ARC A770 vs RTX 3060 – Streaming Comparison – AV1 vs H264 (NVENC)
Seeing as Youtube is rolling out support for streaming with the much newer AV1 codec that Intel’s ARC cards support encoding in, I thought I’d take a look at how comparably priced cards do for streaming. Now this is a bit of an unfair comparison as NVIDIA’s RTX 3000 series cards don’t support AV1 hardware encoding, but I’ve tried to level the playing field a little with the settings, and importantly if NVIDIA wasn’t deliberately delaying their lower end 40 series cards they could have had a 4060 or even 4050 out by now that not only performs much better, but also offers AV1 hardware encoding. So, that’s my excuse. Also if you are wondering why an AMD card is absent here, while I could make plenty of excuses, the plain answer is I don’t have any comparable cards.
So, let’s get into this. The first test I’ve got is what I’d call a realistic best case for the 3060. Using both driver’s built in recording functions, the 3060 is recording at in-game resolution – 1440p – at 60fps, and with a 30 mbps bitrate. The A770 is recording with the AV1 codec, again at 1440p60, this time at 10 mbps. Considering just how efficient AV1 is, I think this is a decent comparison. It is worth noting that Premiere Pro, my video editor of choice, doesn’t actually support the AV1 codec yet, so I had to re-render the AV1 clips. I used Handbrake, rendering to H264 with the constant quality set to 0, aka lossless, so that shouldn’t have added any compression artefacts. It does inflate the file size a whole lot though, by about 3x. One clip went from 100MB to 300MB, another from 220MB to 652MB.
On the whole, I’d actually say NVENC looks a little better in CSGO here. There isn’t much in it, but I’d say it has a slight bit more sharpness to my eye. I’ll let these clips play out so you can make your own mind up, but I mean considering the 3060 has triple the bitrate to work with, I’m not all that surprised. You of course could run AV1 at 30 mbps too if you’d want, although I’d argue one of the main benefits of using AV1 is the impressive file size difference. Considering this is using a third of the disc space, it doesn’t look a third as good. You could bump this up to maybe 15 mbps and still half your file size per recording and get comparable quality. That’s not bad!
Just to give you a more direct comparison, here is the Cyberpunk built in benchmark running side by side so you can see how the two compare. Again I’d argue NVENC looks a touch sharper here. It’s not a massive difference and if I wasn’t pixel peeping I’d say they are both plenty good enough, but the edge definitely goes to the 3060 here.
The next test is more apples-to-apples. Well, not quite, but closer. Because Youtube is now starting to support streaming via the AV1 encoder, I’m using OBS to record the gameplay – on the ARC card that’s using QuickSync AV1 at 6 mbps, streaming at 1080p60, and for the 3060 that’s your standard NVENC H264, also at 6 mbps 1080p60. Here is CSGO again, and…erm… yeah I’d say that NVENC looks a decent bit better. Neither are all that great, but the ARC card definitely offers a more blocky, less sharp experience. If I’m being honest, when I started testing for this video I kind of expected this to be a clear win for Intel and AV1, but this looks like the exact opposite!
I think the A770 looks a touch better in Cyberpunk. It’s still pretty close, but I see a little more blockiness in the NVENC recording. If I freeze frame when the door opens you can see what I mean – while the AV1 clip isn’t perfect, it’s sharper and less blocky compared to the NVENC clip. Again I’ll let these play out so you can see for yourself.
To get the most out of the AV1 codec, it seems like you need to turn the bitrate all the way down. Recording at just 3.5 mbps, even in CSGO, the quality swings in favour of AV1. It’s pretty night and day really, with NVENC offering an incredibly blocky image, compared to a still compromised, but considerably sharper image from the ARC card. If you don’t have great upload speed at home and need to stream at a lower bitrate, it sure looks like AV1 is a better fit.
The same goes for Cyberpunk where again while the AV1 clip isn’t exactly top quality, it is considerably sharper and less distorted than the NVENC clip. Details are preserved a lot better in the AV1 clip, you get sharper lines and an overall better looking image. Again I’ll let this play out so you can see for yourself.
So all in then, AV1 is clearly a more efficient codec. It isn’t quite as impressive as H265, but considering platforms like Youtube are now accepting AV1 streams, I’d say especially with a lower bitrate, if you can, give AV1 a try. These ARC cards are a great choice for that, at least until we get more mid-range NVIDIA cards anyway. For higher bitrates there’s a lot less of a difference, although for recording you can cut your file sizes in half – although since most video editors don’t support importing or exporting AV1 footage yet, you might be better off sticking with H265 instead, which all cards do support recording to, and most video editors support fully.
