AVerMedia Live Gamer DUO GC570D – Review

AVerMedia Live Gamer DUO capture card is an internal PCIe Gen2 x4 capture card capable of handling resolutions up to 1920×1080 at 60 frames per second and support HDR recording. It launched in late 2020 with an MSRP of $379 bundle with SonicWave GH335 Gaming Headset worth $89. Click Here to purchase

This Live Gamer DUO capture card doesn’t support any recording higher than 1080P 60 fps, but it has capabilities to record 2 HDMI input at the same time for both console and PC. Specially when you want to do a live stream or game walkthrough guide.

Specifications

• Interface: PCI-Express X4 Gen 2
• Input One: HDMI 2.0 HDR support
• Input Two: HDMI 1.4
• Output 1 (Pass-Through): HDMI 2.0
• Output 1 Max Pass-Through Resolution: 2160p60 HDR /1440p144/1080p240
• Max Supported Resolutions support:
• Input 1 – 1080p60 HDR
• Input 2 – 1080p60
• Supported Resolutions :
  • Input 1 – 1080p60 HDR, 2160p, 1440p, 1080p, 1080i, 720p, 576p, 480p
  • Input 2 – 1080p60
• Record Format: MPEG 4 [H.264+ ACC] or [H.265+ACC]
• Dimensions (W x D x H): 140 x 125 x 22 mm (5.51 * 4.92 * 0.87in)
• Weight: 209g (7.37 oz)
• System Requirements:
• OS: Windows 10 x64
• CPU: Intel i5-6xxx / AMD Ryzen 5 1600 or above
• GPU: NVIDIA GTX 1050/ AMD R7 560 or above

This card do not require addition power.

The Live Gamer DUO features only a single output, which is tied to the first HDMI 1 input. On the audio front, it supports 7.1 and 5.1 channel surround sound passthrough, allowing you to send the single HDMI output into an AV receiver without a loss in audio quality. Uncompressed 1080p 60 HDR gameplay capture and full 4K passthrough are accomplished only through the first HDMI input. The second input doesn’t support HDR (only supporting HDMI 1.4).

Let’s us dismantle the card!
Removing the cover case and you will sport a huge aluminum heatsink to spread the heat away.

This card contains of two recording processor and memory for cache during recording.

On the top of the card you will find a RGB controller chip: Sonix – SLED1735 chip.
The chip can drive up to 75 RGB LED color, but AVerMedia seem to limit the color spectrum. In the LED matrix of SLED1735 series, each LED will breathing light by default and no option for you to configure the RGB light and do not support ARGB control from your motherboard.

There are five RGB LEDs light on the top and control by SONIX chipset.

Two Micron DDR3L 128Mb 1600mhz CL11 Ram. Each of the ram chip for individual processor.

The two Xilinx Artix-7 XC7A50T  is the main processor for video encoding and decoding of the video recording from HDMI port.

 

On the back of the card you will sport two SPI bios chip and ITE main I/O controller chip for monitor temperature and adjust voltage of the card.

The Two identical SPI flash memory  or some call “SPI Bios” from Macronix 32Mb to provide operation for the two processor.

Our configuration system for review:

Processor	AMD Ryzen 5 5600X
Motherboard	ASRock B550 Taichi
Ram	G.Skill Trident Z RGB 16Gb 3600Mhz DDR4
GPU	Zotac RTX2080 AMP Core Extreme

Software

You are require to install RECentral 4 software and driver from the official web site before start your recording. RECentral 4 software have huge improvement compare to RECentral 3. RECentral itself is an amazingly simple piece of software to use. The top left corner allows you to navigate the various settings panels. To the right is your preview window with controls such as record and stream nestled in at the bottom. It’s clean, simple and exceptionally easy for streamers or content creators to get up and running.

However, the codec option require to use GPU hardware acceleration and I highly recommend setup H.265 format for using lesser resource space.

You can choose between a single or multi-source setup.

There are few online streaming platform for you to select.

 

Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana – Nintendo Switch

Gundam Versus – Playsystion 4

Ghost of tsushima- Playsystion 4

RGB lighting effect in full colors

H.265 Media file information:

Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : Base Media / Version 2

Format : HEVC
Format/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Format profile : Main@L5@High
Codec ID : hvc1
Codec ID/Info : High Efficiency Video Coding
Duration : 10 min 24 s
Bit rate : 45.4 Mb/s
Width : 1 920 pixels
Height : 1 080 pixels
Display aspect ratio : 16:9
Frame rate mode : Variable
Frame rate : 59.742 FPS
Minimum frame rate : 1.385 FPS
Maximum frame rate : 62.827 FPS
Original frame rate : 60.000 FPS
Color space : YUV
Chroma subsampling : 4:2:0
Bit depth : 8 bits
Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.366
Codec configuration box : hvcC

Audio
ID : 2
Format : AAC LC
Format/Info : Advanced Audio Codec Low Complexity
Codec ID : mp4a-40-2
Duration : 10 min 24 s
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 128 kb/s
Channel(s) : 2 channels
Channel layout : L R
Sampling rate : 48.0 kHz
Frame rate : 46.875 FPS (1024 SPF)
Compression mode : Lossy

 

Conclusion

This card cater to streamers and YouTubers, but cannot record 4k resolution. However, the number of people producing and consuming 4K video is still relatively small. For AVerMedia audience most of them using PS4 Pro or Xbox One X, which often don’t run above 30FPS even at standard definition. The card have limitation on recording up to 1080P on the latest console like PS5 and Xbox X use the HDMI 2.1 connection standard, which supports higher frame rates and 8K resolution on both consoles.  If you plan to record your own “Gaming Computer” than you need to connect the HDMI cable from the graphics card to the Live Gamer DUO, but when come to play AAA titles games like Cyberpunk 2077 and you need higher spec graphic cards like Nvidia RTX3080 or AMD 6800XT to prevent lag during recording and gameplay.