NZXT is one of the biggest names when it comes to pre-built and custom-built gaming PCs. Over time, the company has expanded its reach to include gaming PC components like cases, AIOs, and even Motherboards, but many come to NZXT for eliminating the confusion, complexity, and, recent months, the difficulty that can be associated with building a PC.
One area that NZXT has excelled in is the streaming space, where its pre-built Streaming and Creator PC line caters to a variety of needs. Just recently, NZXT refreshed its Streaming PC line in order to help broaden that reach and deliver three pre-built models that range from beginner to advanced.
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Although more and more streamers are moving to the two PC setup, the average content creator still wants their PC to be a one-stop shop. NZXT’s three Streaming PC SKUs will deliver just that.
At $1,599, the Streaming PC model offers solid performance in terms of streaming, but it is geared more towards the low end when it comes to gameplay. The Streaming PC is great for those who want to stream Fortnite or Counter-Strike: GO, but its specs won’t be able to keep up with the latest and greatest titles.
The RTX 2060 is no slouch, but many of today’s top PC games are beginning to require at least a 30-series GPU in order to get solid performance. And since this Streaming PC will split duties between gaming and streaming, users are going to see dips in one category or the other. That being said, content creators who focus mostly on IRL streams should have no problem delivering quality shows from this one machine.
Then, of course, the consideration of the two PC setup makes the Streaming PC model an excellent and affordable option. AMD makes CPUs that are great for streaming and the Ryzen 5 5600X will perform admirably when it comes to encoding and processing needs.
The next tier is the Streaming PC Plus at $1,999. This model bumps the storage space on the M.2 drive up to 1 TB and carries a GTX 3070 GPU. With the added horsepower of a 30-series GPU, users will be able to meet all of the necessary streaming standards, but also hit higher settings in their gameplay.
At the Streaming PC Plus level, users will get the most bang for their buck when it comes to the combination of gaming and streaming. In our testing of the Streaming PC Plus unit, the AMD CPU and the 3070 GPU marry perfectly to get at least 1080p60 gameplay and a quality output through OBS (Open Broadcaster Software). Those that might want to push newer games up to 1440p or higher settings might need to dial back some of their encoding settings, but it usually only took some minor tweaking to get things looking nice on stream and the monitor.
In our testing of the Streaming PC Plus, we found that popular games like Destiny 2, Tribes of Midgard, or New World could run at high/max settings with a stable frame rate, all while maintaining a quality stream. Depending on the game (especially CPU intensive ones), sometimes we had to fiddle with the settings to keep everything stable, but that didn’t take much.
It’s also worth mentioning that the Streaming PC Plus is great for dual PC setups in either category. It can slot in a capture card onto the Motherboard and either the CPU or GPU (through Nvidia’s NVENC encoder) is more than capable to hit a stable output. On the flip side, the 3070 is powerful enough to run most games at 1080p or 1440p and average well over 60 frames per second on many games. So, if the stream dream does not work out, there are still plenty of ways that the Streaming PC Plus can pull its weight.
On the top of the food chain is the Streaming PC Pro for $2,999, which swaps the 3070 of the Plus version with an Nvidia GTX 3090. Everything else from the Streaming PC Plus remains the same; the focus is really on the top-tier GPU.
Because of the 3090, the Streaming PC Pro is focused on being a high-end gaming machine that can also stream. The 3090 is extremely powerful and capable of running current games at max specs and 4K60, and the Ryzen 5 should be able to handle all of the encoding work in OBS. In some respects, a 3090 might seem like overkill but it offers a ton of flexibility when it comes to the gameplay portion.
NZXT’s new Streaming PC pre-built line runs the gamut and should satisfy any content creator, big or small. Those that want to dip their toes into the streaming world but aren’t willing to break the bank yet should find that the Streaming PC is perfect. Whereas those who don’t want to sacrifice their gameplay experience for the sake of streaming should look towards the Streaming PC Plus or the Streaming PC Pro, depending on how demanding their games are going to be. Overall, though, users can’t go wrong with any of the three models.
The NZXT Streaming PC line of pre-built models are available now at the official NZXT site.
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