As consoles have evolved over recent years, so has the demand for a capture card that can keep up with your gaming tech. Elgato’s line of external capture cards have been popular since the release of the HD60S nearly eight years ago. Since then, they’ve made incremental improvements to the device to meet the combined needs of your gaming and streaming experience. The Elgato HD60X delivers amazing passthrough and capture capability without so much as raising the price from its earlier iterations.
The box contains the HD60X capture card, an HDMI 2.0 cable and a USB 3.0 Type A to Type C cable. The capture card is similar in size to the HD60S and S+, about the size of a deck of cards. There is a certain simplicity to capture cards in general, but Elgato has managed to streamline the design of the HD60X by placing the HDMI input/output and USB port on the same side.
This is a huge improvement on the previous models of capture devices, where the inputs went in one end, and the outputs came out the other and makes for a much cleaner setup. The only input on the front of the latest model is the analogue audio input, which is fine as not everyone uses it, and even fewer people need it as part of a permanent setup.
The upgraded specs of the Elgato HD60X are where we need to focus, as you have a lot of options, and there is a trade-off between quality and performance. Its pass-through capabilities allow for up to 4K/60fps HDR, 1440/120fps SDR and 1080/240fps SDR, so you can use these high refresh rates to get the most out of your monitors. From a capture perspective, it can capture 4K/30fps, 1440/60fps and 1080/60fps HDR, which is enough for any content you might be shooting video for in the first place.
“The Elgato HD60X delivers amazing passthrough and capture capability without so much as raising the price from its earlier iterations.”
Like all of Elgato’s capture technology, it connects to Elgato’s fantastic software, particularly their 4K capture utility, which can record from the card, or using its flashback feature, you can just take specific moments from your gaming, capturing as little as the last 15 seconds or as much as 30 minutes.
One of the truly special aspects of the Elgato HD60X is the incredibly small delay in what you are capturing. A side-by-side test of the passthrough and the capture on OBS found only the slightest delay, the two being almost indistinguishable from each other. I only really noticed it during a few scene changes or when something big occurred on screen.
The delay is small enough that you could easily play a lot of games just by watching the Capture source on OBS. It would be less advisable to be a serious FPS gamer where a couple of frames could make all the difference.
The same simplicity that makes the HD60X easy to use is also its only real drawback. There is not a ton of innovation here. It’s virtually the same capture card that the HD60S was, just with updated resolution and frame rates. These are things that just naturally happen as time moves on.
“Like all of Elgato’s capture technology, it connects to Elgato’s fantastic software, particularly their 4K capture utility.”
There isn’t a big gamble in getting this card. It’s pretty much the card you expect it to be if you’ve used their cards before. If you want to hear about one real change to this card, though, it is the fact that it supports a variable refresh rate, eliminating the video tearing that you would otherwise experience.
The great byproduct of a simple capture card, however, is its price. When it launched, the Elgato HD60X came in at the same price as the HD60S+ at $199.99 USD. Now, the HD60X is only $179.99 USD. That is comparable with the closest external 4K capture card from their biggest competitor. The bottom line with the HD60X, though, is that you are getting a really good capture card with excellent software and the ease of use that most people are looking for in such a device.
The Elgato HD60X is the ideal partner for next-gen consoles. The available frame rates support consoles like the X-Box Series X and PlayStation 5, the most likely use for a card like this. If, however, you are dealing with a two-PC setup, the potential for higher frame rates may call for something else.
