From Laggy Streams to 1080p60 — How We Built Marcus's Perfect Streaming PC

Marcus had been streaming on Twitch for two years when he got in touch with us. His setup — a mid-range pre-built from 2021 — was struggling. Frame drops mid-stream, choppy footage, and a CPU that could not handle a modern game and OBS encoding at the same time.

He had tried reducing stream quality. He had messed with encoder settings. Nothing worked. The bottleneck was the hardware, and Marcus knew it was time to build something properly.

The Brief

Marcus streams three times a week, usually 3 to 4 hour sessions. His main games: Apex Legends, Call of Duty: Warzone, and Black Myth: Wukong. He also edits his VODs — shortform clips for YouTube — which meant he needed fast storage and strong CPU performance for rendering.

His requirements:

• Stream at 1080p60 with zero dropped frames
• Game at high to ultra settings simultaneously
• Edit and render video clips quickly
• Enough storage for raw recordings — they get large, fast
• A machine that would last 4 to 5 years without major upgrades

The Build

For a dedicated streaming and editing setup, we built around Intel Core Ultra 7 265K paired with the NVIDIA RTX 5070 12GB.

• Core Ultra 7 265K: Intel's Arrow Lake platform. The performance cores handle gaming; the efficiency cores handle background tasks like OBS encoding. You get a dedicated hardware resource for streaming without stealing frames from your game.
• RTX 5070 12GB: NVENC hardware encoder is best-in-class for streaming — uses dedicated silicon so the main GPU cores stay free for rendering the game. At 1440p, this GPU handles everything Marcus throws at it.
• 32GB DDR5: Streaming, game, and editing software running simultaneously is memory-hungry. 32GB handles all of it without hitting the pagefile.
• 4TB NVMe SSD: Raw stream recordings can be 30 to 60GB per session. 4TB means Marcus can keep several weeks of raw footage on-drive before archiving.
• 360mm Liquid Cooler: The Core Ultra 7 265K runs hot under full load. A 360mm AIO keeps it quiet and throttle-free during marathon sessions.

The Outcome

Marcus's PC was built, tested, and delivered within the week. Here is what he said three months in:

"Night and day difference. Zero dropped frames since day one. Apex runs at max settings while I'm streaming 1080p60 and I cannot tell any performance difference versus playing offline. The video rendering speed is insane — clips that used to take 40 minutes now take 8. Best investment I've made."

Name changed for privacy.

Content Creation Needs Different Priorities Than Gaming Alone

A common mistake is optimising purely for gaming benchmarks when you are also creating content. A slightly lower GPU paired with a stronger CPU and more RAM will outperform the reverse for streaming and editing workloads.

When you come to us with a build request, we ask about your actual use case — not just which games you play. That is how Marcus ended up with the right machine, not just the most impressive-sounding one.

Build Your Streaming Setup

Browse our full range of gaming and streaming PCs — all custom-built to order, dispatched within 5 working days, with a 3-year warranty and free UK delivery.

Not sure which build suits your streaming setup? Get in touch. We will work it out with you.

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