If you’re a content creator and you travel most of the time, the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra is the one you need. In our AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra review today, we’ll give you the benefits of having an AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra game capture box.
Before we start talking about their product, let’s have a brief background of the company. AVerMedia Technologies is a Taiwanese company that has been here since the ’90s.
They were known to produce conference cameras, document cameras, and mobile device charging carts & cabinets. If you’ve known AVerMedia back in the day, you’re probably surprised to hear that they’ve also entered the gaming industry.
Some companies these days release an extraordinary product that people might not expect. The same can be said with AVerMedia’s Live Gamer Ultra. It’s a portable device that lets you capture Full 4K HDR with very minimal latency through its pass-through HDMI port.
AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra Packaging
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra came in a black glossy box with an optimistic design, featuring its 4K HDR Pass-through and the actual game stream capture box.
As we open and take the box cover off from the side, you’ll get a black sturdy box that has AVerMedia written in the middle. It’s a simple-looking box with a nice touch of premium feel to it.
Inside, you’ll first see the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra capture box in a nice piece of cardboard that secures it.
There’s no plastic wrap or anything to keep it from random scratches, but the packaging is good enough to prevent any random vibrations that may damage it.
The accessories are at the bottom, which are: 1x USB-C to USB-A 3.1 Cable, 1x HDMI 2.0 Cable, Product Claim Card (Product Key for PowerDirector® 15), Warranty Card, and User’s Manual.
Looking at the back now, this is where the features are. You can clearly see their product advertisement and all the product’s purpose. There’s also information about the product’s technical specifications.
Overall, the packaging is clean & compact, and it does the job of protecting the product. Let’s now head over to the design and functionality section of our AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra review.
AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra Review – Design and Functionality
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra has a compact and slim design, as well abuilt-in high-quality ABS plastic. On the top cover, there’s a red metal net which vents out heat with the mini fan inside. The AVerMedia Logo is located on the bottom-left side.
On the right corner, there’s an LED Indicator that lights up to blue once the game capture box is connected, and gives a red breathing effect when you’re recording your gameplay.
The front and backside have holes in lime pattern, which gives better air ventilation (intake). You can also find your USB 3.1 USB-C Port on the right side, while the other end has your two HDMI 2.0 ports for input and output.
The bottom part of the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra gives better stability because of the four rubber pads. The four rubber pads help maintain stability as it helps hold better on surfaces, especially if it’s smooth.
Essentially, AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra is the same as the AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K, but with a few trade-offs.
While the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra provides lesser bandwidth due to its USB-C 3.1 Gen 1 interface, it comes with a portable and compact design.
The AVerMedia Live Gamer 4K however, has a higher bandwidth but goes inside your desktop’s PCI-e Gen 2 x4 slot.
If you have a laptop and you’d like to bring a game capture box wherever you go, the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra should be your go-to.
To put it simply, the AVerMedia’s Live Gamer Ultra is an external game capture box, while the AVerMedia’s Live Gamer 4K is an internal one.
Functionality
For the functions, the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra lets you record at 4K 30fps in SDR, and outputs a pass-through of 4K 60fps in HDR. For the PC counterpart, you’ll need to use their RECentral Software to preview what’s going on with the capture box.
One feature that caught our eyes is the ability to record at higher frame rates. You can record at 2560×1080 @144Hz, and capture at 1920×1080 @120Hz.
While it is advertised as a 4K game capture box, they also took advantage of the high bandwidth of USB 3.1 Gen 1.
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra also supports streaming sites like Twitch, YouTube, and more. As for the system requirements, this game capture box requires a beefy system.
For 4K 30fps or 1080p 120fps recording, you’ll need at least an Intel Core i5 6th Gen GPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 for desktop.
For laptops, you should have at least an Intel Core i7 7700HQ CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti graphics card.
Both desktop and laptop systems should also have at least 8GB of RAM. If you have a low-end system or a system that is capable of gaming, you can still utilise the game capture box with just 4GB of RAM.
But you still need to have at least an Intel Core i5-3330 or an Intel Core i7-3770 CPU, an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650 or AMD Radeon R7 250X graphics card for the desktop variant.
For older laptops, you’ll at least need an Intel Core i7-4810MQ CPU and an NVIDIA GeForce GTX 870M or above.
Let’s now move on to the Key Features section of our AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra review.
