NVENC is a hardware video encoder built into NVIDIA GPUs. It encodes H.264, H.265 (HEVC) and AV1 without CPU load.
NVDEC is a hardware decoder. It supports H.264, H.265, VP9, AV1.
NVENC — Encoding
| GPU | Generation | Chips | Sessions | H.264 | H.265 | AV1 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5050 | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5060 | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| GIGABYTE AORUS RTX 5060 Ti ELITE 16 GB | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 4000 Blackwell | 9th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 4500 Blackwell | 9th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX PRO 5000 Blackwell | 9th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5070 Ti | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5080 | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 5090 | 9th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX A1000 | 7th Gen | 1 | 8 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX A400 | 7th Gen | 1 | 8 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX 2000 Ada Generation | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 SUPER | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti SUPER | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080 SUPER | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX 4000 Ada Generation | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX 4500 Ada Generation | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX 5000 Ada Generation | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA H100 PCIe 96 GB | N/A | 1 | N/A | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA H100 SXM5 94 GB | N/A | 1 | N/A | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA L4 | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX 4000 SFF Ada Generation | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4070 Ti | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA RTX 6000 Ada Generation | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA L40 | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA L40S | 8th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 | 8th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1630 | 6th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX A5500 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 Ti | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| GIGABYTE AORUS RTX 3050 ELITE | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX A4500 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA A2 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 Ti | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 Ti | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX A4000 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX A5000 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA T600 | 6th Gen | 1 | 8 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| ASUS ROG STRIX RTX 3060 Ti V2 GAMING OC | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 Ti | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA RTX A6000 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3070 | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3080 | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3090 | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 GDDR6 | 6th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 SUPER | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 SUPER | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 SUPER | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070 SUPER | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 | 7th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Tesla T4 | 7th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro GV100 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA TITAN V | 6th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GT 1030 | N/A | 1 | 0 | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 Ti | 6th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| EVGA GTX 1060 FTW2+ w/ iCX Cooler | 6th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro P400 | 6th Gen | 1 | 8 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro P2000 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro P4000 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro GP100 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro P5000 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro P6000 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Tesla P40 | 6th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080 | 6th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GRID M40 | 5th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro M2000 | 5th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Tesla M4 | 5th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro M6000 | 5th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA GeForce GTX TITAN X | 5th Gen | 1 | 12 | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ |
| NVIDIA Quadro K2200 | 4th Gen | 1 | Unlimited | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
NVDEC — Decoding
What are NVENC and NVDEC?
NVENC (NVIDIA Encoder) is a dedicated hardware block on the GPU that encodes video in parallel with CUDA core operations. Used in OBS Studio, FFmpeg, DaVinci Resolve and dozens of other applications for streaming, screen recording and video rendering.
NVDEC (NVIDIA Decoder) is a hardware decoder that offloads the CPU during video playback. Critical for video surveillance, media servers and AI pipelines with video input.
AV1 is a next-generation codec with better quality at lower bitrates. Hardware NVENC AV1 support was introduced starting with Ada Lovelace (RTX 40xx, 8th Gen NVENC).
NVENC Generations
1st Gen (Kepler) — first hardware encoder. H.264 4:2:0. Up to 8x realtime 1080p.
2nd Gen (Maxwell 1st) — added YUV 4:4:4 support, lossless H.264 encoding.
3rd Gen (Maxwell 2nd) — first H.265/HEVC support. 4K@60 encoding.
4th Gen (Pascal) — HEVC Main10 (10-bit), 8K, SAO, lossless HEVC. 2x performance.
5th Gen (Volta) — similar to Pascal. Found in early Turing (GTX 1650).
6th Gen (Turing) — HEVC B-frames. 25% bitrate savings (HEVC), 15% (H.264). Quality on par with x264 medium.
7th Gen (Ampere) — similar to Turing. AV1 decoding only (NVDEC).
8th Gen (Ada Lovelace) — first hardware AV1 encoder. 8K 10-bit @60fps. Dual NVENC on top-tier chips.
9th Gen (Blackwell) — added 4:2:2 chroma support (H.264, HEVC). AV1 UHQ mode. Up to 3 NVENC on RTX 5090.
NVDEC Generations
1st Gen (Maxwell 1st) — basic decoding: MPEG-1/2/4, VC-1, H.264.
2nd Gen (Maxwell 2nd, GM206) — first VP9 and HEVC decoding support (up to 10-bit).
3rd Gen (Pascal, Volta) — added 12-bit VP9 and HEVC.
4th Gen (Turing) — full HEVC coverage: 4:2:0, 4:2:2, 4:4:4 up to 12-bit. H.264 4:2:2.
5th Gen (Ampere, Ada Lovelace) — first hardware AV1 decoder. Film grain support.
6th Gen (Blackwell) — restored full HEVC 4:2:2/4:4:4 support. 2x H.264 throughput. Up to 2 NVDEC on top-tier chips.
