Suitable low-cost video card for 4k displays if NOT gaming

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Nojay

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Jun 28, 2014
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I'm looking to buy a 4k display in the next few months to be used for general browsing, photo and graphics editing work and the like but not for gaming. I'd prefer a plug-and-play single cable option rather than having to set up a 2-panel merged display or sacrifice a chicken to propitiate the gods of computing. I've already got some monitor candidates in mind (32" Dell UP3214Q IPS/IZGO if my budget will stretch that far, Asus or AOC 28" TN panel units if not). My problem is figuring out what kind of GPU I'll need to drive my final choice with.

From reading up on the subject I think I need a video card that will output HDMI 2.0 or DisplayPort 1.4something to generate 4k (3840 x 2160). I'd prefer something cheap (I really want that 32" Dell), not power-hungry and a bit quieter than the usual assault-helicopter-noise gaming cards reviewers normally use to test 4k monitors.

Right now I'm using a braindead Radeon HD5450 card to drive 2560x1440 27" and 1920x1200 24" Dell IPS displays with no problems under Win8 on a AMD Phenom 555 X2 and 8GB RAM. Finding a cheap card that can specifically output 4k output @ 60Hz is a bit tricky as the published specs usually don't mention which version of the HDMI or DisplayPort standard they support. I'd prefer AMD as the drivers seem to give me less grief than nVidia -- I repeat, I'm not doing this for gaming so absolute performance isn't important, simplicity of setup and stability are what I'm after.
 
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BustaRhymes

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I think GTX 750 or r7 260X is prob the lowest price you can go that supports 4k resolution. A lot of the older cards dont support more than 1600p.

I don't think any cards have hdmi 2.0 yet so you will have to use displayport.
 
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pauls3743

pauls3743

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Displayport 1.2 will run 4k @ 60Hz
HDMI 1.4 will run 4k @30Hz
HDMI 2.0 should run 4k @ 60Hz but it's not guaranteed as it's not out yet
Which 4k screens currently support HDMI 2.0 @ 60Hz? sorry, don't know, I don't think any
Which graphics cards actually support 4k screens? Good question, I've ran my ASUS PB287Q 4k @ 60Hz with a GTX 680, GTX Titan and Radeon R9-290. I've also ran it 4k @ 60Hz on an Intel HD4600 (I'm running a Haswell i7), but I couldn't game with that.
I have tried my ASUS 4k screen with a couple of laptops, the max they drove the screen to was 1920 x 1080, one of these was my gaming laptop with a GTX 675MX graphics card, I don't know what refresh rate it ran at as I failed to notice.
As to lower end AMD chips, I don't know, it's not something I have tried myself. I only tried the Intel HD4600 because I already had that on-die and the motherboard had a full size displayport output.
 
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Nojay

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Thanks for that -- the fact a chipset HD4600 would drive 4k @ 60Hz at all is good news for me, I think. As I said I'm not going to be gaming on this (other than occasionally playing Doom with homebrew WADs). I've done some more poking around and I can get a Sapphire HD5450 card with DisplayPort 1.2 output for about 40 bucks locally (in the UK) which might work, or spring for a $100 Eyefinity-capable card to run my 2560x1440 monitor as a sidekick. That means I can spend more on getting a better monitor like the Dell I mentioned.
 
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Nojay

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I bit the bullet and had a refurbished/surplus Dell UP3214Q 4k monitor delivered today, purchased from NRG-IT in the UK during their Black Friday weekend sale for UKP 749.00. I have no peripheral vision left...

It wasn't too hard to get it working at 4k resolution and 60Hz via a cheapish XFX R7 250X card with 1GB of RAM, about UKP 65 from Big River Corporation. It was the lowest-cost AMD card I could find that had a DisplayPort connection, essential for getting the resolution and refresh rate I wanted on the 3214.

