Thank you.
nttea
Profile Blog Joined July 2008
Sweden4353 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 19:21:07
April 19 2010 19:18 GMT
#4
I would have thought those specs to be fine to stream in HD, quite surprised that it isn't. But then again i know nothing about that! if i had to take a guess i'd go with the gpu upgrade . but like spinesheath said cpu/gpu usage during streaming should tell you what bottlenecks.
edit: also, your cpu should be pretty easy to overclock, if you didn't do that already. gpu can be overclocked too but from my experience stability suffers much more easily, though it depends greatly on the card (even the same models from the same manufacturer can differ significantly in what speeds they can run stable on)
love1another
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States1844 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 19:25:48
April 19 2010 19:25 GMT
#5
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.
"I'm learning more and more that TL isn't the place to go for advice outside of anything you need in college. It's like you guys just make up your own fantasy world shit and post it as if you've done it." - Chill
Kezzer
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1268 Posts
April 19 2010 19:26 GMT
#6
On April 20 2010 04:09 spinesheath wrote:
I suggest that you try recording your CPU / GPU usage while streaming for a while. Raw data should easily tell you which is the most performance critical.



I'd like to do that, are there any specific programs that are good at this? I know my task manager can monitor cpu usage, but what about gpu usage?
Kezzer
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1268 Posts
April 19 2010 19:26 GMT
#7
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.


AFAIK SSD is still really expensive, know any cheap ones that can do the job well?
R1CH
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
Netherlands10341 Posts
April 19 2010 19:27 GMT
#8
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.

This won't benefit streaming in any way at all.
AdministratorTwitter: @R1CH_TL
TL+ Member
KOFgokuon
Profile Blog Joined August 2004
United States14902 Posts
April 19 2010 19:28 GMT
#9
don't get products that are 2 generations old
get a 5770
Scorch
Profile Blog Joined March 2008
Austria3371 Posts
April 19 2010 19:30 GMT
#10
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.

I often recommend upgrading hard disks for general system performance, but it's the wrong advice for this situation. Neither 3D framerate nor livestreaming depends much on the hard disk.
semantics
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
10040 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 19:39:56
April 19 2010 19:34 GMT
#11
On April 20 2010 04:28 KOFgokuon wrote:
don't get products that are 2 generations old
get a 5770

Putting the gpu under less load wont make the stream better prob make frame rates in game a bit better or prob could crank up the quality a little but ->
On April 20 2010 04:27 R1CH wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.

This won't benefit streaming in any way at all.

Yup the only parts that streaming will benefit from is faster cpu mostly for better faster compression as bandwidth is limited to 500kbp/s on live stream you have a quick cpu already e8500 can easily oc past 3.6 prob could do 4.0 on a good mobo.

When recording with fraps a fast hdd is important but when streaming it's not copying uncompressed frames to the hdd

CPU and RAM is what matters in the stream

you could also improve quality by lower the frame rate increasing the quality per frame at the cost of some fluidity but if it looks like shit fluid doesn't matter.

I meant the way i would set it up is put the resolution on the lowest possible while maintaining my 16 aspect raito oc my cpu and ram as far as i could and set procaster to stream at porb 15fps less 12 if it's not looking good enough while bumping up the complexity of the compression i'm assuming those options are in procaster ionno never used it.
spinesheath
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Germany8679 Posts
April 19 2010 19:39 GMT
#12
There is a nice and small program called GPU-Z which should be able to record GPU usuage (haven't actually tried recording though).
I think there also is a CPU-Z, but I haven't tried it yet.
If you have a good reason to disagree with the above, please tell me. Thank you.
Kezzer
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1268 Posts
April 19 2010 19:41 GMT
#13
On April 20 2010 04:34 semantics wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:28 KOFgokuon wrote:
don't get products that are 2 generations old
get a 5770

Putting the gpu under less load wont make the stream better prob make frame rates in game a bit better or prob could crank up the quality a little but ->
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:27 R1CH wrote:
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.

