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as you can probably imagine we deal with a ton of video around here a lot of it

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comes from cameras or screen recording software but we also make frequent use

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of capture cards which are typically standalone usb or pci express devices

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that can be used to record from external devices like a game console or a camera

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like on the WAN Show which raises the question why haven't we made a video

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about a capture card in over five years well the truth is that i wasn't ever

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really satisfied with any of them but in recent years they have improved

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immensely and when Corsair and AMD reached out about doing a sponsored

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video about their new vengeance a4100 gaming pcs with included capture cards

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it seemed like a no-brainer to take a look at how far they've come and

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demystify this category of products so today we talk capture cards what they do

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and why you should or should not buy one for your game streaming or recording

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setup

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before we get into whether you might need a capture card it's important to

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understand exactly what they actually do

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a capture card is a device designed to take an unencrypted video signal and

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convert it into a format that can be understood and recorded by the computer

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it's plugged into if your intention is to record tv or movies off netflix be

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warned that those signals are encrypted using hdcp and no legal device is gonna

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decrypt it for you for consumer devices it's typical to see an HDMI input like

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what you'd get out of your game console but in the professional world sdi is

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preferred for its longer maximum cable lengths support for time code and

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locking connector now a typical capture card looks either like this

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a box that here we go plugs into the usb port on

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your pc or like this a well box that plugs directly into the

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pci express slot on your motherboard these two styles make up the majority of

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consumer capture devices and both of them are dependent on a nearby computer

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to handle the actual processing of the data elgato offers both form factors for

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both tiers of their capture devices their hd tier and their 4k tier and

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while there are some minor benefits and drawbacks to either approach generally

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they share the same functionality and when you plug them into your pc they're

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going to get picked up by your capture software in a similar way there are

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exceptions to this rule like the camlink series that registers as a webcam making

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it a little bit easier to use NVIDIA chat software in our experience pci

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express based capture cards tend to be significantly more reliable just like

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water bottles from ltdstore.com now whether this is due to not having to

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deal with usb driver issues because internal cards are closer to cooling

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fans or just because pci express is

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generally a lower latency more stable interconnect than usb we're not sure

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usb cards though offer a lot more flexibility basically any computer with

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a usb port that is usb3 can run them

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laptops included if you want to switch which system you're recording on you

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just gotta move which usb port you're plugged into rather than having to shut down a system

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pull a pci express card shut down the other system put it in and then fire

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them both back up this flexibility can come with its own issues as we mentioned

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before though and we have found these cards tend to be a little less stable

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for instance if you rock a budget motherboard with only a single or best

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case scenario two usb controllers on it it's actually quite likely that you're

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gonna end up overloading your usb controller by having too many high

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throughput devices plugged into it like if you were running say for example a 4k

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webcam and a 4k capture card for your game console at the same time

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some people might not have a pc around to plug their capture card into though

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like say at a latin party or a tournament fortunately as i mentioned before there

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are also capture cards that feature standalone encoding and recording like

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the 4k 60s plus in this case a hardware encoding chip is

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installed in the capture device which does the work that normally the attached

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computer would do by encoding the incoming video stream into a playable

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video file that allows those to record entirely on their own just pop an sd

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card in and you're off to the races they do tend to be a bit more expensive

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though regardless of what it plugs into though

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basically all gaming oriented capture devices share one trait and that is ah

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there we go pass through pasture is an essential feature if you want to be able

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to game on the device that you're recording at the same time because

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otherwise you would have to deal with the crazy latency of trying to game

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through your obs preview window or something like

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that with pass-through the main signal that you're capturing is passed through

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back to your display while it's being captured so this is

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usually through an HDMI output port on the capture card with manufacturers

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generally claiming that there is zero added latency that was something we

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wanted to investigate in this video so we tested all three styles of recorder

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from elgato usb with the hd60s plus pci

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express with the 4k60 pro and standalone

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with the 4k 60s plus on our latency tester and hey

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good news Corsair we actually didn't find any appreciable

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increase in latency when using any of them so then it's up to you which form factor

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of capture card is best for you though if you have the space and you don't need

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the extra flexibility we definitely encourage going with

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something pci express based as for the resolution that just depends on your use

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case if you're browsing elgato cards the price differences between their two PCIe

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models it's pretty minimal so it's 80 to go to

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the 4k60 pro from the hd60 pro and you

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gain the extra flexibility of high frame rate 4k recording just make sure that

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your source content actually pushes that resolution although even then for the

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minimal cost it might be worth future proofing

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and it seems like Corsair agrees since this happens to be the card that's

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pre-installed in the vengeance a4100 streaming pc that they sent over the

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configuration we have here is pretty dang smack-on for streaming the ryzen

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3700x CPU has enough course for gaming

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with some extras for video encoding and if you want less of a CPU hit the

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equipped rtx 2070 super comes with NVIDIA's latest nvinc encoding chip

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which allows for a near zero performance hit while encoding directly on the GPU

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our specific config also comes with both a 480 gig NVMe drive for excellent os

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responsiveness and two terabytes of mass storage for games video clips duh or

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what have you so now we know what all the capture cards sort of look like and what they do

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but the final question is do you actually need one

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can't you just capture your screen with fraps or obs

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well in a lot of cases yes if you're strictly a pc gamer and you

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don't have any external capture requirements like no dslr camera xbox

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nintendo switch or the like then there really isn't any major benefit to

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running a capture card in your system fortunately for you though the vengeance

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a4100 along with Corsair's other gaming systems is available without a capture

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card to save you the unnecessary purchase if you don't need it

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so thanks for watching if you're interested in more technical streaming

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recording stuff maybe check out our video on building a streaming setup on

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the cheap and get subscribed so you don't miss future videos like this crazy

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acetech pci express slot radiator water

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cooler thing that we've got coming very soon