Assembling a computer for video editing and streaming

At the moment, AMD Ryzen 7 1700 with a price of $330 is the most affordable 16-thread processor on the market. For comparison, the most senior chip AMD Ryzen 7 Summit Ridge 1800X BOX , and the competing one is Intel Core i7 Broadwell-E i7-6900K BOX . And it is not so important that the base frequency of the Ryzen 7 1700 is small – only 3 GHz, because, firstly, there is auto-acceleration up to 3.7 GHz (only for four streams), and, secondly, you can resort to additional manual overclocking up to 4 GHz (already for all sixteen streams).

Unlike AMD Ryzen 7 Summit Ridge 1700X BOX and 1800X, which are currently sold exclusively without a cooler included (Tray version), the 1700 chip is complemented by a Wraith Spire cooler with a 95 W heat sink, noise level up to 32 dB and LED backlight. You can't set overclocking records with it, but it's still enough for reference frequencies and a little overclocking.

Who is the target audience of AMD Ryzen 7 1700? These are primarily video editors. Modern video editing applications are perfectly able to parallelize video rendering into sixteen or even more streams. Secondly, these are gamers who like not just to play games alone, but to broadcast their matches on the Internet in real time and simultaneously communicate with the audience (streamers). Sixteen streams are certainly enough for a comfortable game and for smooth streaming. The rest of the PC users will have enough of a cheaper Ryzen 5 processor.

ID-Cooling Auraflow X 240 is one of the most affordable two—section liquid cooling systems with customizable RGB backlight in east european retail. It is installed on all current processor platforms: both mass Intel LGA1151 and AMD AM4, and enthusiast LGA2066 and TR4. Compatibility with old, but still popular in the secondary market sockets (LGA1150, LGA1366, AM3 and others) is also observed.

The Auraflow X 240 heat sink is equal to 250 watts, which is more than enough to cool even to the limit of an overclocked processor. Only three-fan CSOs are capable of more, but they do not fit into every computer case, and they cost a lot of money.

The copper plate in contact with the processor is polished to a mirror shine on the outside, and on the inside it has numerous tiny channels for refrigerant circulation. Two 12-cm fans rotate at speeds from 700 to 1800 rpm, that is, they are relatively quiet even at maximum rpm.

The glow of the turntables and the pump can be configured as a complete remote control, or synchronized with the motherboard. Officially claimed compatible with ASUS Aura, MSI Mystic Light and Gigabyte RGB Fusion, but most likely it will work with ASRock Polychrome and Biostar Vivid LED DJ. The main thing is that the motherboard has an RGB_5050_12V connector. In general, ID-Cooling Auraflow X 240 is a quiet, efficient, stylish look and, most importantly, a universal "dropsy" for which there are no unsupported processors or motherboards. And if you are a supporter of a more strict design, then take a closer look at the model ID-COOLING Frostflow X 240 .

Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO is a perfectly balanced model based on a modern B450 chip, which takes its toll due to a successful combination of functionality and reasonable cost. It is perfect for assembling a gaming system with a single graphics card and overclocking capability.

In the arsenal of the board, you can find an enhanced power subsystem, 4 DDR4 slots, a couple of M slots.2 with cooling radiators, a pair of reinforced PCI-E 16x slots, an Intel LAN controller with the ability to prioritize traffic, an improved audio subsystem on a top codec (there is even an optical input), a well-thought-out cooling system, a modern set of video outputs including HDMI for using processors with integrated graphics. Numerous USB ports are provided for connecting peripheral devices, including high-performance USB 3.1 and USB-C.

Since we have an AMD B450-based device in front of us, this means that it supports all AMD Ryzen processors available on the market out of the box and is capable of overclocking them. However, in comparison with gaming boards on X370 and X470 chips, the Gigabyte B450 AORUS PRO has overclocking capabilities in the BIOS. As if Gigabyte engineers decided to be safe from excessive enthusiasm of overclockers. Therefore, when assembling a performant system, the perfect pair for this board will be processors of the caliber AMD Ryzen 5 Pinnacle Ridge 2600X BOX Price from 9 478 up to 9 522 ₴ and AMD Ryzen 7 Pinnacle Ridge 2700X BOX Price from 5 347 up to 7 532 ₴, which do not really need overclocking.

T-Force Xcalibur RGB DDR4 is the flagship RAM model of the Team Group company. It comes in two colour options: General Edition with a transparent light-scattering glass and Special Edition with patterned. The totemic pattern, as the manufacturer himself calls it, by the way, repeats it on the legendary sword of King Arthur, after which the RAM is named.