This won't benefit streaming in any way at all.

Yup the only parts that streaming will benefit from is faster cpu mostly for better faster compression as bandwidth is limited to 500kbp/s on live stream you have a quick cpu already e8500 can easily oc past 3.6 prob could do 4.0 on a good mobo.

When recording with fraps a fast hdd is important but when streaming it's not copying uncompressed frames to the hdd

CPU and RAM is what matters in the stream

you could also improve quality by lower the frame rate increasing the quality per frame at the cost of some fluidity but if it looks like shit fluid doesn't matter.

I meant the way i would set it up is put the resolution on the lowest possible while maintaining my 16 aspect raito oc my cpu and ram as far as i could and set procaster to stream at porb 15fps less 12 if it's not looking good enough



Well yeah, when I turn my stream on I get pretty bad FPS compared to when it's off. I guess the problem may lie in my 32 bit operating system(XP)? While I do have 4g of ram, it can only use 3.25. What I was hoping was for the better GPU to improve my in-game FPS while I am streaming.
mahnini
Profile Blog Joined October 2005
United States6862 Posts
April 19 2010 19:42 GMT
#14
i'm more interested in where you'll be able to livestream in HD res :O
the world's a playground. you know that when you're a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it.
love1another
Profile Blog Joined December 2009
United States1844 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 19:54:38
April 19 2010 19:51 GMT
#15
On April 20 2010 04:27 R1CH wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.

This won't benefit streaming in any way at all.

This will benefit streaming hugely. The bottleneck in almost any system for streaming is disk write-speed. SSD is HUGE since you get around a 10-fold increase in bandwidth over magnetic. And most of the time, what is copied to disk for streaming programs is uncompressed!
Oh woops. streaming as in not recording.... >.<
"I'm learning more and more that TL isn't the place to go for advice outside of anything you need in college. It's like you guys just make up your own fantasy world shit and post it as if you've done it." - Chill
mahnini
Profile Blog Joined October 2005
United States6862 Posts
April 19 2010 19:58 GMT
#16
it's not like an SSD would help for recording anyway. HDDs are more than sufficient in terms of write bandwidth. bottleneck for recording / streaming should be CPU / RAM.
the world's a playground. you know that when you're a kid, but somewhere along the way everyone forgets it.
semantics
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
10040 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 19:59:27
April 19 2010 19:59 GMT
#17
On April 20 2010 04:41 BDF92 wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:34 semantics wrote:
On April 20 2010 04:28 KOFgokuon wrote:
don't get products that are 2 generations old
get a 5770

Putting the gpu under less load wont make the stream better prob make frame rates in game a bit better or prob could crank up the quality a little but ->
On April 20 2010 04:27 R1CH wrote:
On April 20 2010 04:25 love1another wrote:
Upgrade your hard disk to SSD. Almost everything you do that has a "load time" will be I/O bottlenecked.

This won't benefit streaming in any way at all.

Yup the only parts that streaming will benefit from is faster cpu mostly for better faster compression as bandwidth is limited to 500kbp/s on live stream you have a quick cpu already e8500 can easily oc past 3.6 prob could do 4.0 on a good mobo.

When recording with fraps a fast hdd is important but when streaming it's not copying uncompressed frames to the hdd

CPU and RAM is what matters in the stream

you could also improve quality by lower the frame rate increasing the quality per frame at the cost of some fluidity but if it looks like shit fluid doesn't matter.

I meant the way i would set it up is put the resolution on the lowest possible while maintaining my 16 aspect raito oc my cpu and ram as far as i could and set procaster to stream at porb 15fps less 12 if it's not looking good enough



Well yeah, when I turn my stream on I get pretty bad FPS compared to when it's off. I guess the problem may lie in my 32 bit operating system(XP)? While I do have 4g of ram, it can only use 3.25. What I was hoping was for the better GPU to improve my in-game FPS while I am streaming.

