Yeah, hardware encoding is very new, but you can get an Intel Arc 700-series card and get it via QuickSync for pretty cheap if you have a spare x16 slot and really, really need it right now. Only those, Nvidia's 4000 series, and AMD's 7000 series support encode. 3000 and 6000 series for each company support hardware decode, though.
Just need to get phones on the hardware decode train! Qualcomm and Apple, step up your game!
I chose a synth (draconic lizard bot basically) because a) lizards and dragons are neat, and b) robots are neat. And so I thought "why not both?" found synths, and said "yep that's me."