AV1 capture cards 2026 — the five-card roundup

Five cards, five price points, one clear winner if you stream at 1440p120. The 4K60 HDR tier is still messy.

The 2026 AV1 capture card set: Elgato 4K X+, AVerMedia LiveStream Pro 2, Magewell USB Capture AV1, Razer Ripsaw HD2 and the open-source AV1Cap-Pi reference build. Five cards, five price points, one clear winner if you stream at 1440p120.

At 1440p120 the Elgato 4K X+ wins on driver maturity, low-latency mode and OBS plugin support. At $279 it is also the price-anchor that the rest of the field has to argue against. At true 4K60 with HDR passthrough, no card is fully clean yet — if you stream HDR, stay on H.265 for one more cycle.