Peripherals are again a personal preference item, but we want to offer some good quality items that will help you on you get started with a good quality stream.

Monitor - Acer GN246HL 24” 114Hz

Price

£158.11 (CCL Online UK)
$194.62 (Amazon.com US)


The reason why we chose the Acer GN246HL is simple, it’s full HD (1920x1080) and 144Hz and is considerably more affordable than a lot of other monitors with the same specifications. But what’s also good about this particular monitor is the ultra-low 1ms GTG response time, 350 nit peak brightness and its VESA mounting capabilities. The panel maybe TN so it won’t be as colour accurate as an IPS panel, but for gaming, it’s a solid starting out point. Also if you’re wanting to take streaming seriously and crave the best experience, we’d opt for two of these monitors, if your budget has room to accommodate that. The reason for a dual monitor setup is to make streaming content easier. For example, you’d have your game on your main display and OBS, chat and other applications running on the second screen. Again not needed, but it does help make things a lot easier.

Headset - Corsair HS50

Price

Price £54.22 (CCL Online UK)
$48.49 (Amazon.com US)


What makes the HS50 from Corsair a compelling choice is the overall package. The styling is clean and minimal, the built-in mic offers good sound quality meaning you may not even not to opt for a dedicated microphone straight away, and also the headsets sound - thanks to the 50mm drivers, is quite impressive. Of course, headset preference like many other things is personal, but you can’t wrong with the HS50 at this price point.

Keyboard And Mouse - Cooler Master MasterKeys Lite L

Price

£40.03 (CCL Online UK)
$51.40 (Amazon.com US)


The Cooler Master MasterKeys Lite L is a keyboard and mouse bundle that offers some surprisingly strong features for a bundle at this price. The Keyboard features CM exclusive Mem-chanical switches that offer a more tactile feel than membrane switches do. The experience is more akin to a mechanical switch, but at a considerably less cost. It also features RGB lighting, splash resistance and on the fly controls. The mouse opts for an AVAGO 3050 optical sensor with Omron switches which is a combo you don’t see too often at this price point. It also features RGB and has a good body weight of 91g.

Microphone - Blue Spark Digital

Price

£52.94 (CCL Online UK)
$199.99 (Amazon.com US)


The microphone choice for this tier was a tough choice, it was a toss-up between the Blue Spark Digital and Blue Snowball iCE. The Spark Digital, we felt offered a better feature set for around the same price. It features an impressive frequency response of 26Hz to 20,000Hz, has an S/N ratio of 84dB and a sensitivity of 28mV/Pa. The only downside to the microphone is its age, it is an older model, but we still feel given its price currently it would be an ideal mic to start out with and even to grow with you.

As the Blue Spark Digital is $200 in the US, we’d recommend the Blue Snowball iCE we mentioned above. It costs $49 and still has an impressive feature set list. It may not provide as crisp audio as the Spark Digital, but it will be better than most microphones that are prebuilt into gaming headsets.

Webcam - Logitech C310

Price

£39.40 (CCL Online UK)
$27.49 (Newegg.com US)


A webcam is not what we would deem a make it or break it type of product for your stream, but if you want to utilise one then the Logitech C310 would be a good beginner webcam. It may only shoot at 720p, but that is plenty as most streamers still only stream at this resolution or 1080p.

Mouse Mat - SteelSeries QcK mini

Price

£9.11 (CCL Online UK)
$6.99 (Amazon.com US)


The SteelSeries QcK Mini was my go-to mouse mat for the longest time, it’s affordable, compact and just gets the job done. It may not be fancy, but it performs where it counts and doesn’t cost all that much.

All the peripherals and accessories in this list are of course open to being adapted, but we feel our choices are great to set on the right path to a good experience not only for streaming but also for gaming. Of course, not all these items are a necessity, and you could save a bit of money by using the microphone on the headset rather than purchasing an additional one. But if you want your stream to be the best it can and you don’t have the world to spend, the options for the low tier will do just that.


*Note - All prices in the article are correct as of the article upload date. These prices do fluctuate meaning the parts cost could vary over time. Also to note. The total price of the guide only includes one monitor, so another monitor would add an additional cost to the overall end total.