AVerMedia GC573 Live Gamer 4K, Internal Capture Card, Stream and Record 4K60 HDR10 with ultra-low latency on PS5, PS4 Pro, Xbox

9 reviews for AVerMedia GC573 Live Gamer 4K, Internal Capture Card, Stream and Record 4K60 HDR10 with ultra-low latency on PS5, PS4 Pro, Xbox

1. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   KLeb – April 16, 2021

   A good capture device with a major caveatTL;DR:1. When the card is on sale, it doesn’t have any competition.2. You may have trouble capturing at the highest resolutions/framerates if your system uses a key E Wi-Fi card.3. You may have compatibility issues with certain HDMI splitters.4. Customer support could be better.The AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K is a good capture device, but it has one significant issue that prevents me from calling it great. Whether or not you’re impacted by this issue depends upon your setup and how you intend to use the device.The issue I’m referring to relates to something called maximum payload size or MPS. If you haven’t heard of it, don’t worry, neither has anyone else. Essentially, MPS is part of what determines how much bandwidth is achievable on a PCI interface. Capturing 4K at 60FPS requires substantial bandwidth. This card has been designed to realize the required bandwidth, but only if the device can achieve the intended MPS on your system.AVerMedia provides its own capture software called RECentral for recording and streaming input sources. Within RECentral is a bandwidth test that shows how much bandwidth the card has access to on your system and what formats you’re able to capture with that bandwidth. After installing and updating the card, I noticed that I wasn’t getting enough bandwidth to record at 4K resolution at 60FPS according to RECentral—something the card is advertised as being able to do with my system specs. Many hours of Googling later, I discovered this was due to a conflict with the Intel AX200 Key E Wi-Fi adapter installed in my system. Without getting too technical, the Wi-Fi card in some way (I don’t understand the specifics myself) limits the MPS of the Live Gamer 4K to 128 bytes. In order to operate with maximum bandwidth, the capture card needs an MPS of 256 bytes. There are two workarounds: move the capture card to your GPU slot (lol, no), or remove/disable the Wi-Fi adapter. When either of these are done, assuming the rest of your system meets the requirements listed by AVerMedia, you will then be able to achieve the bandwidth necessary to record in 4K60 at maximum quality.To be clear, if you’re not using a key E wireless adapter, you should be gold. Additionally, if you’re not bothered by perhaps using the PCIe slot designated for a GPU, that would work too.I’ve contacted both Intel and AVerMedia about this issue. To AVerMedia, I requested that they update their system requirements for recording at 4K60 HDR to mention the necessity for a maximum payload size of 256 bytes. This was their response:”We have confirmed that the performance test results only refer to the RGB24 format which needs to process a lot of data than the p010(HDR). You definitely can record 4kp60 HDR video with 128 bytes of PCIe payload size in p010 format. We will fix the performance test results and clarify the 4Kp60 HDR video is not restricted by the payload size soon for your reference, thank you.”In other words, according to AVerMedia, you can in fact record 4K60 HDR without a maximum payload size of 256 bytes. Unfortunately, I have no convenient way of testing this at the moment, but I may update this review when I do. What I can say is that this doesn’t always appear to be true according to what others have said. In a YouTube video I discovered while researching this issue (https://youtu.be/lW6chIX79B0?t=554), a user states that he was unable to get 60FPS while recording in 4K HDR unless he placed the capture card in the PCIe slot intended for a GPU. To make an already technical review even more technical, according to his videos, RECentral showed his PCIe bandwidth to be about 9.8gbps when unable to record in 4K60 HDR. While limited by an MPS of 128 bytes, I’m getting around 10.6gbps, so that might indeed be enough to bridge the gap and record in 4K60 HDR, but who knows. At least we have AVerMedia on record as saying that it’s possible. In