Live Streaming & Premieres
Hardware encoder
Also called: dedicated encoder, GPU encoding
Two kinds share the name. One is a fixed-function block inside a graphics card, such as NVIDIA's NVENC, Intel Quick Sync or AMD's AMF, which streaming software can hand the encoding job to. The other is a separate box that takes an HDMI feed and streams it with no computer involved at all. Both exist to keep encoding away from the CPU, which matters most when the same machine is running a game. The old rule that software encoding always looks better at a given bitrate has narrowed a long way with recent graphics cards, so test your own setup before assuming either way.