Yeah becuase procaster wants the cpu and the game wants the cpu ususally how this is best handled in games is by having a quad core like i7 and set 2 cores to the game which gets the most benefit from only about 2 cores then set 2 cores for the stream so they don't interrupt each other viaing for cpu real estate try turning down cpu intensive settings in sc2 finding balance is what's it about
T.O.P. *
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Hong Kong4685 Posts
April 19 2010 20:24 GMT
#18
CPU. GPU doesn't matter at all.
Oracle comes in, Scvs go down, never a miscommunication.
T.O.P. *
Profile Blog Joined January 2009
Hong Kong4685 Posts
April 19 2010 20:25 GMT
#19
On April 20 2010 04:42 mahnini wrote:
i'm more interested in where you'll be able to livestream in HD res :O

Ustream. It's much much more reliable too.
Oracle comes in, Scvs go down, never a miscommunication.
SayaSP
Profile Blog Joined February 2007
Laos5494 Posts
April 19 2010 21:34 GMT
#20
On April 20 2010 05:25 T.O.P. wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:42 mahnini wrote:
i'm more interested in where you'll be able to livestream in HD res :O

Ustream. It's much much more reliable too.

Yeap
[iHs]SSP | I-NO-KI BOM-BA-YE | のヮの http://tinyurl.com/MLIStheCV , MLIS.
AraqirG
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States266 Posts
April 19 2010 22:57 GMT
#21
On April 20 2010 05:25 T.O.P. wrote:
Show nested quote +
On April 20 2010 04:42 mahnini wrote:
i'm more interested in where you'll be able to livestream in HD res :O

Ustream. It's much much more reliable too.



I think he is refering to bandwidth. Streaming HD is decent quality requires pretty fast upload (faster than most residential connections in the USA)
FragKrag
Profile Blog Joined September 2007
United States11554 Posts
Last Edited: 2010-04-19 23:03:52
April 19 2010 23:00 GMT
#22
FOR FUCKS SAKE STOP GETTING 9800GTX!!

THE GTS 250 IS THE SAME GPU EXCEPT CHEAPER, AND MORE POWER EFFICIENT

everytime I see one of those posted my head hurts so bad.
E8500 (besides there is not much you can upgrade to anyways...) should be fine for streaming and playing, just get some more RAM if you don't have enough already. Not sure about 'HD Quality' (do those even exist?). Dunno how much RAM you would need, but I would assume over 4GB.

Edit: Oh, you have a 32bit OS. You will need to get a 64bit OS and then upgrade your RAM in order to use all of it.

what fucking thread did you search anyways? A 2-3 year old one?
*TL CJ Entusman #40* "like scissors does anything to paper except MAKE IT MORE NUMEROUS" -paper
semantics
Profile Blog Joined November 2009
10040 Posts
April 20 2010 01:38 GMT
#23
Streaming HD even under kind conditions like 1280x720 a good highly compressed stream on generic content none of that anime optimized shit is like 2000kbp/s, under normal conditions where your cpu is doing other shit you probably need about 6000kbp/s to bring quality that could be called hd.
Boblion
Profile Blog Joined May 2007
France8043 Posts
April 20 2010 01:40 GMT
#24
Ati 5770 1Gb
And format your disk.
fuck all those elitists brb watching streams of elite players.
Kezzer
Profile Blog Joined December 2008
United States1268 Posts
April 20 2010 14:04 GMT
#25
On April 20 2010 10:38 semantics wrote:
Streaming HD even under kind conditions like 1280x720 a good highly compressed stream on generic content none of that anime optimized shit is like 2000kbp/s, under normal conditions where your cpu is doing other shit you probably need about 6000kbp/s to bring quality that could be called hd.



I think I was a little unclear to what I meant by HD. I just meant the HD button in procaster for livestream I didn't mean literally HD 1080p lol
50bani
Profile Blog Joined June 2009
Romania480 Posts
April 20 2010 17:31 GMT
#26
If you have problems streaming(which you should not with your current setup btw) you can upgrade your cpu to a quad-core. The stuff that does the encoding does not run on gpu at all.

