Building a Client Only Steam box

[Threep]

I want to build a living room computer whose main purpose is to stream games to, from my office computer. The goal is to build the cheapest possible living room computer that is still capable of handling the stream coming from my office.

The computer I will be streaming from is a newer i5 2500k processor and gtx 680 for the video.

Will I need to upgrade to an i7 on the office computer? Will the client computer need a video card or should it be able to handle the stream with onboard gpu?? Any help/suggestions on the direction to go would definitely be appreciated!

Happy STrEAMing!

[Penemue]

Just as a suggestion, I just recently built a machine for my girlfriend to do light gaming on, and I used a barebones kit from tigerdirect as a base, using an AMD A4-5300; all Iadded to it was a video card. Since there was a delay shipping the card, she used the onboard for a while, and it was surprisingly good, since the A4-5300 has an HD 7480 onboard.

Short story, I can heartily recommend this setup, especially since the A4-5300 is so freaking cheap and the GPU should be able to handle the stream easily. I just got into the streaming beta ealier today, so I'll do some testing and update this when I get a chance.

[[58th]tazerwhip]

I agree with Penemue something of the low-end, but new enough to handle x264 decoding. ie. My streming client is my HTPC: AMD E-350 APU (Radeon 6310 integrated) 4GB total RAM with 2 allocated to the video. Win 7 x64. Chugs in BP mode, but that seems to be a common occurance, but fine for non-big picture streaming. I have also been able to play while it's chugging with BP but that's cause I could care less at some times if the game is seamless or not... BETA An A class APU from AMD or anything above the Celeron line from Intel should do fine. I've just never really seen a Celeron work decent for anything.

[Threep]

Penemue, so your saying I could build a setup and use onboard GPU and be just fine??
Got a link to the barebones kit ur describing? I usually order all my parts individually from newegg or amazon.

I am surprised there arent more discussions about building cheap setups similar to this as IMO having one powerhouse computer in your home streaming to much cheaper boxes around the home will be the future of in home entertainment.

[Sledge]

AMD A10-5800k
2gb ddr3 ram 1666mhz
200w powersupply
Case
harddrive
should be around $160-220

[blackout24]

If you're comfortable with installing Linux on Chromebook/Chromebox hardware this thing is basically the best.

http://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/meet-the-asus-chromebox-a-179-fanless-mini-desktop/

- Very cheap 180 USD
- Very small
- 2x USB 3.0 as controller ports on the front
- Gigabit Ethernet
- Plenty powerfull Intel Haswell Celeron with HD Graphics
- HDMI + Display Port

[Threep]

True/Blackout, if that chromebox can stream well with only that 1.7ghz 2 core celeron do you think even one of the cheaper AMD APU's like the a4 at 2.7ghz 2 core would get the job done?

Is there something about the onboard graphic of that chromebox that makes it better for video? I definitely see the benefit of having the HDMI.

[rough and ready giant squid]

you would want either a newer a10 like the 7700k or the 7850k as they use intergrated r7s. You need at leat 4 gb of ram. here is a link to a good streaming build http://pcpartpicker.com/p/2NTdi

[blackout24]

Originally posted by **Threepwood**GoHawks!!:

True/Blackout, if that chromebox can stream well with only that 1.7ghz 2 core celeron do you think even one of the cheaper AMD APU's like the a4 at 2.7ghz 2 core would get the job done?

Is there something about the onboard graphic of that chromebox that makes it better for video? I definitely see the benefit of having the HDMI.

The onboard graphics only have to be able to decode H264 at 1080p with 60 FPS. The Haswell Intel HD Graphics supports VDPAU which is the Hardware Video Decoding API used on Linux. There is enough power to even run Skyrim on Linux with this thing. Don't let the name Celeron fool you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEqB0HDKW1w

The C720 has exactly the same hardware. Even a cheap Raspberry Pi has a powerful enough GPU to decode 1080p streams but it's not a x86 platform.

[Tig Ol' Bitties]

Originally posted by Daniel:

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2014/02/meet-the-asus-chromebox-a-179-fanless-mini-desktop/

Only $180.

See earlier post.

[Penemue]

This is the one I grabbed: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=8684209&CatId=332 - Right now, it's $179.99 for the barebones kit.

Edit: I concur about the A10-7700K processor being drastically superior, albeit ~$100 more. Making that kind of investment up front would go a long way to ensure long-term viability. (but isn't only having to worry about hardware on one machine the whole point of streaming?)

[Alith-Ahnar]

Just as an example how low you could go.
Just for the lulz i installed Win7 on my old ASUS T3-M3N8200.

Thats and AMD Socket 939 board with an nForce7 MCP 8300 chipset.
My setup has 4GB ram uses the onbard GFX shares 256MB of those and sports an Athlon 4400+ Quadcore.
OS installed o a Intel 40GB SSD.

All those parts are rather old still i can easily stream 1080p as the onboard chip has an x.264 decoder .

latency is minimal and nonethless that this board has gigabit lan i just conected it via 100MBit.
Yet it runs fine and streams most tested titles pretty latency free without framedrops.

Should work with SteamOS even better if there ain't some quirks with nVidia onboard chip drivers i had the couple a last times i tried to run it on this system.

[borg_7_of_9]

I picked up a complete second hand Q8450 based box with a GTS 250 for $100 4g DDR2 and it's more than capable of being a client!
1TB WD Green (yuk but for 100 bucks for the whole lot well yeah)

My actual client is a Intel X9650, 2G DDR3 1800cl7 ram, 1G GTS 250, Gigabit ethernet and it does extremely well..(running SteamOS)
Host is I7 2600K HD7970's in CFX, 8G ddr3 bunch of SSD's n HDD's - Win7 x64..

FWIW a lot of onboard solutions can decode 1080p on the fly so a video card may not be necessary..

[BB King]

What about a simple but yet power efficient: http://www.asus.com/Eee_Box_PCs/EB1037/