When the Xbox One X launched, I started looking into the possibility of recording 4K gameplay at 60 frames per second to show off what the system is capable of. This is also something I’d love for a two-PC recording setup to record 4K footage without taking a hit to my gaming rig’s performance. As of November, 4K60 was not really within my grasp. Cut to late December, and Elgato has changed everything with its affordable new $400 4K60 Pro capture card.
When Elgato revealed the 4K60 Pro, it promised “flawless” footage at absurd resolutions and framerates. After spending a lot of time with the device, I’ve found that it delivers on that promise. That’s astonishing because the 4K60 Pro is about half the price of similar components. Elgato is able to accomplish this because it offloads a lot of the processing power to your desktop and its high-end CPU and GPU.
To use the 4K60 Pro, Elgato says it requires a PC with at least a sixth-gen Intel Core i7 or AMD Ryzen CPU as well as a 1000-series Nvidia GeForce GTX or AMD Radeon RX Vega graphics card. You’ll also need a motherboard with a spare PCIe x4 slot. If you have all of that, the results are spectacular.
Here’s Horizon: Zero Dawn running at 4K on the PS4 Pro (YouTube may still need some time to process the full 4K resolution):
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And here’s Star Wars: Battlefront II outputting at 4K and 60 frames per second on an Xbox One X:
And here’s PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds running at 4K and … something below 60 frames per second on Xbox One X:
I don’t have the hardware to analyze this video and determine if it is technically “flawless,” but it looks incredible.
To record this footage, I used Elgato’s 4K Capture Utility. This enables you to get high-quality video without having to mess with settings in third-party tools. It gives you the option to use hardware encoding on your GPU or software encoding that will put more of a strain on your CPU. Either of these are viable options, so you can choose whatever is best for your system.
But it’s still early for the 4K60 Pro. Elgato is squashing some bugs that are affecting me and others that prevent audio from working in Xsplit and OBS Studio. I’ve also had to scrap a few files because the audio glitched out.
For now, however, I’m amazed at what Elgato has accomplished here, and I expect to continue loving the 4K60 Pro as patches come in that address the handful of issues that I am experiencing.
