Building a good streaming setup used to be daunting, but modern hardware has quietly made the whole process much easier. To be a content creator or streamer used to demand real technical know-how to get it right when it came to your setup. Everything from lights and cameras to audio and capture used to be quite fiddly to deal with in the early days of content creation.
After all, I still feel a specific kind of intimidation that comes with looking at a proper streaming setup, and that isn’t for the first time. A wall of lights, a boom arm with a microphone in frame, and a little grid of buttons lighting up every time a scene changes looks like something you’d need a broadcast engineering degree to assemble.
The good news is that almost none of that complexity is actually necessary anymore, certainly not if you’re building around a modern system, such as that from Elgato. Putting together a competent creator desk has become one of the more approachable hardware problems in PC gaming to solve, mostly because the gear itself does a lot more of the configuring for you than it used to.
It’s worth saying upfront that you don’t need every category here to get started. Plenty of streamers run for years on nothing more than a webcam and a decent mic. This is more a map of where the noticeable upgrades actually live, so whatever budget you’re working with goes on the thing that’ll actually be felt, rather than whichever product happens to be deemed most necessary in a general sense.
Below I’ve put together a little bit of a guide for you if you’re looking to get into the content creation game at any level, with the order below roughly following how much a given category tends to be noticed by a viewer versus how much effort it takes to set up in my book, which is a useful way to prioritise if you’re starting from nothing rather than upgrading one piece at a time.
Elgato’s catalogue is a useful lens for this because it covers essentially every category a creator setup needs — lighting, camera, audio, capture and control method — at multiple price points within each, rather than making you shop across five brands and hope everything plays nicely together. It’s also genuinely cross-platform in a way that isn’t a given in this space. Everything below works on both Windows and Mac (with my experience of some peripherals added in for good measure), which matters more than it might sound given how many capture cards and streaming tools quietly assume you’re on a PC. Here’s how I’d actually build it out, and why each category earns its keep.
Control: the part that actually ties a setup together
None of the above matters much if operating it means diving into three different pieces of software mid-stream. That’s precisely why Elgato offers multiple levels of Stream Deck models to offer an unparalleled level of control that’s remarkably configurable and easy to run. They’re even being used by Virgin Atlantic to help staff quickly access critical flight data, weather updates, and air traffic control information with a single button press, which is testament to their reputation.
The Stream Deck Mini is a sensible starting point with six customisable keys, enough for basic scene switching without much outlay. I’d wager the Stream Deck MK.2 is the sweet spot for most streamers though, with 15 keys that can be configured to cover everything from scenes, lighting presets, mic mute, alerts and clip triggers all from one panel, with software that ties directly into OBS, Twitch and most major streaming tools out of the box.
The Stream Deck+, which I reviewed when it launched, adds four tactile dials on top of eight buttons, and the dials do add something the button-only models don’t: quick, analogue control over things like mic gain or key light colour temperature without diving into a menu. It’s a single USB-C cable to run the whole thing too, and the plugin ecosystem stretches well beyond streaming — I had it controlling Spotify playback and PowerPoint slides alongside the usual scene-switching. The Stream Deck XL simply gives you 32 keys for anyone running a genuinely complex, multi-scene production, and is the same one used by Virgin Atlantic if you want another claim to fame. There’s even a hands-free Stream Deck Pedal for triggering actions without taking your hands off a controller or keyboard.
Camera: webcams have quietly gotten good
The webcam market spent a long time being quite meagre – grainy sensors bundled cheaply into laptops became the baseline, and dedicated streaming webcams didn’t improve on that too much for so long. For years, Logitech’s C920 was the go-to choice for many folks, although in the last couple of years, we’ve finally seen some genuine innovation and improvement that means the humble webcam has become quite a formidable choice.
Elgato’s current Facecam range is a decent illustration of how far that’s shifted. The Facecam Neo is the entry point, a Full HD webcam with a physical privacy shutter and reasonable low-light correction, making it a sensible for anyone wanting a meaningful step up from a laptop camera without spending much.
The Facecam MK.2 adds a proper Sony image sensor and fledged HDR support for a noticeably sharper image, and remains the sensible mid-tier pick for most streamers in my book. I reviewed it some time ago and came away impressed with how well-lit footage looked, plus the clever Camera Hub software, which even ropes in Nvidia’s AI Eye Contact effect if you want it, even if it is a little eerie. There’s no built-in microphone, though, so it assumes you’re pairing it with a dedicated mic anyway, and low-light footage leans a little noiser and redder than I’d like by default, something rivals like Logitech’s StreamCam handle a little more gracefully.
That’s probably worth knowing before you buy, even if the software and daytime image quality still make it a solid pick in my book. At the top, the Facecam Pro shoots proper 4K60 with DSLR-style manual controls over focus, exposure and white balance. That’s the kind of control that used to require an actual DSLR and a capture card, now built into a single USB webcam.
