Introduction

With the recent launch of the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 GC553G2 Capture Box (reviewed here), we finally got a proper HDMI 2.1 capture card, with serious capture and passthrough capabilities, and a respectable company behind it. AVerMedia’s external USB-C capture card instantly made all other such devices more or less obsolete, but some users decided to wait for a bit longer since it was known that a PCI Express variant of the same device was in the works. Well, that product launches today. It’s called the AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K 2.1 GC575, and it comes with a $270 price tag – $30 less than the aforementioned Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 Capture Box at launch.

The main theoretical benefit of switching to the PCI Express Gen 3 x4 interface over 10 Gbps USB-C is extra bandwidth; PCIe Gen 3 x4 offers a data rate of up to 32 Gbps, over three times more. However, there are literally no differences in supported passthrough and recording resolutions between the external Live Gamer Ultra 2.1 and the internal Live Gamer 4K 2.1, so if you were hoping for a higher recording refresh rate at 4K – you’re out of luck. You can think of the AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K 2.1 GC575 as an “internal” alternative to the GC553G2 Capture Box, aimed toward users whose motherboards don’t have a 10 Gbps USB-C port. While some will find that disappointing, it doesn’t change the fact that the Live Gamer 4K 2.1 GC575 is a superbly capable capture card and the new go-to choice in its category. You still get two HDMI 2.1 ports (input and output), and the ability to capture 4K video at 60 FPS while simultaneously gaming on your monitor in 4K at up to 144 Hz (120 Hz for console 4K gaming is natively supported as well), with full VRR and HDR support.

Specifications

• Interface: PCI Express Gen 3 x4 (32 Gbps)
• Input: HDMI 2.1
• Output: HDMI 2.1
• Video input resolution: 480i, 480p, 576i, 576p, 720p, 1080i, 1080p, 1440p, 2160p
• Maximum video passthrough resolution: 1080p @ 360 Hz HDR/VRR, 1440p @ 240 Hz HDR/VRR, 4K @ 144 Hz HDR/VRR, 3440×1440 @ 120 Hz
• Maximum capture resolutions: 4K @ 60 FPS, 1440p @ 120 FPS, 1080p @ 120 FPS
• Video format: RAW (NV12, YUY2, RGB24, P010)
• Dimensions and weight: 121 x 160.5 x 21.5 mm, 150.5 g