Xcalibur RGB DDR4 is sold exclusively in ready-made sets of two modules with a total volume of 16 GB. There are two frequencies available to choose from: 3600 and 4000 MHz (provided that your processor and motherboard are able to start memory at such a high frequency). The first provides a bandwidth of 28.8 GB/s, and the second — 32 GB/s. The default timings for both models are the same: CL18-20-20-44 (again, you can manually reduce latency if your PC allows it).

The Xcalibur RGB DDR4 radiator consists of heat-dissipating aluminium plates on the sides (in the case of such high-frequency memory, they are clearly not superfluous) and a translucent plastic insert on top, which has the shape of a prism. This allows it to scatter light at an angle of 120 degrees around itself and, thus, gently illuminate neighboring PC components. You can adjust the RGB backlight using the proprietary T-Force Blitz application.

Samsung B-die chips are hiding under the radiators, one of the best in terms of overclocking. The younger version of the memory can be overclocked to 4000 MHz with a high probability, and the older version can be overclocked to 4400 MHz. As a result, we can recommend the younger version of T-Force Xcalibur RGB DDR4 for PCs with AMD Ryzen processor, and the older one for owners of motherboards on Intel Z370/Z390 chipset that support overclocking memory over 4000 MHz.

Inno3D GeForce GTX 1660 Twin X2 is a new NVIDIA Turing graphics card with a solid 6 GB of memory and at the same time a reasonable price. However the memory is used by the old GDDR5 model, instead of the new GDDR6, and this is the main difference from the GTX 1660 Ti. By the way, video memory is actively used not only in games, but also during video editing. The most voracious programme in this regard is Adobe After Effects (uses CUDA and NVENC technologies).

The GeForce GTX 1660 is built on a TU116 chip: 1408 stream processors, 88 texture blocks and 64 rendering blocks are available. But there are no tensor and RT cores, this is a privilege of the 2000-series models. However, raytracing is still implemented, though not by NVIDIA RTX technology, but by DirectX Raytracing (DXR).

The latest technology available only to graphics cards on the Turing architecture is NVIDIA Adaptive Shading (NAS). For the sake of increasing the frame rate in games, it draws only important objects on the screen in the most detailed way (for example, a car), and background objects (highway, nature) are less detailed. The FPS gain after NAS activation is approximately 10 percent.

Compared to the reference, the modified Inno3D GeForce GTX 1660 Twin X2 stands out favorably with a two-fan cooling system that removes 120 watts of heat without unnecessary noise. The core base frequency is 1530 MHz, auto—overclocking is 1785 MHz. By manually forming the frequency, it is not difficult to reach the mark of 2050 MHz. Video memory can also be overclocked from 8000 to 9500 MHz. All these manipulations add up to 10 percent of free FPS in games. And taking into account the NAS technology, the total increase can reach 20 percent.

Team Group MP34 is a new wave 2019 M.2 NVMe high—speed solid-state drive. Compared to last year's models, even state employees switched from PCI-E 3.0 x2 bus to x4 with twice the bandwidth (32 versus 16 Gigattransactions/s). At the same time, the price per gigabyte, on the contrary, continues to decline — the NVMe x4 model with a volume of 512 GB is now being sold for less than $ 100.

The brain centre of the SSD MP34 is the Phison E12 controller. It is made according to the 28 nm TSMC process technology, has two ARM architecture cores and is capable of working with eight memory channels. Simply put, up to eight flash memory chips can be installed on one SSD. In the case of the MP34, a 64-layer 3D TLC BICS3 manufactured by Toshiba is used. The manufacturer has claimed more than 1500 rewriting cycles before wear. All this is supplemented by a buffer from the DDR4 RAM.

The sequential read and write speeds of the MP34 SSD are as follows: the older 256 GB model has 2700 and 850 Mbps, respectively, the average 512 GB model has 3000 and 1700 Mbps, and the older 1 TB model has 3000 and 2600 Mbps. Naturally, it is worth correcting for TLC memory, which, when writing large files, slows down the speed by about four times. The speed of random reading and writing of small 4K blocks for all models is 190 and 160K IOPS, respectively.

Team Group MP34 is well suited for gamers who are eager to start a multiplayer match as soon as possible, and a video editor to store a hefty cache of the project, and programmers working with databases from numerous small files. But fans of computer modding should pay attention to Team Group T-Force Delta S TUF Gaming RGB T253ST250G3C312 250 GB with customizable RGB backlight.

