I decided I needed to upgrade my game PC, not because it was really that old but as i have found that when gaming and streaming from the same PC i was seeing the CPU almost max out when playing the game i stream the most, Apex.

When i built the PC last year i thought i had done enough with it to get a smooth game play and have the ability to stream at the same time. But playing Apex i was getting around 30/60 FPS and the CPU at around 98%.

There was 2 issues here, the FPS wasnt consistent enough, in large / close quarter fights it would drop down to around 30fps (not terrible but not great). The second issue was the CPU usage, i was seeing this hit 100% and you could notice it when playing. Overall not a great experience for me or the people watching me play.

What i realised is that if i could improve my CPU issue by replacing my current one, i would gain a spare CPU (interesting). I already had a second PC (very old) so why not upgrade that at the same time? it did mean i needed a few other components to do this, a new mother board for the second PC and new memory. I was lucky enough to get a very good priced CPU from TheKungfuKid (Thank you!) which he was selling. A Ryzen 9 3900 and 16GB of HyperX ram (Bingo!)

So how would this all look?

I was starting out with 1 PC which had the following spec

• Ryzen 5 3400G
• 16GB Corsair Vengeance pro
• Gigabyte B450 motherboard
• Gigabyte 1660 Super OC 6GB

As i knew i was getting the new CPU the plan was to upgrade the current motherboard in my gaming PC and use the old motherboard in the second PC. The specs i would move to then would be this

Ok so the hardware is set, what next? Well we start the build process. Now im not going to go into all the technical aspects of building a PC (there are loads of tutorials for that). So ill cover some of this in light detail.

First step was to get the current PC’s stripped of the parts i was changing.

Mother boards, memory and CPU’s were taken out ready for the next step.

A big thing that people dont do often with their PC is clean them. PC’s are filled with electrical components and dust has an impact on that.

Its always important to keep on top of them and try to keep them as dust free as possible, i do this quite regularly but as i was stripping them down it was an ideal chance to get into all the corners and give them a real good clean!

So the hoover was out and both cases were given a good once over.

Next was to put some of the components together. Ideally when building a PC you do this on a hard surface (table top or desk)

When putting the PC together you should put as many components that go into the motherboard as you can before putting this into the case. it makes life much easier.

Gaming PC motherboard had the CPU, m.2 ssd drive and memory inserted into it and was fitted into the case.

Streaming PC motherboard had the CPU, memory and CPU cooler added to it and fitted to the case

Once all the components are in and cables for your case / drives etc connected its not far off being completed.

But what you will notice from above is the gaming PC has very tidy cables but the streaming one doesnt. Now the gaming PC has a glass side so everything inside can be seen which gives you more of a reason to keep it tidy.

But this is not the only reason, having a clean and tidy space around the components allows better air flow through the system, better airflow allows the components to stay cooler which keep your PC running as optimal as possible.

Finally any additional hardware was put in (gfx card on Gaming PC) and then put the cases back together fully. I didnt have to do any OS installations as both PC’s already had windows 10 installed, it was just a matter of booting both up and installed all the new drivers onto both PCs and giving them a test run.

I may look to do another post around how i have setup dual PC streaming, but in essence it means that the Gaming PC only has the game running and the streaming PC has OBS to send my stream out to twitch. This plus the upgrade has taken a massive load off the gaming PC and playing Apex now im seeing around 100 to 140FPS which is a massive increase. I also ended up buying a new monitor (horizontal one) to help with the stream chat

If you have any questions on PC upgrading please feel free to give me a shout on twitter or in discord and i can give more in-depth information on any of it. Also if you havent done this before and are not confidence on making hardware changes, always look for help from someone as you dont often get a second chance if you do something wrong.