How does AMD VCE compare to Nvidia's NVENC?

[Briggsy]

I record gameplay using OBS. I play in 4K but record in 1080p (reason: it doesn't have jaggies and looks insanely better than native 1080p footage while taking up less space and being easier to edit/upload). 

 

I currently have an RTX 2080 that's been chugging along for a couple years now, but I am probably going to upgrade this fall depending on price and/or performance of Ampere or RDNA2.

 

If Navi 21 ends up being more than hype and AMD prices it well, would it even be worth it to go AMD for my use case?  

 

I'm specifically wondering if anyone here has extensive experience with both VCE and NVENC, and what their opinion is on going with AMD. The last AMD card I used was a FuryX so I'm not new to using AMD, although the last time I recorded gameplay with AMD was back when Fraps was still relevant. There are countless discussions I've found by googling the topic, and many different youtube side-by-side comparison videos, and its obvious that NVENC is by default superior at this point in time. I know there are other options like capture cards, but using something other than OBS for recording is out of the question for me. 

 

Honestly, am I wasting my time considering AMD this time around? Or, am I worrying about a nothingburger and VCE is adequate?

[gloop]

I record + stream at 1080p 60FPS using the VCE encoder in my 5700XT. If I had to give my honest opinion, I'd say it's fine. 

 

If you have the choice between Nvenc and VCE, definitely choose Nvenc. If you happen to only have a AMD GPU on hand, it will work. 

[Levent]

I find AMD VCE very picky. When it works, its good but I cant say it worked every single time I was setting up HW accelerated video encoding. Nvenc on the other hand was a smooth experience all along.

[BTGbullseye]

VCE is what was in the Vega and earlier GPUs. VCN is what's in the Navi lineup.

 

VCE is ok, but worse than NVENC.

 

VCN is on-par with NVENC.

 

NVENC has far more software that supports it directly than VCE/VCN does, but AMD has better driver-included software for using it. OBS supports both.

[Briggsy]

On 8/18/2020 at 4:42 PM, BTGbullseye said:

VCE is what was in the Vega and earlier GPUs. VCN is what's in the Navi lineup.

 

VCE is ok, but worse than NVENC.

 

VCN is on-par with NVENC.

 

NVENC has far more software that supports it directly than VCE/VCN does, but AMD has better driver-included software for using it. OBS supports both.

this sums it up nicely, thanks! 

[BTGbullseye]

4 hours ago, Briggsy said:

this sums it up nicely, thanks! 

Any time.