Pick NVIDIA Broadcast if you are on a Windows PC with an RTX graphics card and want free, low-load noise removal for streaming, gaming or recording. Pick Krisp if you work on a Mac, a laptop without an RTX GPU, or you want one tool across many meeting apps. Both remove keyboard clicks, fans and background chatter from your mic. They differ mainly in what hardware they run on, what they cost and what else they bundle.
This comparison is written for creators, podcasters, remote marketers and small teams who record or talk on camera and want clean voice audio without a treated room.
TL;DR
- NVIDIA Broadcast: free, Windows only, needs an RTX-class GPU, and does its processing on the graphics card so the CPU stays mostly free.
- Krisp: works on Windows and macOS with no special graphics hardware, runs on the CPU, and has a free tier of 60 minutes of noise cancellation per day.
- Latency: one hardware review measured roughly 10-20 ms for Broadcast and 30-50 ms for Krisp. Neither is likely to bother you on calls, but streamers who monitor their own voice may notice.
- Do not stack suppression layers. Running Krisp on top of Zoom’s or Discord’s built-in filter can add artifacts. Turn one off.
- Short verdict: RTX owner on Windows, start with Broadcast. Mac user or no RTX card, start with Krisp.
Table of Contents
- What each tool actually is
- Krisp vs NVIDIA Broadcast at a glance
- Hardware and operating system: the deciding filter
- Voice quality and noise removal
- Latency and system load
- Cost
- What about RTX Voice?
- Using either tool with Discord, Zoom, OBS and recording apps
- Which one for which creator
- Our perspective
- Find the rest of your video toolkit
- FAQ
- Sources
What each tool actually is
NVIDIA Broadcast is a free app for Windows 10 and 11. It offers noise removal for your microphone and for incoming audio, plus virtual background and auto-frame effects for your webcam. It requires an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060, Quadro RTX 3000, TITAN RTX or better, according to NVIDIA’s own setup guide. It uses the GPU’s Tensor Cores for the AI work, per a professional comparison from Fabric.
Krisp describes itself as a Voice AI platform that removes background noise, converts accents and produces real-time transcripts and notes. For this comparison only the noise removal matters. It sits between your microphone and your calling or recording app as a virtual device, and it also filters what you hear from other people.
The practical difference is the category. Broadcast is a free feature of an NVIDIA graphics card. Krisp is a standalone product with a business model of its own, so its features reach beyond noise removal into meetings.
Krisp vs NVIDIA Broadcast at a glance
| Criterion | NVIDIA Broadcast | Krisp |
|---|---|---|
| Operating systems | Windows only | Windows and macOS |
| Hardware | RTX 2060, Quadro RTX 3000, TITAN RTX or newer | No special hardware |
| Where processing happens | GPU (Tensor Cores) | CPU |
| Typical latency (one review) | About 10-20 ms | About 30-50 ms |
| Incoming audio filtering | Yes | Yes |
| Webcam effects | Virtual background, auto-frame | Not the focus |
| Free option | Fully free with a supported GPU | Free tier, 60 minutes per day |
| Extras | Video effects | Meeting transcripts, summaries, action items |
Sources for the table: the NVIDIA guide, the Fabric comparison and the latency figures from jisaku.com.
Hardware and operating system: the deciding filter
For most readers this section settles the question before audio quality ever comes up.
Broadcast does not run without a supported NVIDIA RTX card. If you have a GTX card, an AMD card, integrated graphics or a Mac, it is not an option. The Fabric comparison also notes that Broadcast runs on Windows only, while Krisp covers Windows and macOS for both incoming and outgoing audio.
Krisp works without special hardware. That makes it the default for people on a MacBook, on an office laptop they cannot add a GPU to, or on a PC with an older graphics card.
If you do own a compatible RTX card, hardware is no longer a filter and the choice moves to cost, load and how you work.