order to record at the highest qualities, RECentral recommends a bandwidth of around 11.9gbps, and that is what I get when removing my wireless adapter.As for Intel, I wanted to reach out to them because I speculated that the root of the issue was in the Intel wireless adapter only supporting a maximum payload size of 128 bytes. Because it only supports 128 bytes at most, it in some way limits the MPS of all other devices on its PCIe lane, even if those devices themselves support a higher MPS. I inquired as to whether or not they currently or plan to offer any wireless adapters with maximum payload sizes of 256 bytes or higher, and this was their response:”Thank you very much for the time, we appreciate your patience in this matter, I am sorry to hear that we do not have a workaround for the issue, nor an estimated time for a new card with 256 Bytes payload. I will raise the flag to our higher-up level team, I will provide all the information gathered in your tickets so they know how important is to implement 256bytes in a newer card.”So there you have it. A strange issue without a good solution for now. Hopefully AVerMedia’s next capture devices will support PCIe 3.0 to bypass this problem entirely.With the more technical side of things out of the way, I’d like to discuss another problem I had that relates to the use of an HDMI splitter. If you plan to keep your computer and source near to each other and don’t need to bypass HDCP, using a splitter isn’t necessary. Although I haven’t used it myself, the card does feature an HDMI passthrough that I’m sure works fine. In my case, however, my computer is located some 10ft away from my sources, so an HDMI splitter is necessary to avoid stringing 20 miles of HDMI cable around the room.The first splitter I used (EZ-SP12H2, ASIN: B07VP37KMB) unfortunately appears to have audio compatibility problems with the Live Gamer 4K. Although it worked fine with my television, it periodically introduced dropouts and popping in the audio signal when used with the Live Gamer 4K. This is probably something AVerMedia could fix with a driver update, but since they don’t support the use of HDMI splitters, I wouldn’t expect them to view it as a priority. Once I discovered that the splitter was at fault, I purchased a new splitter (EZ-SP12HAS, ASIN: B07WR7KP1B) that works flawlessly. This new splitter does not remove HDCP by default, but it can be made to do so with a little work. EZCOO, the company who makes both splitters, is receptive and reasonably competent, so they can point you in the right direction if you need assistance.Lastly, I wanted to speak a little about AVerMedia’s customer support. As you can imagine, the first few weeks of owning this card was quite the tribulation. Amazon allows a product to be returned for a full refund within 30 days, and it took nearly all thirty of those days to solve my issues with this capture card. Because I wasn’t sure whether or not I’d be able to come to a decision within that time, and I didn’t want to abuse Amazon’s return policy by playing musical capture cards, I asked AVerMedia if they’d be willing to allow me to return the capture device directly to them for a full refund in the event that I wasn’t able to resolve my issues within 30 days. They refused, citing the fact that the card was purchased on Amazon as rationale, even though their company is the Amazon seller. Strange and unpleasant. I will say that they were polite and responsive—something that is depressingly rare these days.It’s tough to recommend this capture device. On the one hand, it does do the job and at a price where few are able to compete. On the other hand, technical issues and a customer support that has left a sour taste in my mouth end up holding it back. I had to put in an awful lot of effort to get everything working. Many probably won’t be as discriminating, and if that’s you, feel free to ignore this review and trust the hundreds of 5-star reviews. I, however, expected better. Two stars docked for the customer support experience as well as the esoteric technical issues that are irritating at a minimum and at worst false advertising.Feel free to ask any questions. I’ll probably update this already-too-long review as soon as the RetroTINK-5X releases to discuss compatibility with that device.

