Capture cards tested: When PCIe still wins (and when USB is better)

So you want to stream or capture gaming videos, preferably on a powerful laptop or desktop computer. What you need, my friend, is a capture card. But after understanding this, you have another question to answer: internal or external? PCIE or USB? Will Smith is here to answer them with his latest series of tests on the PCWorld YouTube channel.

And at the risk of spoiling the video: Will says it doesn’t really matter anymore. Unless you’re recording at a very massive resolution/frame rate well above 4K, or you’re recording on a Linux system. In the first case, the additional bandwidth of a PCIE connected card can be a major advantage (assuming you have a system that can actually handle this recording). And in the latter case, the more standardized USB interface is better, because some companies (hum Elgato hum) don’t have a great track record of supporting Linux. Naturally, if you’re recording to a laptop, you need the external card.

What is surprising is how all of these cards from Elgato and AverMedia have become. When streaming on Twitch, Will watches footage from his console in the OBS preview window – the kind of thing that was previously unimaginable for most games. But Will says he can handle console gaming on fast, twitchy games like Transmitted by blood And Ghost of Tsushima. There isn’t even much of a price difference at the high end of the registration card market.

For more hands-on testing of PC hardware, be sure to subscribe to PCWorld on YouTube. And incidentally, if you’re interested in gaming or streaming on Linux, you might want to head over to our sister channel The Full Nerd Network and check out Dual Boot Diaries.