Youtube Stream Pixelated with AMD AV1 30k Bitrate

Hey there, so i've been trying for months to improve my stream quality on Youtube but it simply does not work the way i imagined it.
My problem is that my stream looks way too pixelated for the hardware and settings i use. Here's just a random timestamp from a random stream: https://www.youtube.com/live/KgyTSP_xTYk?si=wz8AY1eiCBYhTK-J&t=2299

The game at moments looks sharp and cripsy (could be my ingame filters tho) and at other moments it's a fully pixelated mess that looks even worse than some 1080p 6k bitrate twitch streams, even tho im streaming 1440P with 30k Bitrate. An even bigger problem is my webcam. It gets totally blurry to the point you could think i'm streaming that thing in 144p and i get that this happens when there is high motion or grass/snow particles but it's that bad most of the time and shouldn't considering my streaming settings.

I'm running a 7800x3d with 7900 XTX Red Devil.
I'll be attaching a picture of my current streaming settings.
The AMF settings are these: EnableVBAQ=false EnablePreAnalysis=true PASceneChangeDetectionEnable=false
because i read that those allow you to use the HQCBR setting.

To the encoder settings:
I've done several test streams trying out CBR vs HQCBR, high quality preset vs speed preset, with and without several different AMF/FFMPEG Options but it only changed some minor details (which could've also been there because of different youtube compression).

I have also tested things with color range, audio bitrate settings and "ignore streaming service setting recommendations"

At this point, i just don't know what the problem could be anymore. I refuse to believe that the AMD AMF AV1 is just soooo much worse than nvenc (even tho everyone says it's a pretty good step up and only minimally behind nvenc). In my believe, a Youtube VP9 1440P 30k Bitrate AV1 Stream should definitely look better than some other twitch Streams.

Hopefully, some of you hyper-intelligent folk out there can help me with this one. Cheers ;D

Hey Buddy! I'm having similar issues on a similar (not quite as powerful) set up! I'm running a 5800X3D with a 7800XT and I have 110mb/s upload speed so can max out the 51k bitrate on YouTube (so its not bandwidth related). I had a 4070Ti when AV1 beta build was out and then first official release with YouTube support so I have actual comparison footage and , don't get me wrong , as you know at 1440p the AV1 stream with high bitrate looks very good on the AMD AV1 encoder, but , as you have said it definitely fluctuates and does go grainy and a bit pixelated in comparison. What I did notice however is even setting the Bitrate to HQCBR it fluctuates massively in OBS but didn't with the 4070Ti. This is definitely not bandwidth related. I would be interested to see if anyone else has this or has a cure for it!! :)

AMD-AV1 @ 35k Bitrate HQCBR

NVIDIA-AV1 @ 35k Bitrate

the NVIDIA link is the wrong link : see this one -

This is at 18K Bitrate @ 1440p and doesn't suffer like the AMD 35k stream did. I'm certain its due to bitrate fluctuation, must be encoder/software related.

Yeah HQCBR seemingly only works with these parameters: EnableVBAQ=false EnablePreAnalysis=true PASceneChangeDetectionEnable=false
But even then it fluctuates a bit here and there unlike CBR. I've tested through all profiles with all settings and different bitrates (always letting the same gameplay run and comparing it after) and it only changes minor things like being more sharp here and there but still the same problems. It seems to be a AMF issue. Even tho many people compared AMF vs. NVENC months ago and said it's almost up par, i can't see that because NVENC seems to get a way better image with even less bitrate compared to AMD on their absolute Top Tier Card. Thank you for sharing your experience on that topic and even providing actual footage! Maybe one day we'll find a solution for this problem but for now it seems to be AMD hardware related and NVENC seems to be way better :(

No probz dude, I agree 100% with you on this. FYI , I just ran another comparison and mainly to see what the bitrate fluctuation was like and with 51k bitrate set I seen it as low as 15k in low action scenes etc and it jumped as high as over 74k at some points but in high action areas of the game seemed to settle at 50-54k but is noticeably nothing like the NVIDIA AV1. in early testing at 51k on the 4070Ti it was almost as good as looking at original game footage on my monitor!! ill add the settings in you listed and see if I see any difference!! cheers buddy! :)

I had a Problem with the CBR Settings too. It jumps all the time and don't hold on the Bitrate I want.

It's good to see that's not only a Problem with my Set-Up.