Our Mid Tier option is designed to give you enhanced performance over the Low Tier guide. This tier uses the same core components as the Low Tier guide, but each of those core parts is different in the fact that they are considered more premium than the lower tiers offerings. This middle of the road setup will give you increased performance for both gaming and streaming meaning that you can push the settings of your stream to increase the quality.

CPU - AMD Ryzen 7 2700

Price

£259.99 (CCL Online UK)
$289.95 (Amazon.com US)


The Ryzen 7 2700 was the logical choice for our Mid Tier setup as it offers very impressive price to performance, plus it has an additional 2 cores, and 4 threads over the Ryzen 5 2600. These extra cores and threads will help with running multiple applications at the same time. The 7 2700 also has improved stock and boost frequencies over the previous generation - these are a 3.2GHz base and up to a 4.1GHz boost. Of course, the 7 2700 can be overclocked, but we’d recommend an aftermarket cooler if you are going down that route. If you don’t plan on overclocking, the stock cooler that comes with the 7 2700 is perfectly capable of keeping the CPU cool under this heavy workload.

CPU - Intel i7 8700

Price

£269.99 (CCL Online UK)
$299.00 (Amazon.com US)


The i7 8700 is a popular choice for gamers as it offers one of the best gaming experiences on the market. It may not match AMD for the core count, but it makes up for that with speed. The base clock is 3.7GHz and it will boost to 4.7GHz, this is quite a way beyond what the stock 2700 can muster. However, unlike the 7 2700 the i7 8700 can’t be overclocked, and if you are planning to, then you’ll have to opt for the more expensive 8700K. This will add an additional cost to the overall price, but it could be worth for the extra potential the K variant provides.

Intel CPU Cooler - Be Quiet! Dark Rock 4

Price

£54.77 (CCL Online UK)
$74.90 (Amazon.com US)


The Be Quiet! Dark Rock 4 is a new offering from Be Quiet! and builds upon the success of their 3 series. The newer model features a large 135mm PWM Silent Wings fan that is barely audible just emitting 21.4dB9(A) at load. Plus it has a massive cooling potential of 200W meaning that you have plenty of headroom to overclock the i7 8700K if that is the CPU you opt for. It will also work with Ryzen if you plan to overclock the 7 2700. Also worth noting is that you could save money by opting for a cheaper CPU cooler if you choose for the 8700 and don't plan to overclock.

AMD Motherboard - ASUS Prime X470 Pro

Price

£159.79 (CCL Online UK)
$177.39 (Amazon.com US)


ASUS’s Prime X470 Pro provides a solid platform for any system with all the features you’d possibly need or want. It’s very stylish and with main features that include support for up to 64GB RAM at speeds up to 3466MHz, one-click overclocking and ASUS Aura sync, make it a strong choice. Things like dual M.2 drive support, USB 3.1, Intel Ethernet, solid options for water-cooling and enhanced Crystal Sound 3 audio only enhance the package. Of course, like everything else, you are free to make your own selections, but we feel the ASUS Prime X470 is a solid mid-level motherboard.

Intel Motherboard - ASUS Prime Z370-A

Price

£156.20 (CCL Online UK)
$159.99 (Amazon.com US)


Like the AMD counterpart, the ASUS Prime Z370-A has a great feature set and is equally as attractive as the X470. It features the same maximum RAM capacity, however, the Z370-A can support RAM speeds up to 4,000MHz which the AMD counterpart simply can’t match. This board also supports a ThunderboltEX3 Card - you have to purchase this separately, but it provides speeds up to a massive 40Gbps through a single cable. This is up to 4 times faster than other data-transfer protocols.

