Having gone down the rabbit hole of discovering what famous setups streamers and pro-players use, NICKMERCS is one streamer that came to mind.
I had heard of NICKMERCS from his competitive Gears of Wars days in the early 2000s.
It's crazy to think that he is an MLG National Champion who holds multiple world records and the co-owner of the famous FaZe clan.
This article breaks down NICKMERCS' setup, including a breakdown of his gaming, streaming, and PC build.
Let's dive in!
Let's start by looking at his peripherals, starting with the visuals!
NICKMERCS mouse is a Logitech G Pro Wireless and seemingly prefers the ease of use and clean greenhouse of an ambidextrous wireless gaming mouse that charges wirelessly with an optional Powerplay mousepad.
It has two programmable buttons on both sides. The optical sensor is on par with the standard offering's power efficiency and surface glide.
Without RGB, its continuous life spawn is at a comfortable 63 hours. With sensors ranging from 200 to 16000, the G Pro is a durable and fast-tracking lightweight gaming mouse.
NICKMERCS can also be found sporting a Logitech G Pro PowerPlay mouse pad. While at first glance it might seem like any standard offering from Logitech, the powerplay is able to charge a wireless mouse while being used.
The performance drawbacks in a wireless mouse have been addressed here with Logitech’s LIGHTSPEED technology. The pad is available in hard and soft surfaces to provide a hassle free desk greenhouse. The mouse pad is 2mm thick with 321 x 344 x 43mm in dimensions.
Nickmerc's keyboard is a sleek minimalist Logitech G Pro X keyboard similar to the mouse.
The keyboard includes Lightsync RGB lighting, which you can manipulate backlit brightness.
The keyboard is meant for durability as it comes with a keycap puller for users to have personalized caps and switches.
You can change the board switches for a clicky, standard, and tactile feel.
While it does not feature a wrist rest, the G Pro X has feet that actuate on two levels of tilt.
For audio, NICKMERCS uses ASTRO Gaming A40 TR Headset.
Like the controller, the headset follows the same durable philosophy and offers robust compatibility to all consoles and devices with a 3.5mm jack.
Nick likes the headset's open-back design that reduces ear damage for extended streams and game sessions. It also comes in a closed-back design.
NICKMERCS uses the MixAmp and its V2 feature to enhance the audio.
Its unidirectional microphone is detachable, which you can attach on either side of the headset with an inline mute button.
Along with the headset's already featherweight materials, you can upgrade it to include noise-canceling ear cushions and a padded headband kit for added comfort.
The NICKMERCS uses the popular Alienware AW2521HF gaming monitor.
If you've ever noticed on his streams, the monitor is a semi-glossy to matte. It doesn't glare even in a well-lit room, yet the colors are nearly as clear and vivid as a glossy panel.
The monitor's 240Hz refresh rate and ~1ms GtG response time, and a plethora of back connections give it all the bells and whistles a display needs for competitive play!
As to the question of what controller does NICKMERCS use? He has been using Scuf controllers since one of his Gears of War days.
The Scuf Infinity4PS Pro MFAM is his current controller of choice jointly developed with NICKMERCS. It's a PS4 layout controller compatible with a PC, too.
It has complete customizability being part of the Infinity competitive series. The controller paddles are customizable, can be switched out for faster clicks, and not impede movement.
The infinity series of Scuf controllers have an 8hr long battery life.
The distinct Spartan controller skin makes it instantly recognizable from its competitors and was designed with Nick, too.
The ability to compete without compromises is what makes it a perfect controller!
While most of Nick's furniture is custom-made, his chair is well-documented.
For furniture, it's an OPSEAT Grandmaster (Black). The chair fits like a glove for a large guy like NICKMERCS, but it also comes in various shapes and sizes.
Like the headset and controller, the chair has been with him for quite a while. Its foam and leather build need some breaking into but will support the lumbar for long sessions.
OPSEAT has reached its end of life and discontinued since mid-2019.
Now let's take a closer look at his streaming setup.
Some use DSLMs, Nickmerc uses a Logitech C922 webcam. It is a simple clip-on plug-and-play style webcam that records and streams in 720p at 60fps and 1080p at 30fps.
The cam has a convenient effect that lets users use images as background without a green screen.
It also comes with a tripod and a free three-month subscription to the streaming/recording software, Xsplit.
