AverMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 is another product in the line of capture card by Avermedia that promises a full power pack recording performance complied into a highly portable size. It promises to deliver low latency, fast connectivity, new pass-through technology, etc. EXTREME 2 GC551 pitches more about 4K pass through at 60fps allowing the user to record 1080p video at 60fps stability. However, our test found that it is amazing at 1080p not pushing to 4K because of certain reasons. I am going to get in more details in the performance section, AverMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 is a good solution for those who need an external recording solution, instead of a fixed screen capture card. Because of the external design is smooth to set up, easy to carry and above all, it does not demand hardware modifications.
Design:
AverMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 comes in an unfussy package with a single HDMI Cable, USB 3.1 cable and manual. For simple customization, it comes with a removable LID on the top, you can add your own covers and place it to give a pro-streamer look. Making covers is easy with the help of the Cover Creator tool that is integrated into RECentral, the central recording, and streaming software for GC551.
HDMI-in and HDMI-out ports sites on the back with a single USB3.1 connection. AverMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 promises a very simple setup, RECentral is the control center to do everything. We were able to set up things fast and easy and did not face major issue while using it. In such a small form factor it does promise you a 4K pass-through but we will recommend you to stuck with 1444p max for smooth performance, it is a portable product with its own limitations.
Recording Performance:
A lot of things relies on the graphic card you are using in your system, Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 alone cannot deliver you the best. It is a good capture card at 1080p @60fps smooth and according to the specs it requires at-least Nvidia GTX 660 Card with 4GB or higher video memory. 8GB RAM is required for smooth output, 660 is very low, having something in Nvidia 10 series with minimum 4GB is recommended. We got a chance to verify it on Nvidia RTX 2070 Super FE and the output was pretty amazing.
The best part of Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 one is it does not requires any kind of internal setup, that means you can use it easily on a gaming laptop also. Having a dedicated solution to record gameplay will remove the stress on the PC or console hardware, it will not affect the gaming performance as well as it won’t impact the recording quality.
To save your time Avermedia also offers RECentral, a dedicated tool to Stream, Record, and Share. It is a kind of control center that does everything from recording to allowing you to create a simple streaming platform for YouTube. But it will be wrong to say it is a complete tool if you need a full-fledge video editing platform.
AverMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 tries to simplify your usage for setting up a game recording and streaming platform. It is small and easy to use, delivers decent 1080p @60fps that is good enough to share your videos with others on YouTube.
Conclusion:
AverMedia Live Gamer Extreme 2 GC551 cost $134.70 on Amazon.com and 24,329 INR in India. With 4K Pass-through you can enjoy having a crisper image quality and record high-quality videos at 1080p. I found RECentral a bit limited in features. One thing necessary to consider while using GC551 is you need a good build to get decent output, as per the technical requirements you need a Core i5 + GTX 660 at the recommended hardware, but go with a better GPU. Or else there will be issues with the video quality.
