Hi everyone,

I might be building a PC here soon, and I've got some questions that I haven't really had any good answers on. Googe/PC Part Picker keep giving me lots of conflicting info.

One of my friends was looking to get one of the 30 series cards, and I happened to find one so I got it for her, but she also got the same item at a different store this Friday as well! So I now have a 3060 and she thinks I should build a PC for streaming (I generally only play games on console). So here are my questions:

1. Does the 3060 help me in anyway for streaming if the PS5/XS is doing all the work?

2. Do I need a specific CPU? I was looking at AMD ones on PC Part Picker but they don't seem compatible with any of the motherboards? they all say they need a firmware update ??

3. How small of a pc can I get if I'd want to put an internal capture card in?

4. Is there a way to build this for less than another $500 or so?

EDITS: oh if it helps the Ventus 2x 3060 OC edition - it says it has streaming multiprocessors, is that good for streaming? It has 12gb ram - that's more RAM than my current Mac...

1. A 3060 is good for streaming and even a lesser card would suffice if you are not simultaneously playing on it. I believe you can even stream on the CPU and that may be better but I'm not sure about the details of CPU vs GPU encoding.

2. If you buy a modern AMD motherboard and CPU then they are already compatible. If you buy something older then there may be compatibility issues but I don't see why you would buy tech that's 5 years old. Of course there may be exceptions so follow the instructions on the box.

3. Depends on the card and case, you have to look at the specs, they will tell you. The capture card is probably smaller than the GPU.

4. If you're not counting the GPU, monitors and other peripherals, then yes $500 should suffice but as always you need to look at your individual needs and you may want to spend a little more than that if possible. For example 8GB vs 16GB RAM makes a big difference and it's only a small increase on the price.

Also think about why you want to be streaming games and what you want to achieve by it so you won't end up buying all this gear for nothing.

1: If you are buying a 3060 because you want to use it to play video games and want to know if it will help with a streaming setup the answer is yes. However if you are asking if it's worth buying just for streaming and you aren't using it to do anything else, you should spend your money elsewhere.

2: It's a generic warning. Some older AM4 socket motherboards may need an update to work with newer Ryzen CPUs. If you are buying new stuff now don't worry about it. Your motherboard will be new enough that it won't need an update.

3: With two expantion cards, a video card and a capture card, the smallest you could reasonably go is microATX. Loot at mATX cases to see what makes sense to you. Keep in mind that the while more cube shaped cases are often smaller in terms of total volume, they have a larger foot print. So if you want a smaller case so that it will take up less space on a desk, these actually take up more usable space.

4: Excluding the 3060? yes,with $500 you can put the rest of a computer together if you put a little effort into looking for less expensive stuff. Including the 3060? no.

thank you @apewins & @psygnosis911

1 - I'll do a little more digging to see if I really need this card, or if I'm fine with just going straight from the consoles.

2 - Ok so it's just generic. both the CPU and Motherboard are fairly new so I'm guessing it's probably fine.

3 - Yes the $500 wouldn't include the monitor/keyboard/mouse/capture card/or any of that just the guts of the PC and case.

4 - I want to stream mostly just for me. Having a schedule to play for a few hours a week would let me actually play some games.

Thanks again for your input on all this!

A little more information on the CPU/Motherboard question from someone that had to deal with this in real life. My first CPU in my current PC was a first generation Ryzen 5 that fits into an AM4 slot. All current AMD CPUs use this slot as opposed to intel CPUs which use an LGA 1200, so there's the simple dichotomy of how to pick a motherboard solely based on slot. However, some older motherboards will advertise that they accept the current generation of CPU but will fail to mention that, although they have the correct socket that fits the make and model of the CPU, they may fail to mention that you have to flash your bios to the newest firmware to make sure that your computer even boots. Make sure to look up the history of the bios for the motherboard you intend to buy to make sure there aren't any bios that specifically say they update the motherboard to be compatible with a certain generation of CPU or you're going to have to spend time flashing your bios before putting together your PC.