Question / Help Which encoder for best quality?

[igloo77055]

hey guys I've been using OBS for some time and love it.
My question is which encoding method would best for a given bit rate?
I recently upgraded my gpu and can use the NVENC option but research suggest it isn't very good in terms of quality.
I've been using Intel quick sync for a while and it works perfectly fine, but I feel my streams don't seem as clear as others with a lower bitrate or resolution. I figured I might be doing something wrong, could you guys have any suggestions?
For pc games I'm okay with using Intel quick sync, but for console games maybe I could get better quality with the x264 encoder since that's all my pc will be doing.

My system:
Intel Core i5 2500k @ stock. (maybe overclocking can help more?)
8GBs ram @1600mhz
GTX 760 SC
Capture device: Black Magic Intensity Pro

Thanks guys!

 

[Lain]

x264 has the best quality. Quicksync is a little better than nvenc, but no hardware encoder beats a good software encoder like x264.

Recording however is a different matter. If you're not streaming then any hardware encoder is great, because you can just jack up the bitrate to whatever level necessary to get high quality.

 

[igloo77055]

Ah I see, thanks for the quick reply! Guess I'll go back to using x264,any suggestion on which preset to use if all my pc will be doing is having chat open and streaming?