Of course, if you already have a proper camera, be it a compact, old DSLR or current mirrorless, then you can use that as a webcam, and that’s where Elgato’s Cam Link 4K comes in. This captures your camera’s HDMI output over USB and is still one of the better ways to get proper depth-of-field and low-light performance into a stream without buying dedicated broadcast equipment. For a more involved setup with multiple angles, the Cam Link Pro does the same job with four HDMI inputs on an internal card, overkill for most people starting out but useful once a setup grows past a single camera.
Audio: perhaps the most important piece
If there’s one category I’d tell someone to spend slightly more than feels necessary on, it’s audio. Viewers can tolerate a mediocre picture far more readily than bad sound. Crackly, tinny or inconsistent audio drives people off a stream faster than almost anything else, and it’s the one flaw you can’t really fix apart from before you finish recording.
The Wave:3 is Elgato’s sensible all-rounder, a USB condenser mic with solid, studio-adjacent sound and a built-in mixer for balancing game, chat and mic audio without needing separate software running in the background. Meanwhile, the Wave Neo is a smaller and more affordable option that’s ideal for anyone who just wants a clear step up over a headset mic.
Both are the kind of plug-and-play device that would have needed a small audio interface and some understanding of gain staging a decade ago, and now just work the moment you plug them in, largely thanks to Wave Link, Elgato’s free mixing software that handles routing and levels between game, chat and mic audio without needing a hardware mixer sat on the desk.
Once you’re serious enough to want a proper XLR microphone – something like a Shure SM7B, which remains the podcast and streaming industry’s default recommendation – then the Wave DX is Elgato’s own dynamic XLR option, and it’s one I’ve spent proper time with myself. The sound is excellent, with full-bodied, clear vocals with plenty of natural warmth, and it’s one of the best-sounding dynamic mics I’ve tested, to be truthful.
It’s worth knowing that a full XLR setup asks a bit more of you than a USB mic does, since you’ll also need a cable, a boom arm and an interface, which is where the Wave XLR or the newer Wave XLR MK.2 come in, handling phantom power and gain with the same software mixing as the USB mics. Even with the additional funny business of phantom power anda separate interface, an XLR mic such as the Wave DX still features the same qualities as a decent USB mic. Plug it in, set your gain once, and it just works without demanding much attention day to day.
A decent mic arm makes a bigger practical difference than people expect too — the Wave Mic Arm LP is a low-profile option that won’t dominate a small desk, while the Wave Mic Arm Pro adds gas-spring smoothness and works with third-party mics too, if you wanted something else other than Elgato.
Capture: for anyone streaming a console alongside PC
If you’re capturing gameplay from a PS5, Xbox or Switch rather than streaming natively from a PC, a capture card is a non-negotiable, and this is one of the areas that’s improved the most in recent years. It’s also where Elgato first made its name many years ago, and it’s got quite a venerable reputation when it comes to capture cards above some of the other elements on this list.
The HD60 X is the sensible entry point, handling 1080p60 HDR or 4K30 passthrough with low latency, which matters if you’re watching your own gameplay on a separate monitor while streaming. After all, nobody wants to be reacting to what happened half a second ago. For higher resolutions, the 4K X pushes up to 4K144, while the newer Elgato 4K S supports current-gen consoles including the Switch 2 with 4K60, 1440p120 or 1080p240 passthrough options.
Modern ultra-low-latency passthrough has mostly solved the older issues of rotten latency you’d have potentially gotten from older capture cards when this kind of workload was in its infancy, to the point where streaming a console feed alongside live play barely feels different from playing without a capture card plugged in.
Lighting: the biggest upgrade for the least effort
Lighting is the one area where a small investment goes a long way, and it’s usually the first thing viewers notice even if they couldn’t tell you why a stream looks off. Bad lighting reads as quite amateurish even with a decent camera behind it, and these days, you don’t need huge key lights on massive stands like you might have used to.
Elgato’s Key Light Air is the sensible starting point for most people. It comes with a 1,400 lumen panel that clips onto the edge of a desk, controlled through an app or Stream Deck software rather than fiddly physical dials. Or you can move up to the MK.2, which is a meaningful upgrade to 2,100 lumens and a bigger 15-inch panel, alongside capacitive touch controls, USB-C power and more convenient Bluetooth pairing.
If desk space is tight, the Key Light Mini does a smaller version of the same job with a rechargeable battery, handy for anyone recording away from a fixed setup entirely. Step up to the full-size Key Light at 2,800 lumens once you want proper studio brightness, or the newer Key Light Neo, which adds Wi-Fi control on top of the same panel. As you can see, each of these scales based on brightness, features, and budget, with options up and down the price ladder.