Voice quality and noise removal
Both tools handle the common problems well: keyboard clatter, a desk fan, air conditioning, a barking dog, traffic. That is the key difference from a traditional filter. A standard noise gate or frequency filter cuts low rumble and steady hiss, while an AI model identifies speech and suppresses sounds that are not speech, according to a Discord audio guide (a general explainer, so treat the description as background).
Where they separate is the edge cases. In our testing approach we listen for three things:
- Sudden loud noises. A door slam or a mug set down on the desk. Some suppressors distort your voice for a split second when one hits mid-word.
- Background voices. A roommate talking in the next room, a TV, a coworker. These are the hardest because they are speech too.
- Quiet, steady speech. Soft talkers can get clipped at the start of sentences when suppression is aggressive.
Published opinions disagree, which is itself useful information. One Spanish-language comparison describes Broadcast as slightly more natural and more aggressive on complex noises thanks to its raw GPU power. A roundup of alternatives to Krisp says Krisp can distort a voice during sudden noises. Other writers rate Krisp’s newer models higher. None of these are controlled tests you should trust on their own, and the sources themselves do not agree.
The honest conclusion is that voice quality is close enough that your room, mic and gain settings matter as much as the software. Record 30 seconds with each tool in your real environment before you decide.
Latency and system load
This is where the architecture shows.
Broadcast processes audio on the GPU and, as the Fabric comparison puts it, imposes very little CPU load. Krisp processes audio with AI models on the CPU.
A Japanese hardware site, jisaku.com, puts Broadcast at roughly 10-20 ms of added latency and Krisp at 30-50 ms. It also recommends Broadcast for gamers and streamers because the Tensor Cores keep CPU load down.
What does that mean in practice?
- On a call or webinar, a 30-50 ms delay is invisible. Everyone already deals with network lag far larger than that.
- While gaming and streaming at once, CPU headroom matters. Your game, OBS encoding and capture all compete for the processor. Pushing noise removal to the GPU frees some of that budget, although encoding and the game itself also use the GPU, so test under real load.
- If you monitor your own voice in headphones, extra latency can feel like a slight echo. Lower latency helps here.
If your connection is the weaker link, fix that first. A livestream setup alternatives guide helps you check how your upload speed, jitter and packet loss hold up for live video before you blame the microphone chain.
Cost
Broadcast costs nothing beyond the GPU you already own. That makes it hard to beat for anyone with an RTX card.
Krisp has a free tier that, per Fabric, gives you 60 minutes of noise cancellation per day. That is enough for a couple of meetings, but not for a full day of calls or a long recording session. Paid plans lift that limit. Plan names and prices change, so check Krisp’s own site for the current price before you commit.
For podcasters recording several hours a week, the 60-minute cap is the real constraint. For someone with two short calls a day it may never come up.
What about RTX Voice?
RTX Voice was NVIDIA’s earlier noise removal tool, and readers still search for it by name. NVIDIA’s own setup guide describes Broadcast as offering noise removal alongside virtual background and auto-frame effects, so the audio feature you wanted from RTX Voice now lives inside Broadcast. If you only want noise removal, you still install Broadcast and simply ignore the camera effects.
NVIDIA also keeps adding features to the app. Tom’s Hardware reported a Studio Voice effect that enhances mic quality, plus a Virtual Key Light for the camera. Whether Broadcast appears inside the main NVIDIA app on your machine depends on your driver and app version, so check NVIDIA’s download page for the current state rather than assuming.
Using either tool with Discord, Zoom, OBS and recording apps
Both tools show up as a virtual microphone. You select “Krisp Microphone” or the Broadcast microphone as the input in your app, and leave the app’s own settings neutral.
The rule that causes the most trouble: use one layer of suppression. Call Tonic warns that running two noise-cancellation layers at once, such as Krisp plus Zoom’s built-in tool, often produces audio artifacts that make sound worse. So:
- Discord: pick your virtual mic as input and set Discord’s noise suppression to off.