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2. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   Vidal King – December 14, 2022

   It just worksI originally wrote a negative review but after hours and hours of troubleshooting I figured out the problem. Let me say first and foremost, that capture card works beautifully with my setup. There’s no lag, audio or video issues. It just works…The rest of this review is more of a tip for people who want to buy this product. If you have a MSI motherboard and have two M.2 slots, you cannot use the second M.2slot and your PCIE 3 slot at the same time. You can’t disable it to get the PCIE slot to kick in either (I’ve tried). It’s a feature with the board itself. If you have 4 PCIE slots, you can only use two at a time. You can use 1 and 3. If you use 4 you cannot use 2 (I know it’s a thing with the B500 and tomahawk models so I implore you to test your manual). Once you got everything installed (Drivers and programs) the biggest hurdle you have to get over next is the HDMI cables. IF YOU CANNOT USE THE HDMI 2.0 CABLE THAT CAME WITH THE CARD, BUY MORE. Do not go the cheap route because that’s were your audio and video issues come in at. DO NOT USE OLD CABLES. You will get a no signal message. You can also use category 3 HDMI cables also. Once all of that is set up everything works seamlessly.

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3. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   David T. Kreal – December 26, 2021

   One of the best capture cards on the marketI’m a HUGE fan of AVerMedia. Let’s get that out of the way now. I’ve been using their capture cards going back to the Live Gamer HD 2 and before this, the Live Gamer 4K. Outside of some occasional weirdness with the Live Gamer HD 2 on my old X99 system, they’ve never given me any trouble and have really allowed me to expand what I do for livestreams.The Live Gamer Duo is unique from previous entries in that it offers 2 HDMI inputs instead of the single input found on most cards. Now, I know that after this product came out, Elgato released the Camlink Pro, which allows four inputs, but at the time, this was the best way to get multiple inputs, which has become a must for modern livestreams now that DSLR and mirrorless cameras have become the go-to instead of webcams.There are limitations to be aware of right away, the most disappointing for most creators is that neither input is capable of recording above 1080p60. HDMI 1 can pass through 4kp60 with HDR, but you can’t record it. HDMI 2 is limited even more, only allowing up to 1080p60, although given current streaming standards, this isn’t as big of a deal as some would make it out to be. It’s still worth noting those limitations, as if you need the 4k recording, the Camlink Pro is probably the better route to go.Those limitations aside, for streaming, they’re mostly irrelevant as most people attempting to stream will max out at 1080p60 anyway regardless of what they’re doing. And frankly, the card does handle both inputs with ease. I’ve done a few streams now where I’ve utilized both inputs and it has performed exactly as I’ve needed it to. If recording is the main thing you’re doing and 4k matters, again, you’ll want to consider other options. Or you can do what I was able to do with my current build, and have a Live Gamer 4k in the system at the same time as the Duo (yes, it works). But that isn’t always going to be possible unless you have a lot of PCI-e lanes to work with.In terms of setup, AVerMedia’s products continue to be very easy. Insert it into a PCI-e slot, power on your system, and install the driver from their website and you should be good to go. You don’t need to run their software, although it is required if you want to change the RGB lighting on the front of the card. Beyond that, it should be detected by your preferred streaming software without issue. This product, like the Live Gamer 4k, allows you to use the lighting for status effects, such as recording and if there’s an issue with the product.The recording limitations aside, this product works very well and will allow you to use your favorite camera along with your console and/or gaming PC (if on a dual-PC set-up) instead of having to choose one or the other. I’m hoping that down the road, AVerMedia releases an updated version that allows for 4k60 recording, but for my purposes, this is more than enough. As I stated earlier, I’ve managed to get both the Live Gamer 4k and Duo working at the same time, which solves the 4k recording situation as that capture card is capable of recording up to 4k60.If you’re looking for a dual capture card for around $200 (the price as of writing this) and don’t mind the lack of 4k recording, you can’t go wrong with this one.

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4. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   Daniel Gossner – December 24, 2022

   Pretty goodIve never owned another capture card so i don’t really have a good frame of reference, BUT, so far this capture card has been good…The only thing i don’t like is that the RGB doesn’t seem to work when i turn my PC on in the morning…i have to access the Avermedia ReCentral4 (which is the program it comes with) and open that program for the RBG to turn on…and i cant find the controls to adjust the RGB after the fact…

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5. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   PlanetAlien – June 26, 2019