Elgato’s Ring Light is worth a mention too, less for gaming setups and more for to-camera talking-head content, where the even, shadow-free wraparound light suits a face better than a single key light off to one side.
What’s changed here isn’t so much the hardware as the software behind it. Every one of these lights is controllable from the same Elgato app, with presets you can save and recall. They can also hook into Stream Deck profiles so one button press brings your lighting up before you go live, and it’s easy to then sort while you’re live at the touch of a button on the Stream Deck or in convenient software.
By contrast, older lighting setups, whether repurposed photography gear or a cheap ring light, usually demand some understanding of colour temperature and manual dimmer adjustment to avoid looking washed out or yellow on camera. Elgato’s software handles most of that calibration for you now, which removes a barrier that would have put me off of content creation in the first instance.
The extras worth knowing about
A couple of smaller pieces round this out nicely. Elgato also offers a collapsible Green Screen, which is worth considering if you want a clean virtual background without redecorating a room. It folds away when you’re not using it.
For anyone doing to-camera scripted content, the Elgato Prompter mounts a screen directly over a camera lens so you can read a script while appearing to look straight at the audience, a trick that used to require dedicated broadcast equipment. A decent mount, like the Mini Mount, solves the unglamorous but constant problem of where everything actually attaches to your desk in the first place.
Good, better, best: three full setups
Pulling all of that together, here’s how the categories above stack into three complete setups, rather than leaving you to mix and match from scratch. None of these is rigid — swapping a single piece between tiers won’t break anything, but they’re a sensible starting point if you’d rather buy a coherent setup than assemble one piece by piece and hope it all makes sense together.
Good — Key Light Air for lighting, Facecam Neo for camera, Wave:3 for audio, and a Stream Deck Mini to tie it together — roughly £350-£400 all in. This is the setup for someone who wants a proper step up from a laptop camera and headset mic without spending much, and it covers every category so you can be as ready to go out of the box, and almost get ahead of the game.
Better — the full-size Key Light, Facecam MK.2, Wave DX paired with a Wave XLR, and a Stream Deck MK.2 will go for around £700 depending on where you buy. This is the point where the audio side moves to proper XLR and the camera picks up HDR and a Sony sensor — a setup built for someone streaming or recording regularly rather than occasionally, and it’s roughly where I’d expect ‘most people’ to sit if they’re after a fully-fledged setup to take an existing setup to the next level.
Best — the Key Light Neo for wireless control, the Facecam Pro for true 4K60, the Wave XLR MK.2 for the audio interface, an Elgato 4K X if console capture is part of the workflow, and a Stream Deck+ or Stream Deck XL depending on whether you want the dials or just more buttons. You could of course add the Elgato Prompter or Green Screen for good measure.
That’s easily over £1,000 once you add it all up. Nothing here is overkill exactly, but it’s the tier aimed at someone treating this as a proper part of their income rather than a hobby on the side. Even at this level, none of it demands the technical know-how the equivalent setup would have a decade ago. It’s simply a case of paying for headroom in resolution, control and reliability rather than needing to understand any of it more deeply.
What’s actually changed
What I get from all of this s that how much of the historical difficulty that used to be associated with setting up a content creation setup has been quietly engineered away. Lighting used to require a technical understanding of colour temperature, and now it’s an app preset. Audio used to require a separate interface and manually set gain, whereas now it’s a USB mic with onboard mixing that takes a lot of the hassle away. Coordinating all of it at once used to require real technical skill or a second person running the show with a mixer and what have you, and now it’s a grid of programmable buttons that talks to everything else on the desk with no hassle.
None of that means building a good setup is free, and it’s easy to spend more than you need chasing the top of every category at once as dreams run away with you. However, the skill floor for putting together something genuinely competent has dropped a lot, and that’s arguably a bigger shift than any individual spec bump across any of these product lines. A single Key Light Air, a Facecam Neo, a Wave:3 and a Stream Deck Mini will get most people a long way, and all four sit comfortably at the accessible end of Elgato’s range rather than the flagship one, which says a lot.
Content creation stopped being a technical hobby that happened to involve games, and started being something almost anyone with a modest budget and an afternoon to spare can put together properly if it’s something you want to take seriously. That’s a good thing for anyone who’s been putting it off because the whole idea looked more complicated than it turned out to be.
Reece Bithrey is a twenty-four-year-old freelance journalist who reviews and writes about shiny things for a living. He’s been featured in Trusted Reviews, PC Gamer, PCGamesN, Custom PC magazine, TechRadar, Eurogamer and The Guardian. He also has his own blog, UNTITLED. He is a mechanical keyboard nerd, so you’ll usually find him tinkering there when not writing, or bellowing at virtual footballers on Football Manager.