Seagate BarraCuda Pro is a specialized HDD series designed for professional video editing, photo processing, three—dimensional modeling and other tasks that are as demanding as possible to the speed, capacity and reliability of the PC disk subsystem. The volume of BarraCuda Pro can vary from 2 to 14 TB. By the way, Seagate has already announced an even more capacious HDD — 16 TB, but it belongs to the corporate Exos series.

The BarraCuda Pro hard drives use parts of increased endurance, thanks to which they are able to work twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week without problems. Whereas the usual BarraCuda — only eight hours a day, five days a week. And the maximum allowable load of reading and writing data, the so-called workload, is as much as 300 TB per year. For comparison, ordinary BarraCuda has only 50 TB per year.

The sequential read and write speed of BarraCuda Pro is stated to be 220 Mbps for models with a volume up to 10 TB inclusive and 250 Mbps for models with 12 TB or more. Our own measurements by the Crystal Disk Mark application showed that the real speed is even higher — 230 Mbps for the 8-TB version. The volume of the RAM buffer is 128 MB for models up to 4 TB inclusive and 256 MB for older versions.

Another distinctive feature of BarraCuda Pro is the Rescue Data Recovery service. If you lose data on the disk, regardless of the reason, Seagate specialists will perform the recovery procedure for free with a 90 percent probability of success. But for this, the disk will most likely have to be sent abroad. The data recovery service is valid for two years, and the warranty period for the disk itself (repair or replacement) is 5 years against only 2 years for a regular BarraCuda.

1stPlayer Black Widow PS-700AX is a fully modular 700W power supply and costs less than $100. Modularity means the ability to disconnect all the extra wires in order to put a marathon inside the computer case. The energy efficiency coefficient is 85 percent at half load, for which the PSU deservedly received the 80 PLUS Bronze certificate.

On the main 12-volt line, the Black Widow PS-700AX outputs a current of 54 A, which is equal to 648 watts or 92 percent of the total power of the PSU. It is from this line that the most energetic components of the PC are powered — the processor and the graphics card. By the way, the length of the 4+4-pin processor power cable is as much as 60 cm, which allows you to carefully hide it behind the back wall of the case.

There are two 6+2-pin connectors for powering the graphics card, which is enough for any modern graphics card, including the flagship GeForce RTX 2080 Ti and Radeon VII. Or two simpler video cards in a bundle of SLI or CrossFire. In turn, there are six SATA power connectors for hard drives and SSDs, and PATA for fans — five pieces.

The Black Widow PS-700AX is cooled by a quiet 14-cm fan on a hydrodynamic bearing, which is several times more durable than a conventional bushing mechanism. At the same time, the dimensions of the PSU are very compact — the length is only 16 cm, although many modular PSUs with a similar diameter are 2 cm larger. Although the capacitors are Chinese ChengX, they are high-voltage (up to 105 °C). And 1stPlayer Black Widow PS-700AX is capable of operating at a voltage from 100 to 240 watts, that is, it can withstand both drawdowns and excess voltage of the household power grid.

1stPlayer V6-R1 is a full—size MidiTower case with two transparent panels and a price of only $50. Moreover, the material of the viewing windows is not acrylic (plastic), like most competitors, but real tempered glass, which will not crack and will not be scratched during operation. Through the side transparent panel, you can see in detail all the internal components of the PC, and behind the front you can see a trio of fans (as well as dust that will accumulate there over time).

The blown turntables have a diameter of 12 cm and a multi-colour backlight (pseudo-RGB). Another exactly the same propeller is mounted on the rear wall of the housing to blow hot air out. From above, under the dust filter mesh, there are seats for two more 12 or 14 cm impellers. Alternatively, a two-piece dropsy can be installed here.

The thickness of the V6-R1 steel is as much as 0.6 mm at the now typical 0.45 for cases of this price category. Thanks to this, it weighs about 7 kg and dampens the vibration of hard drives well. There are two compartments available for 3.5-inch HDD and both are hidden behind a decorative casing that also covers the power supply unit with its numerous wires. There are also a couple of slots for 2.5-inch SSDs and they are, again, for the purposes of careful cable management, behind the motherboard pallet.

The maximum allowable height of the processor cooler is 17.5 cm (with the standard height of tower coolers 16.5 cm), and the length of the graphics card is 36 cm (typically up to 32 cm). Simply put, the 1stPlayer V6-R1 case turned out to be really roomy and well-cooled, and the colorful backlight is in fact a pleasant bonus, for which the manufacturer does not ask for a penny extra.