Nick uses the Shure SM7B microphone for that studio-quality stream like all good streamers.
The SM7B microphone is fantastic and famed for reducing external noises while keeping the nuances of any voice intact.
Compared to its competitors, SM7B features a more comprehensive response frequency range to deliver a creme-de-la-creme of acoustic performance at the expense of a large file size.
The mic also comes with a pop filter and windscreen making it an obvious pick among many popular streamers.
NICKMERCS has an AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K to capture footage. AVerMedia allows him to capture 4Kp60 HDR content and matches his display refresh rate (240 Hz) for crisp, low-latency, and smooth capture.
Being a PCI-Express expansion, it is low-latency for a no-lag experience. The capture card also comes with customizable RGB lighting.
It has software that can stream the game simultaneously on multiple platforms and professionally edit the footage!
While his current setup does not use it, he uses custom-made hexagonal foam tiles in his ultimate gaming studio.
The tiles cover hard surfaces like concrete walls to control noise projecting back into his mic.
It also filters out background noise and reverberations. Acoustic foam gets you better recordings. Their shape and thickness depending on what frequencies you wish to filter out of your room.
Good soundproofing foam is NFPA compliant. The tiles come in various pack sizes and shapes.
Let's explore NICKMERCS gaming PC setup...
For the processor, NICKMERCS gaming setup runs on team red's Ryzen 9 5950X. Nick is focusing on productivity over single-core performance.
The 5900x series has better productivity performance while video editing and processing applications at high speeds utilizing the chip's 16 cores and 32 threads.
The 64MB of cache ensures games and background processes run like butter, and you won't starve for resources.
NICKMERCS's system also has an NZXT Kraken X62 360mm – AIO Liquid Cooler to keep his processor cool through all the processes. It's the perfect AIO for building a silent pc or some CPU overclocking.
It comes in 1-2-3 fan configurations with 120 to 360 mm.
His motherboard of choice is a Gigabyte X570 Aorus Pro. Like most AMD motherboards, this board is backward compatible for up to 3 generations.
The motherboard is PCIe 4 ready for future upgrades and has XMP support for RAM profiles up to 4400MHz and beyond.
It has a network adapter built-in and has dual M.2 slots. A true beast among the motherboards.
You can find NICKMERCs playing games on an EVGA RTX 3090 with some dramatic zooming in the background.
The 3090 was already titanic with high VRAM performance, but EVGA took it a step further by adding three substantial pulse-modulated 240mm fans and customizable RGB.
The card can handle all resource-demanding games you can use for next-gen titles without any problems.
Nick's configuration has 64GB of HyperX predator RGB memory.
NICKMERCS also has a Samsung 970 EVO Plus SSD PCIe NVMe M.2 drive in his system for fast OS boots, load times for titles that would take advantage of the SSD's blazing-fast data read and write speeds.
NICKMERCS has a Seagate Barracuda 4TB HDD for storage. It's nothing too out of the ordinary here; it's simple storage for stream capture to save many hour-long streams and make highlights and Twitch montages for YouTube.
If you've been on stream, you cannot miss this case.
NICKMERCS houses all that powerful hardware in an NZXT H510 Elite ATX Mid-tower case.
The case design is that form follows function.
It comes with 2x140mm fans, vertical GPU mounts, internal RGB strips, and a removable bracket for the radiator, packaged in tempered glass to show off those gaming motherboard components.
Nick has a fully modular Seasonic focus plus 850watts PSU.
The system needs a beefy PSU to keep up with all the hardware. The PSU comes with a Hybrid fan control system to maintain optimal thermals while remaining silent.
It also comes with a massive ten-year warranty.
While he used to play Gears of War, he started with Outlast and Destiny. He mainly plays Fortnite, Call of Duty Warzone, and Apex Legends.
His entire setup is worth $300,000.
It's a fully soundproof setup with five systems; one for him with triple monitors, three others for guests, and another system that handles the security.
The entire setup took a whole year.
His real name is Nick Kolcheff.
Well, that is all about Nickmerc's set up in all its detail!
I can see how he prioritizes productivity over frames from his gaming peripherals, PC builds, and streaming gear.
Apart from his system, the ultimate setup is far-fetched.
But it is a well-deserved setup for a straight shooter in life and games!