About your screen going black when running a game and playing a video, I am not sure that it shouldn't... Gpus don't multitask. I would have to look into it but I think even the most recent ones would have issues with that. I'm not familiar with any dual monitor setups myself but can you turn hardware acceleration off on the video player??
I'm posting on twoplustwo because I have always been amazed at the level of talent that populates this site --- it's almost unparalleled on the Internet.
Normal
Please log in or register to reply.
Live Events Refresh
Replay Cast
00:00
Rongyi Cup S3 - Playoffs Day 2
CranKy Ducklings139
LiquipediaDiscussion
[ Submit Event ]
Live Streams
Refresh
StarCraft 2
Nathanias 106
RuFF_SC2 98
UpATreeSC 93
StarCraft: Brood War
Artosis 753
Shuttle 72
Hyuk 35
Dota 2
NeuroSwarm82
LuMiX1
League of Legends
C9.Mang0352
Counter-Strike
fl0m783
shahzam487
taco 478
Foxcn246
Super Smash Bros
hungrybox1157
AZ_Axe139
Mew2King80
Liquid`Ken22
Heroes of the Storm
Khaldor139
Other Games
summit1g9533
tarik_tv3676
Day[9].tv634
ViBE159
Maynarde57
JuggernautJason36
Organizations
Other Games
gamesdonequick999
StarCraft 2
Blizzard YouTube
StarCraft: Brood War
BSLTrovo
sctven
[ Show 20 non-featured ]
StarCraft 2
• davetesta3
• sooper7s
• Migwel
• LaughNgamezSOOP
• AfreecaTV YouTube
• IndyKCrew
• intothetv
• Kozan
StarCraft: Brood War
• HerbMon 36
• RayReign 35
• STPLYoutube
• ZZZeroYoutube
• BSLYoutube
Dota 2
• masondota22143
League of Legends
• Doublelift4665
• Scarra493
Other Games
• imaqtpie1600
• Day9tv634
• WagamamaTV286
• Shiphtur261
Upcoming Events
The PondCast
9h
WardiTV Invitational
11h
Replay Cast
23h
RongYI Cup
2 days
herO vs Maru
uThermal 2v2 Circuit
3 days
Replay Cast
4 days
Wardi Open
4 days
Monday Night Weeklies
4 days
Sparkling Tuna Cup
5 days
Liquipedia Results

Completed

Proleague 2026-02-04
HSC XXVIII
Underdog Cup #3

Ongoing

CSL 2025 WINTER (S19)
KCM Race Survival 2026 Season 1
Acropolis #4 - TS4
Rongyi Cup S3
Nations Cup 2026
IEM Kraków 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter 2026
BLAST Bounty Winter Qual
eXTREMESLAND 2025
SL Budapest Major 2025
ESL Impact League Season 8

Upcoming

Escore Tournament S1: W7
Escore Tournament S1: W8
Acropolis #4
IPSL Spring 2026
HSC XXIX
uThermal 2v2 2026 Main Event
Bellum Gens Elite Stara Zagora 2026
RSL Revival: Season 4
LiuLi Cup: 2025 Grand Finals
IEM Rio 2026
PGL Bucharest 2026
Stake Ranked Episode 1
BLAST Open Spring 2026
ESL Pro League Season 23
ESL Pro League Season 23
PGL Cluj-Napoca 2026
TLPD

1. ByuN
2. TY
3. Dark
4. Solar
5. Stats
6. Nerchio
7. sOs
8. soO
9. INnoVation
10. Elazer
1. Rain
2. Flash
3. EffOrt
4. Last
5. Bisu
6. Soulkey
7. Mini
8. Sharp
Sidebar Settings...

Advertising | Privacy Policy | Terms Of Use | Contact Us

Original banner artwork: Jim Warren
The contents of this webpage are copyright © 2026 TLnet. All Rights Reserved.