- Zoom or Teams: set the app’s suppression to low or off when Krisp or Broadcast is the input.
- OBS: add the virtual mic as an audio input capture source, and skip OBS’s own noise suppression filter on that source.
If you stream, our OBS vs XSplit comparison covers the capture side of the chain.
Do you need either tool at all? The same Call Tonic page says built-in suppression is enough for most rooms with steady noise, and dedicated software helps in persistently loud places, with background voices, with incoming noise, or when you need one setup across several apps.
Also fix the source. Microphone placement and hardware choices reduce noise before any software touches the signal, so a properly positioned mic helps every tool here. A dynamic mic close to your mouth rejects more room sound than a condenser across the desk.
Which one for which creator
Streamer or gamer on an RTX PC. Broadcast. It is free, uses the GPU and keeps CPU free for the game and encoder. Our gaming highlights picks cover what to do with the footage afterward.
Podcaster recording remote guests. Either works. If you are on a Mac, Krisp is the practical answer. Because both tools also clean incoming audio, a guest with a noisy room gets a cleaner track on your side. Noise removal done live is not a rescue for a bad recording though; for fixing files after the fact, see our AI noise reduction video tools guide and our podcaster tool roundup.
Marketer or consultant on a work laptop. Krisp. No GPU requirement, works on Mac and Windows, and its meeting extras (transcripts, summaries and action items, with a bot-free approach to note-taking) may replace another subscription. That is Krisp’s own description of its product, so judge it against your needs.
Small business recording talking-head videos. If your voice track has constant noise, fix the room first, then pick whichever tool your hardware allows. Post-processing is a separate job from live suppression.
Our perspective
We test AI video and audio tools by running them in real workflows, not by reading feature pages. On this pair our view is simple: stop looking for a winner and start from your hardware. The RTX-versus-no-RTX question decides most cases, and quality differences between modern AI suppressors are smaller than the difference a good mic position makes.
We would also warn against two habits we see often. The first is stacking filters, because the artifacts it adds are easy to blame on the wrong tool. The second is trusting a head-to-head score from a vendor or an aggregator without hearing it in your room. Record the same paragraph three ways: raw, with Krisp, with Broadcast. Listen on headphones, then on laptop speakers.
Do not buy a paid Krisp plan if you own an RTX card and only stream on Windows. Do not buy an RTX card just for noise removal either.
— H
Find the rest of your video toolkit
Noise removal is one layer of a video workflow. If you are building out the rest, browse our directory of tested AI video tools for editors, caption generators and repurposing tools with verified pricing, or start with the best AI video editors.
FAQ
Is NVIDIA Broadcast better than Krisp?
Not universally. Broadcast is free and light on the CPU, but it needs an RTX-class GPU and Windows. Krisp works on Windows and Mac without special hardware. On an RTX PC, Broadcast is usually the better first try.
Can I use Krisp and NVIDIA Broadcast together?
You can, but you should not for the same microphone path. Stacking two noise-cancellation layers often adds audio artifacts rather than removing noise. Choose one and turn off suppression in the other apps.
Does Krisp have a free version?
Yes. The free tier gives 60 minutes of noise cancellation per day, according to a professional comparison. Check Krisp’s site for current paid plans and prices.
What happened to RTX Voice?
RTX Voice was NVIDIA’s earlier noise removal tool. Its noise removal is now part of NVIDIA Broadcast, which also adds virtual background and auto-frame effects, as described in NVIDIA’s guide.
Sources
- NVIDIA RTX Voice setup guide
- Krisp
- Krisp blog: meeting productivity tools
- Fabric: Krisp vs NVIDIA RTX Voice
- jisaku.com: AI noise cancellation tools compared
- Call Tonic: built-in suppression vs software
- Discord voice and audio optimization guide
- Noise suppression for gaming mics
- Tom’s Hardware: Nvidia Broadcast upgrade
