NVENC vs x264 - Is Nvidia's NVENC Encoder Actually Best?

Dedicated hardware FTW baby! Has always reigned supreme.

"I don't care about people [/bozos] with slow internet connection. I go for a quality"
"Max!" "Highest quality!"
"I don't have 3080" 🤦‍♀🤦‍♀
What a moron!

great video thanks for review

Gta5 Left cpu incorder?

you only... bla bla bla.....

I have a dual PC setup, my streaming rig has an R5 2600 + RX 580 Sapphire 4GB, and the streaming quality isn't too good, it's super fuzzy, I use the x264 encoding setting, and I stream/record at a 6000 Bitrate with pretty much everything in streamlabs cranked up to the max, do you think getting maybe a 1660 or something like that would improve my quality, or should I invest in a better CPU, and if so, which one?

you should use an FPS overlay such as MSI afterburner for videos like this

NVENC > Look-ahead + 4 max b-frames Best ?

Hi man, I'm currently playing on a new laptop and I wanted to start some Twitch streaming with Obs Studio. But everytime I launch a game, the stream starts to charge indefinitely and can't follow what I'm doing (the kb/s on the bottom right side in Obs drop drastically from several thousands to 0~200). Do you know if it's because of my specs?:
- Intel Core i5 10300H (10th gen)
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti
- 16Go RAM
Knowing that I'm using the NVENC option and that I have a pretty fast internet speed, I don't really know which parameters to choose anymore inside Obs :/... Maybe I should try the other encoder x264 so that my GPU focus only on the game and my CPU on Obs Studio, instead of all on my GPU?

You said and fx not ryzen you had me confused I was like why are you hyped about this and why are you running a 20 series car with it 🤣🤣🤣 good vid though

Thank you for doing this, but I think you're missing the point on how NVENC works. It isn't going to affect the framerate of your gameplay. It certainly won't make it drop. It's a dedicated encoder chip. The one thing you should/might see is that using X264 might lower the framerate as it is using cores/threads to encode the gameplay, depending on how well the game is optimised. So the first 15 minutes was kind of confusing and irrelevant... Sorry!

The question here should be more around quality, which is what you covered on the last bit. So that was very useful, thank you. I think you mentioned you were using "faster", right? I believe NVidia tells us the NVENC is equivalent to X264 fast in terms of quality.

As somebody that throws out the odd video, I know how much effort you put into this. So appreciate the time you spent on it. I'd just say that maybe you're going about it the wrong way in this instance.

Hey! I have a RX 6700 XT + R5 5600x, but we’ll know that AMD GPU for streaming isn’t so good… Considering this, the best upgrade is build another setup (streaming PC using Elgato 4k60) or change my processor to a R9 5900x for example?

.x264 is batter than nvenc when u have a cpu enough to encode and streaming in the sametime
--ex:... cpu 4c/8t can't run and streaming at sametime
so the best choice is switch to nvenc ^^

-nvenc ampere offers the same quality of the x264 medium quality (but is linear encoding, so need to put more bitrate than cpu to get good results)
-psycho visual tuning & b-frame .... can result on the final quality (colors, sharp, luminance)
u can control gpu bottleneck lowering game settings but not the same when cpu is the bottleneck

Bro what should I buy for streaming
1> Ryzen 5 4600h gtx 1650 or
2> I3 10th gen GTX 1650
And which encoder option I should choose

This video was very informative. I currently have a 1050ti and use nvenc and will be upgrading to a 3070. I wanted to know if I should continue using nvenc and this video solidified it

Its cause your running obs to capture. Capture/recording put a hit for sure. I just duel pc stream now and its a game changer. I capture my gaming pc via elgato 4k60 pro which passes up to 240hz refresh rate to my monitor i game in. I then run only obs studio on my streaming pc and don’t have to do anything crazy with audio or using ndi tools and enerything work great.

I’ve watch all things and I’ve used both nvenc and x264 (cPu). I have 3080rtx and 3900xt and 32 ram with a cam link. I play Fortnite and when I stream with 6000 bitrate it’s really blurry whether I use 1080p or 720p. My face cam (Sony a6400 is blurry when there is movement) IDK what else I’m supposed to do and I’ve been on all forums please help 😅please and thank you

can we for atleast once get a comparison between these two in a forest environment. Grass is much harder to encode, so i would like to see the difference between the two. Literally no one has done it yet. They only compare textures in places with no grass.