I've connected a Dell IPS 1920x1200 monitor as a sidekick portrait monitor via the dual-link DVI connector on the video card and configured it using the Eyefinity setup feature on the Catalyst control panel. Next step is to see if I can swap in my 1440p 27" Dell instead of the 1200p display. Eventually I'd like to have all three monitors running together but that might require installing another video card to drive the third monitor as I'm not sure the XFX card can drive three monitors if the DisplayPort output is driving a 4k screen.

Update: I swapped in my 2560x1440 monitor in place of the 1920x1200, plug and play and it's now my portrait-mode sidekick display running full-resolution via the dual-link DVI-D port off my budget XFX video card with no problems.
 
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sorlark

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Little late when I came across this but whatever. A 9800 GTX will show 4k in the menus. Only problem I've come across is no HDMI port so you have to use a DVI to HDMI cable which won't support 4k because of the conversion. Nvidia's drivers for a while have been updated to take the 512MB on board VRAM and use some system ram to help out. One card can pull 3.5GB from system RAM, totaling 4GB. Though I still can't get the 4k to actually work. ALTHOUGH, a 55" Samsung 4k curved tv running Makes for a stunning monitor with your system set at 1080P.
So I think you just need a card with a HDMI out on it and 1 or 2 GB of ram, you should be good.
 
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Nojay

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Following up to my old post, I'm considering shifting my main computing desktop workload to a repurposed server (twin Xeons, 8 cores, 16GB ECC RAM) and I'm now looking for a video card to go into it.

It has to be a low-profile format to fit into the case, with backplate to match (although I can hack the backplate if I need to). It must have at least one DisplayPort output and be able to output 3840x2160 @ 60Hz to feed my Dell 3214 display. It must be cheap, as cheap as possible (I don't care about gaming performance, I'm looking at general-purpose computing with the ability to play back H.264 video).

The server doesn't have additional power cables for supplying a GPU with extra DC although I could hack that to some extent if I needed to but I'd rather have a card that's only powered from the PCIe bus. Fanless would be nice but not essential (the server fans make enough noise anyway, even in the hushkit box it's going in to). I'd prefer an AMD card as I'm used to their devices but I'd be willing to try nVidia if there's a suitable card in my price bracket (under $100 US). Any ideas?

Please note the absolute requirements I've listed - I don't want to go HDMI, I'm not interested in high-rate 1080p or expensive full-sized gaming cards or changing my display. I'd prefer recommendations from anyone who's got a suitable card already up and running on 3840x2160 @ 60Hz.
 
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David Echosonic

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My Answer: I am using a NVidia Quadro K420 that I picked up as surplus, but I see it is available as of Jan 2016 for about $108. It drives an RCA 55" 4K TV with great results at 3840X2160 for YouTube 4K video and of course the regular desktop view of Windows 10 - but you have to resize the Windows view since now it is 4X smaller without resizing. This card is meant for CAD work rather than gaming, but it does have the DP and I use an active DP to HDMI cable for the latest HDMI implementation on the TV I bought in Dec 2015. In comparison a decent gaming card for 4K runs at least $350, but I am not doing any gaming.

 
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Thomas Lechner

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Is there anything like a "current general consensus" what card / port / mode is best / most cost effective to drive current 4K TVs (e. g. Samsung) just for desktop usage.
4K 60Hz, 4:4:4
DisplayPort MST plus adapter to HDMI or HDMI 2.0 or "HDMI dual"
Is 2 GB video card RAM still considered sufficient for 4K desktop usage, like browsing, viewing videos etc...

 
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Thomas Lechner

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I am about to get myself the GTX1060 6GB for 4K / 60z RGB 4:4:4 over HDMI (hoping for 10 bit color resolution, since my shiny new UE43KS7580 can do 8 bit native plus 2 bits of temporal dithering). Can I get away with 3GB card also, if no gaming?
I wonder that the topic of how to best push desktop resolution to 4K 60Hz 4:4:4 etc. doesn't seem to attract more general interest - 4K screens / cards are affordable by now.
For some strange reason, even today still many people stick (even maiority) to their Full HD computer screen setup.
 
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