   Endlich eine funktionierende capture Card!!!!!Gekauft nachdem die elgato hd60 pro gescheitert ist. Siehe meine sehr ausführliche Rezension bei elgato (dort mit einem Stern bewertet).Zu der capture Card:Geliefert wurden die capture Card, hdmi 2.0 Kabel, ein serial-Key für das Videobearbeitungsprogramm ( kostet normalerweise um die 50 Euro) , kleine Bedienungsanleitung.Folgendes Sehr wichtig!!! Steht nirgends und auch nicht in diversen inkompletten Tutorials im netz (für Dual pc).Die elgato hd60 pro kann nur 2 k , das heißt das euer Gaming Monitor auf 2 k ebenfalls begrenzt wird beim zocken!!!!! Ich habe 3 k Monitor und möchte selbstverständlich mit 3 k Auflösung spielen. Das geht mit elgato 60hd pro nicht.Die avermedia 4K capture Card kann das aber sehr wohl, und zwar 2k mit bis zu 240 hz, 3k mit 144 hz und 4K mit 60 hz. Die Leute im netz und Tutorials sagten immer (ja man muss sich im netz fortbilden, da es gar keine brauchbare Anleitung vom Hersteller gibt) : wofür brauchst du eine 4K capture Card wenn du nur mit 720p streamen willst? Ja weil dein Gaming Monitor kastriert wird auf 2 k beim zocken!!!!! Deshalb!Ich habe 2 pc‘s.Gaming und Streaming versteht sich.Eingebaut in Streaming pc. Hdmi Kabel in die grafikkarte und von dort in hdmi in Anschluss der capture Card. Aus der Grafikkarte im Gaming pc ein Display Port Kabel zum Gaming Monitor. So , Hardware ist schon angeschlossen. Installieren des Treiber (von der Homepage der avermedia) auf dem Streaming pc. Dann Streaming pc Neustart .Dann am Gaming pc Nvidia Steuerung auf, hier auf mehrere Anzeigen einrichten gehen.Dann Gaming Monitor und die capture Card klonen (bitte im netz schauen wie es geht, ist nicht schwer). Dann eine Auflösung einstellen, diese in meinem Fall 3k 144 hz. Und schon kommt das Bild auf dem Streaming Monitor in der capture Card Software. Ich habe jedoch obs Studio auf dem Streaming pc installiert. Dann die capture Card als Aufnahmegerät/Quelle auswählen. Ihr startet dann immer nur das OBS. Die Software des avermedia NICHT noch mal dazu! Nur obs. Dann wollte ich das der Sound vom Gaming pc ( Team speak, Mikrofon und gamesound) zum Streaming pc bzw obs ankommt. Dies ist tricky, weil Windows nur eine Audiospur weiterleitet, man kann natürlich noch Mikrofon durch die abhörfunktion implementieren, aber in diesem Fall begleitet euch ein ständiges krasses rauschen weil Mikro permanent auf on ist. Teamspeak wäre dann auch nicht dabei. Also keine Lösung. Dann die Variante mit: alles auf Streaming pc installieren und gameplay abhören produziert ein Sound Delay beim zocken!! Geht gar nicht!!So, meine Lösung war:Audio Programm als Freeware : voicemeeter Potato auf BEIDEN pc‘s installieren! Auf Gaming pc dann die 3x Audiospuren zu einem digitalen Kabel zusammenführen (videoanleitung, zumindest teilweise gibts im netz) und dann das für Windows jetzt als einzige Audiospur erkannte virtuelle Kabel am Streaming pc abgreifen ( in obs und in soundeinstellungen des Windows auswählen). Das funktioniert perfekt. Ich habe es auch über Klinke und Audio Kabel von pc zu pc versucht: ein krasses knarzen und Rauschen, da analoge Verbindung und man einen entstörer braucht. Mischpult kaufen usw alles unnötige Geldverschwendung.Habe die Karte paar Tage, bisher gar KEINE Probleme damit. Nicht mal die angeblich instabile Software.Das alles steht nirgendwo erklärt, das ist die Essenz von mehreren Tagen Recherche noch vor dem Kauf der capture Karten (erst die elgato und dann die avermedia, wobei nur die letzte wirklich so funktioniert dass man es wirklich nutzen kann).Vielleicht bringt es euch was.–Kurze Anmerkung, da ich normalerweise nicht so lange Rezensionen schreibe: wenn Ihnen der ausführliche Test hilft Ihre Kaufentscheidung zu treffen bzw. zu überdenken würde ich mich über einen Klick auf “nützlich” freuen. So bekomme ich ein direktes Feedback und kann entscheiden, ob der Zeitaufwand für so lange Rezensionen wirklich sinnvoll ist. Vielen lieben Dank.

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6. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   FitAndLocal – February 14, 2020

