The answer — one pick, priced
Get the
AVerMedia Ultra S
$11 under your budget
The cheapest card that genuinely captures 4K60, not just passes it through — PC Gamer's long-running top pick and the default across 12 sources.
Fit ledger — need → measured evidence
■ The catch — co-equal billing, always
Its passthrough stops at 4K60. This is an HDMI 2.0 card, so you cannot game at 4K120 or use 4K VRR through it. Plug a PS5 Pro or a 4K120 PC into it and the capture chain throttles your own display to 60Hz.
Dealbreaker? Runner-up №1 passes 4K144 for $40 more ↓
■ Every product has a catch. Verdicts that hide it are how bad buys happen.
Don't buy this if…
- you need a streaming microphone or webcam, not a capture cardstreaming microphones dossier →
- you want to stream directly from a single PC without capturing external sources (no console, no second PC)
- you need a camera capture device (DSLR/mirrorless as webcam)
Wrong product for you is still a bad buy. These are the cases where we'd send you somewhere else.
Runners-up — if your needs differ
Adjacent verdicts — other needs, same method
Different budget, different household, different job — each of these is already researched, priced and verified. Take the one that matches your need.
Traps — this verdict avoids
Why the AVerMedia Ultra S is right for you
It avoids every trap below — and for just me, under $150, it is the pick because it delivers:
Passthrough is not capture
The big number on the box is what your own monitor sees, not what lands in your recording. The AVerMedia Ultra 2.1 passes 4K144 but captures 4K60 — and of the 13 cards compared, only the Elgato 4K X captures above 4K60 over USB.
The port and cable tax
A USB 3.0 port silently limits you to 1080p60 — genuine 4K60 capture needs USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps). And 4K120 passthrough needs an Ultra High Speed HDMI cable that none of these cards include (budget $15-25).
HDCP kills the signal
PS5 turns HDCP on by default — disable it in Settings > System > HDMI or the card sees nothing. Netflix, Disney+ and Blu-ray playback enforce HDCP regardless, so no capture card can record them.
Provenance — 12 sources, dated
Winners are picked from the full research dossier at knowledgelib.io. Prices, stock and listings are re-verified monthly.