I have rx 570 and ryzen 5 3600 pls help im out of my mind,any tip is appreciated sir ❤️

All NVIDIA GPUs have NVENC engines. It's just the high-end cards have more NVENC engines working in parallel. The hit on the game I think is a hardware bug: gaming draws too much power and it eventually influences NVENC peoformance, so they cap the gaming engine to serve juice for NVENC. It shouldn't have been happening, because NVENC part of the die is super small and doesn't require too much power. It's just unbalanced design.

FX series is long dead. You're running a Ryzen 9 3950x Ryzen > FX series

I thought the Nvenc is a dedicated encoding chip, However when I use nvenc to stream Red Dead Redemption 2 to facebook at 720 P , i can notice a drop in fps which is around 8 - 10 % . How is that possible if nvenc does not suppose to decrease gpu performance

May I ask what if im streaming using i3-4150(I know kinda potato)but i also have gtx 1050ti that can handle nvenc what should i use?

I have 1660 super and ryzen 5600x , how to record for better perfomance?

You can't fool us BIG SHOW!! 😅

I’m using an rtx 3080 and my playback will lag but my game is fine, any way to fix this issue?

I have a 3060ti and nvec stutters on obs any idea why? I have a 3900x ryzen 9

WHY DO YOU SOUND SO MUCH LIKE A CHARCTER FROM SOUTH PARK! Great Video!

Dumb question but I couldn't find an answer to it yet: With a GTX 1080ti, is it better, worse or doesn't it even matter if I use New Nvenc?

We are running the same cpu/gpu and encoding with x264. NVENC used to only be there if you did not have the spare power to run x264(one reason for choosing the 3950x) AND x264 was supreme but ohhhhh daawwgie...... this was a huge eye opener. I do agree the color is much better with x264, especially on DBD where shadows were hard to see in with NVENC, but that detail! The grit on the stones, the hair on the characters head, and words written on signs... I believe NVENC will be the new means of encoding for future high quality streams! Thank you for taking the time for this video!

its RYZEN, not FX

Does the Nvenc chip on a 2060 perform the same as one on a 2080 super?

Try CPU vs NVENC streaming & recording on Cyberpunk 2077 ;9

I have a rtx 3800, ryzen 9 3900, and my gpu crashes when I stream. If I play without streaming it’s fine, but when I turn on stream it’ll run for a bit and then my gpu crashes. Would running x264 help this?

I am so confused, should i get 5900x + 3070 or 5600x + 3080 for game streaming :(

I have to use the obs 24.0.3 because the new encoder nvenc make my stream freeze a lot, I have 2 friends who have the same problem

When I play like GTA5(rtx 3080,3900x) at 1440p144hz at pretty high settings and try to record at 1440p60fps ,the game runs great but my recording through obs starts having a lot of stutter and frames missing and my whole recording gets ruined,I mean what do I do,3080 is the probably one of the best and I have tried every obs setting and have given it priority and I just can't get the stutters and frame drops fixed.I would appreciate some help so much man.

Any input on encoder overload for AC Valhalla? I get hideous results in terms of recording, i get as high as 12% overload...

All the 2000 and 3000 series GPUs have the Turing encoding chip. There is no such thing as a low end 2000 or 3000 series GPU. 2060 is the lowest you can get in that series and it has the same Encoding chip as a 2080. Infect a GTX 1660ti has the same Turing Encoder as a 2000 series chip. Just wanted to kinda put that out there. Also if a GTX 1080ti won't stream any better than a GTX 1070 really and it wont stream as well as a 1660ti.

Bro my canon m200 camera heating in 20minutes of video recording how i can fix it.? Can u help me

My guess for the difference in color on the red truck is that NVENC is optimizing the reds for h.264 encode. Some colors of red push the h264 into creating more artifacting. To combat this many encoders optimize via dropping some colors to make the encode less muddy. So you go from 0-255 RGB to instead say 16-235 which reduces dynamic range but can actually increase contrast because the colors that remain should be more distinct from each other. Thanks for the samples, I'll take another look at RTX.

Lol I do not have either of these two options so I can not really relate, but you can DEF tell the difference with the images and clips for sure!