Playing and Streaming on same PC?

So is it just me, or is Insurgency: Sandstorm extremely CPU intensive? My rig runs the game flawlessly, but I cannot get a solid stream going from the same PC. I know I know, get a second dedicated streaming PC. Maybe when I have an extra $1,000 laying around that'll be an option. But for now, streaming via x264 or NVENC immediately overloads the encoder, even in menus. I've been playing the WW3 beta and streaming gameplay without any issue whatsoever.

Just wondering if anyone has any suggestions (graphics settings, stream/OBS settings, etc.) to capture a stable stream of this game. Having a blast with is so far and I'm sure my followers would too.

My rig:
ASUS ROG Maximus X HERO
i7 8700k
EVGA GTX 1080ti SC2
Corsair Vengeance 16gb DDR4

I am able to record with the following settings without issue. You may be able to adapt it for streaming.

CPU: Intel i7-5930K @ 3.50GHz (3.80GHz Turbo)
RAM: (32GB) 8x 4GB Corsair DDR4 3000Mhz
GPU: AMD Radeon Vega FE Air

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Example video:
Youtube Video

@kraeyq Thanks! I'll see if I can incorporate any of this. I'm still relatively new to streaming so overall optimization and stability in my streams is still a work in progress, but I was dumbfounded that literally every other game streamed fine with my settings except for this game.

I should also mention that the encoder was being overloaded in attempting to record locally via OBS as well...