RAM - G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16GB 3200MHz

Price

£199.49 (CCL Online UK)
$222.15 (Amazon.com US)


RAM choice as you can imagine isn’t as easy as it once was. But we think that the 16GB G.Skill Trident Z RGB kit of 3200MHz speed is a good choice. There may be cheaper options on the market, but we know that this kit works well with both Intel and AMD systems, and is arguably one of the best looking RAM kits currently available. With timings of 16-18-18-38 and a Cas Latency of 16 they still offer quick performance if not the quickest out there. If you want a faster kit we’d suggest taking a look at the G.Skill Flare X, the kit is over £50 more expensive, but with tighter timings and lower Cas Latency, the kit could just squeeze that bit more out of your system.

GPU - Gigabyte G1 Gaming GTX 1070

Price

£449.99 (CCL Online UK)
$489.99 (Amazon.com US)


The Gigabyte G1 Gaming is a card we’ve tested thoroughly and know that it offers great performance. The triple cooler design also helps keep the card cool under load as well as being very quiet. Plus the 8GB GDDR5 is plenty enough to pump out constant frames at 1080p whilst being tasked with GPU encoding. You can check out our review if you’d like more information on the card. However, if you want that bit extra performance and your budget can accommodate it, then a GTX 1070Ti would be a great choice.

M.2 Storage - WD Black 250GB

Price

£74.94 (CCL Online UK)
$79.99 (Amazon.com US)


For this Mid Tier option, we decided that an M.2 was the right choice. SATA based SSDs maybe cheaper, but M.2 offer much higher rates of speed and also take up less room in your system. The one we’ve chosen is the Western Digital Black 250GB. The reason for this is because of WD’s reliability and also impressive speeds. This version, in particular, has a read speed of up to 2050MB/s and 700MB/s write. Plus you get a 5-year warranty which gives you that extra piece of mind.

HDD Storage - Seagate Barracuda 2TB

Price

£52.95 (CCL Online UK)
$59.99 (Amazon.com US)


Our HDD choice for this build is the Seagate Barracuda 2TB. Seagate is a very well known company for making high quality and affordable drives, and this is just one of those examples. It offers 64MB Cache and 7200RPM performance meaning it will perform smoothly and reliably. Plus with the extra storage you’ve got plenty scope to store all your game library as well as of tonnes of miscellaneous files and applications.

Power Supply - EVGA Supernova 650GS

Price

£81.46 (CCL Online UK)
$89.99 (Amazon.com US)


A good solid PSU is a must for any gaming PC and the EVGA Supernova 650GS is a great choice. It's an 80 Plus Gold rated modular PSU that has a 90% efficiency, it uses fully modular cables meaning you only need to select the cables that you require and it also utilises a large double bearing 140mm fan for cooling. Also, 650W is plenty of power to run the system while also providing room for future upgrades.

Case - Fractal Design Meshify C

Price

£78.88 (CCL Online UK)
$78.01 (Newegg.com US)


The Fractal Design Meshify C has often been regarded as one of the best cases you can currently buy at this price point. This is thanks in part to its styling, open-air mesh intake at the front and an easy to use interior layout. Plus it has support for GPUs up to 315mm and a max CPU cooler height of 172mm. This gives you plenty of clearance for the components we’ve selected for this build.

Operating System - Windows 10

Price

£83.95 (CCL Online UK)
$99.99 (Newegg.com US)


With this PC build, you’ll need an operating system to run everything. For the OS we’d pick Windows 10 Home 64-bit as it offers everything you need and more.


Our Mid Tier selection will allow you to stream smoothly at 1080p 60FPS no problem. However, as with the previous Low Tier option, settings do matter and ensuring they are correctly implemented is key to getting the most from this system. It is all about finding the optimal settings to provide a good looking and smooth stream. This system gives you a good amount of headroom to adjust the stream's bitrate and also the encoder settings. This should then allow you to boost the visuals whilst maintaining smooth framerates. Also to note that if you wanted to overclock the Ryzen 7 2700, then using the selected Be Quiet! CPU cooler would allow you do that. Keep in mind that this will add an extra cost to the final build.

*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.