Key Features of the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra
Capture 4K Footage at Ease
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra lets you capture 4K videos on 30 fps, considering it only requires a USB connection. Impressive quality will leave you shocked with how excellent this product is.
High Refresh Rate Recording
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra supports up to 144 fps on recording and 240 fps pass-through because of HDMI 2.0’s high bandwidth. Enjoy fluid and little to no latency when gaming while capturing with the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra.
Dedicated Light Indicator
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra has a dedicated light indicator to inform you what it’s doing. It’s a very important feature that some capture cards don’t have, thanks to its good design.
RECentral & PowerDirector
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra can be operated with RECentral software from AVerMedia. It comes with a free PowerDirector 15 software that can be used for editing your clips.
Portable & Slim Design
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra enables you to capture and display a clear video signal in a small device. Bring this wherever you go and save your highlights from being replayed in the future.
Proper Cooling System
For a small & compact device, the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra’s cooling is breathtaking. The design gives enough headroom for heat, also with the help of a small fan. With a small & quiet fan, no noise will come out of the game capture box so that you can enjoy a smooth & silent operation.
Specifications
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra requires a Windows 7 x64 or Windows 10 x64 OS. It’s recommended to go for a Windows 10 x64 PC to prevent driver & performance issues.
As for the component requirements, it’s recommended that you have an Intel Core i5 6th Gen CPU + NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1060 GPU for the PC. Depending on the resolution you’ll use, the component requirements may vary.
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra uses a USB 3.1 (Gen 1) Type-C Interface, with an Input & Output of HDMI 2.0. The pass-through resolution supports up to 4K running at 60 fps. The recording format is MPEG4 with an H.264 or H.265 Video Codec.
Furthermore, the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra should work with any game console to this day, as long as the game console supports HDMI. The PS5 and Xbox Series X are coming out soon, and the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra might work flawlessly.
Let’s now get into testing the game capture box ourselves in the next part of our AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra review.
Hands-on with the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra
Here’s where we’ll test the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra ourselves. It’s important to test and see the product’s performance. With that said, we’re here to share with you our experience with the Live Gamer Ultra from AVerMedia.
Before you get started, make sure you have all the necessary cables. The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra only comes with a single HDMI 2.0 cable, so you’ll need to have another one.
Luckily, most game consoles today come with their own HDMI cables, but it should be noted that it should reach the bandwidth of HDMI 2.0. If not, you should purchase one.
Connect the game console’s HDMI Cable to the HDMI Input port, and connect your screen’s HDMI Cable to the HDMI Output port. After everything has been set up, it’s time for the software installation.
We recommend that you install the AVerMedia Assist Central software first before registering the card and downloading the proper drivers needed for the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra to work.
If you’re having problems downloading RECentral from AVerMedia Assist Central, it can be found in this link for Windows, and this link for Mac.
After installing everything, our computer was able to recognise the game capture box. Finally, we can see the Live Gamer Ultra in action through AVerMedia’s RECentral software.
The RECentral software lets you manually change the codecs while streaming or recording. There’s a ton of presets to choose from.
So if you want to get started with the testing first, you can change your settings later.
There’s also the option to record through your CPU’s or GPU’s power. Depending on your system, you can select which you think has the better quality & performance.
The software user interface is excellent, and we can definitely say that this is the kind of software that new streamers need. It simply provides basic layouts, similar to what StreamLabs OBS offers.
While the RECentral software doesn’t have the robust layout themes provided by StreamLabs OBS, it’s still a viable option for those who are new to the streaming scene.
Both 4K 60 fps and 1080p 60 fps support HDR, and it looks astounding.
Overall, as we test the AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra, the performance is buttery smooth. On both the pass-through preview on PC and regular screen output, we didn’t notice any input delay.
Let’s now wrap up and summarise everything on our AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra review.
AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra Review Summary
After conducting tests & verifying the features ourselves with our AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra review, we can say that this is one of the finest portable capture boxes around the game streaming market.
The AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra offers a lot in such a small device. It’s perfect for everyone that can afford it, while also needing a setup that can be used on different systems.
You can finally enjoy and stream content directly from your consoles lag-free and solid video quality while being portable. For such a small device offering excellent features, output quality, and build quality, you can’t go wrong with AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra.
Overall, we were delighted with AVerMedia Live Gamer Ultra. Gamers, streamers, and content creators should consider buying one..
