By now, you’re no stranger to the idea of video capture devices. Every press outlet, streamer, and Youtuber likely own some sort of external capture device in order to gather footage no matter where they might happen to be. For some people, having the highest quality video output you can possibly obtain is crucial to their content’s success.
For 98% of the rest of us though, lower to mid-range capture cards have been somewhat difficult to attain due to their initial high price tags. Thankfully, AVerMedia’s latest mid-range capture card, the Live Gamer Extreme 3, is here to not only give you a fighting chance, but also be kind to your wallet.
AVerMedia Live Gamer Extreme 3
Manufacturer: AVerMedia
Price: $169.00
On the surface, this capture card is the little engine that could. It allows for full 4K passthrough with HDR, VRR, and 60hz refresh rate. If you need a higher refresh rate, you can scale down to 1440p and enable HDR, VRR, and 120hz refresh rate.
It’s capable of these passthroughs with very low latency, and that’s great if you’re streaming from AVerMedia’s RECentral software via Multistream or simply checking your recorded footage while playing to make sure it looks great.
The Live Gamer Extreme 3 will record up to 4K at 30FPS, which is pretty adequate for most people who demand 4K content, but for smaller content creators, this is overkill and you don’t need a device capable of capturing quality levels that your channels can’t even display properly. It’s just wasting space and bandwidth by doing this.
You want proof that Live Gamer Extreme 3 looks great? Take a look at our Soulstice review, the entirety of this video was captured by the AVerMedia Live Gamer Extreme 3, at 1080p 60FPS:
I uploaded about three hours worth of footage to make this video possible, and it only took up about 20gb of space on our shared cloud drive before it was even edited.
This is a game changer for smaller channels and people with less than powerful computers, because you don’t have to have a massive rig to use this capture card.
In fact, I was able to capture some video at 1080p 60 on a 2015 Macbook Pro that had nothing but the crappy onboard Intel Iris graphics chip. It struggled, but it was able to record via RECentral without too much issue.
Consistency is king when you’re trying to build your reputation as a streamer or a Youtuber, so it’s imperative that you have a device that’s able to quickly get to work and help you make your content available to your audience.
I can throw the Live Gamer Extreme 3 in my backpack and record things straight from my Steam Deck’s dock, Nintendo’s Wii U, Xbox Series X, or PlayStation 5 just by plugging in an HDMI and a USB cable.
If you’re looking to do a little bit more than simply plug and play and capture, the Live Gamer Extreme 3 does come equipped with line in and out standard 3.5mm jacks so that you could plug in an interface such as an XLR condenser interface.
Personally, I’ve always simply used my headset’s microphone when streaming and we record isolated audio to splice over gameplay footage for our Youtube videos, so simply being able to plug in and get our Twitch stream up and going in a matter of seconds is crucial for me as I often like to just jump on our Twitch channel and stream when I have some downtime.
While the Live Gamer Extreme 3 is great for what it is, it struggles to get out of the shadow of a previous model: the Live Gamer Ultra. While the Live Gamer Extreme 3 supports VRR passthrough (which the Ultra doesn’t), but the Ultra is able to capture some slightly higher refresh rates and also has a cooler (literally because it’s got a fan built into it) aesthetic with a way less obnoxious LED light.
The difference between the two at the time of this writing on Amazon is about $15. A far less discrepancy than the MSRP of the Extreme 3 at $169.99, versus the Ultra’s $249.99.
Ultimately, if you don’t care about VRR, it’s hard to recommend you not spend the few extra bucks and spring for the older Live Gamer Ultra just for the higher refresh rate on the lower resolutions. But if you can use VRR and you’re capturing in 1080p 60 or 1440p 60, the Live Gamer Extreme 3 is a game changer at a very budget friendly price.
AVerMedia’s Live Gamer Extreme 3 is available for a suggested MSRP of $169.99 and is available at Amazon and other retailers. AVerMedia provided Niche Gamer with the unit for the purposes of this review. You can find additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy here.
