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

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  • Gaming
  • Graphics Cards
  • Display
  • Graphics
Last response: in Graphics & Displays
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June 28, 2014 5:58:37 AM

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.

More about : suitable low cost video card displays gaming

a b 4 Gaming
June 28, 2014 6:34:22 AM

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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a b 4 Gaming
June 28, 2014 6:39:29 AM

*deleted* The r7 250 does not have displayport
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a b 4 Gaming
a b U Graphics card
June 28, 2014 6:46:52 AM

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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June 28, 2014 9:59:55 AM

pauls3743 said:
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
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I've also ran it 4k @ 60Hz on an Intel HD4600 (I'm running a Haswell i7), but I couldn't game with that.
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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.


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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a b 4 Gaming
a c 84 U Graphics card
June 29, 2014 9:55:37 AM

almost any GPU can run 4K at the desktop. that is simple but a 5450 is the absolute bottom of the barrel
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