Defender Chimera is a reasonably priced gaming keyboard with customizable RGB backlight that flickers stylishly to the beat of music (sound-activated backlight). The use of membrane microswitches instead of mechanical ones made it almost silent. The base of the clave is made of aluminium, which adds strength and weight to the structure.

The gaming Chimera, in comparison with office models, supports simultaneous pressing of as many as 19 keys. This, of course, is not a complete Anti-Ghosting, as with more expensive keyboards, but it's still enough even for MOBA and MMORPG genre games (there are only ten fingers). And the annoying Win button, which tries to get under your finger and collapse the game at the most inopportune moment, can be temporarily blocked if desired. A separate key is responsible for setting the backlight: 9 flicker modes and 6 glow zones are available, which can be freely combined.

The keys from F1 to F12, in addition to their direct duties, when Fn is pressed in parallel, perform all kinds of multimedia functions: starting the player, adjusting the volume, switching tracks. And the proprietary Defender application allows you to programme macros, that is, to quickly perform any combination of actions at the touch of a single key, both in games and in work applications.

And Defender Chimera is also protected from liquid ingress: of course, it is not worth washing it under the tap on purpose, but it will survive half a glass of spilled drink without any problems. The keyboard cable is in a wear-resistant fabric braid, with a gold-plated USB connector that prevents oxidation and a ferrite interference filter, so as not to create background interference to analogue stereo speakers or headphones.

Defender Halo Z is an ergonomic and tightly assembled gaming mouse of symmetrical shape, including side finger rests, which allows both right—handed and left-handed people to use it. Except that a couple of additional customizable keys are only on one side, but this is not so critical. The connection to the PC is wired: a cable in a fabric braid, with ferrite and gilding, as well as protection against bending.

The main material of the case is selected wear-resistant matte plastic, its texture imitating polished metal. The material may not be as grasping as a rubberized soft-touch, but it will definitely not peel off over time. The bottom of the mouse is metal, which, together with three plastic legs, ensures perfect sliding on any type of carpet — smooth Speed or rough Control.

In addition, the Halo Z case is decorated with a mysterious pattern in the style of science fiction, it's not for nothing that the mouse is named after the popular Sci-Fi shooter by Microsoft. When connected to a PC, the pattern begins to glow with "alien lights" RGB. The colour and flicker mode are configured in the proprietary Defender utility. It is also used to assign game macros to the side keys, for example, difficult spells.

But the sensitivity of the optical sensor from 800 to 3200 DPI (who is used to what) can be adjusted directly "on the fly" by specially dedicated buttons on the case for this task. The higher the DPI, the brighter the mouse wheel glows — at the maximum level, it just burns with "hellfire". In general, Defender Halo Z, thanks to its low price, is a worthy candidate for the role of the first gaming mouse, if you previously used only the simplest office ones.

Viewsonic VX3211mhd-2K is an interesting multimedia monitor that gives a little bit of everything. Thanks to a fairly fast matrix with a response time of 3 ms and a scan frequency of 75 Hz, it is quite suitable for the role of a gaming monitor. And a fairly wide coverage of the sRGB and Adobe RGB colour space will appeal to novice photographers, designers and video editors. Coupled with belonging to a rather modest brand, this allows you to keep the price at an attractive level for a 32-inch panel at $ 400.

The model uses an IPS panel with a diameter of 32" with a resolution of WQHD (2560×1440 pixels) and an aspect ratio of 16:9. Perhaps this is the most important plus of the model, since it is extremely difficult to find an IPS monitor with the same ratio of screen size, resolution and price. And even if it works out, there will always be some pitfalls. At the same time, the matrix is pseudo-10-bit and is capable of reproducing up to 1.07 billion colour shades and belongs to the Flicker-Free type.

The monitor is made in a rather strict classical frame design. Tasteful, but without frills. A certain flavor of appearance is given by a stylish branched stand, which was inherited from the gaming monitor Viewsonic XG3202-C 32 " . Unfortunately, the flexibility of the stand is limited only by a small angle of inclination. You will not be able to adjust the monitor in height or switch it to portrait mode. Rather, it will work out, but for this you will have to use a VESA mount.

The compromise nature of the monitor is most clearly manifested in the connectivity. It provides only one output for HDMI, VGA and Display Port, and the USB hub was cut in favor of the price. But there is an extremely unassuming stereo system with two speakers with a power of 2.5 watts. There is a 3.5mm output and input for working with sound.