   Great bit of Kit!FYI – I bought this for £180 in Feb 2020)For a 2PC stream/capture set up, this is great. Pretty much the Elagto 4k60 Pro Mk2’s competitor.Before going further, remember that it is YOUR reponsibility to check your PC can run this. You’ll need a mid-tier PC to be able to encode decently anyway – don’t expect to run this on any old thing. It is a PCIE card, and you’ll need a free x16 or x4 slot on your motherboard.Installation:Pretty easy – Mine slotted into the x16 slot on my motherboard just fine, but it was a tight squeeze under my GPU! Then you just fasten it to the exterior of your case.Connect your PC/Console/Video device to the left slot, and use the optional pass-through to connect to your display if needed (this is mainly for consoles or monitors without DisplayPort). (I connect my gaming PC to my monitor via DP, and to the capture card via HDMI, so I don’t use the passthrough slot.) Set your Windows/NVIDIA control panel to duplicate you display to the capture card. Then you just download the software form Avermedia’s site. Use the ReCentral software to program the RGB as well as the encoding settings. You can then use ReCentral or other software such as OBS, to capture gameplay.FunctionalityModes: 4k up to 60Hz, 1440p up to 144Hz, 1080p up to 240Hz. You can record at 60fps whilst playing at up to 240!Supports HDR if you use thatCan go way over 100k bitrate if you want (though.. why?!)RGB lighting can be changed in ReCental, but it seems like an afterthought – it’s not really customisable – can’t even just change it to a solid colour. Just off, or cycling through colours.QualityIt does take a bit of tweaking to get the performance just right.Recording 144fps gameplay is taxing, so most systems will struggle with the bitrates required. Best to stick to 60 anyway, as YouTube/other stereaming sites can’t support over 60fps (unless you do some fancy manipualtion)Quality is very good – colours look nice (and you can adjust these if needed)Performance is smooth – no frame drops when I used reasonable encoder settings.Comapred to NDI (the no capture card 2 PC method), it is better, but don’t expect a monumental change. NDI actually holds up very well, and if you’re happy with that, then don’t bother with the £180 on this!See this video to see the capture card in action, and comapred to NDI at 1440p60: search “NDI vs Capture Card. How it looks in 4 Games” — Change the quality to the max your device will support! —Overall, I do recommend this product, but WAIT FOR A GOOD DEAL! I wouldn’t have paid more than the £180 I did, especially when NDI is a viable alternative. Feel free to comment any questions!

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7. 

   Rated 3 out of 5

   Joshua – April 6, 2021

   Ultra low video latency, terrible audio dsync on live previews over timeHonestly, I want to say I love this, as video latency is so incredibly low, you can play games using the preview alone. However, I couldn’t do that without buying additional equipment that fixes the audio issues. Unfortunately, like all capture cards, audio desyncs get worse the longer it runs. Every time there is a small blip in capturing video, the audio desync widens. I’ve tried -50, -200, -400, all the way up to -950 in OBS. It’s a temporary fix at best, but most of the time it doesn’t fix the issue at all. This isn’t something that can be solved by using third party software, like OBS, or even the first party software, RECentral 4.There is a workaround for this issue with almost every other capture card (even the USB 2.0 unbranded ones that cost around £10 or so) I’ve worked with. This AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K is not seen as an audio input device by Windows. Due to this, the audio can’t be captured separately from the video in any software, which is the simple fix that most capture cards fall back on.I had to buy a HDMI 2.0 audio extractor and hook it up to the stereo line in on the back of my computer to finally remedy the situation. Buying additional equipment as a solution is just abysmal, considering the fact this is suppose to be one of, if not the best internal capture cards on the market right now. It’s £200 for goodness sake! And that was on sale. I hardly ever review products, but this experience has soured me on AVerMedia products.Note: I have been in contact with AVerMedia’s tech solutions team, but they gave answers that did not help in stabilising the audio issue without additional hardware.

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8. 

   Rated 4 out of 5

   StevenTheGeek – December 17, 2018

   Does what it sais on the boxNeat card, easy to install and both XSplit and OBS picked it up as a video source immediately. I can’t compare it to the Elgato 4K but I found the initial software setup of this LG4K a little more fickle than the elgato HD60 pro.The good:Fab capture image qualityEasy to installPlayed nice with all existing capture software I hadThe -1 star things:Its all software related, the capture card itself is 5*Was a bit flaky until I applied the firmware update, this was prompted during install but failed half way through. I assume because the installer tried to access the card during update. After reboot and looking for the updater, I was able to run it again as administrator and it worked fine.The RGB lighting seems weird, the only options I can see is 3 different patterns, I don’t see where to set a solid colour and so I don’t understand the logic of even having it. I’m sure it will come in a software update.It’s too quick to complain about “no signal”, when the graphic card is changing resolutions, or indeed just initialising DirectX. They should just pause the last good frame or black screen for 2 seconds and then go “no signal”. It’s really annoying during streams, I have one game that does it 4 times just going from menu to main game. The Elgato HD60 Pro never does it once by comparison.These are purely software issues, they are clearly proud of their device and want it to be the most important thing. AverMedia just have to remember they are part of an ecosystem and need to think more like an end user.

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9. 

   Rated 5 out of 5

   A. Dunn – January 19, 2023

   Excellent. Handles all I need and moreI got this specifically because I wanted to capture retro consoles which are kinda hard to do these days. However, this card will accept a 240p or 480p signal so it CAN handle old consoles when pushed through something like the OSSC.Included SW is good, worked right out of the box and does it’s job very well. very stable. Wish there was an easy way to turn the RGB “fluff” off but that’s minor.

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