Cheapest GPU for 4k video

[Longy999]

My dad has ordered a 4k TV to use for his pc but currently has a GTX460 as his gpu which I'm assuming won't handle 4k very well.

Anyone know what the cheapest gpu is that can run 4k? There's no gaming done on this system, it's just for displaying and playing 4k videos on YouTube and such

[Komrade]

Escrito originalmente por L37:

Escrito originalmente por Longy9999:

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I've had a look and you can get a new 4gb gtx780 for around £50, do you think that will be good enough for what he wants?

Do not buy old high-end stuff. Noisy, hot, will cause PSU issues, most likely. Performance of GPU itself is also irrelevant for the job, what matters is hdmi version and hardware video decoder. Both will be better on never card.

Escrito originalmente por notkennyS:

You could ask your dad if it runs smoothly on his current setup, then if it doesn't then consider an upgrade.

IIRC both iGPU and gtx460 are unable to even output 4k over hdmi in current system.

Ah. Right. OP you could go for a cheap used GT 1030.

[Longy999]

Escrito originalmente por L37:

Escrito originalmente por Longy9999:

...
I've had a look and you can get a new 4gb gtx780 for around £50, do you think that will be good enough for what he wants?

Do not buy old high-end stuff. Noisy, hot, will cause PSU issues, most likely. Performance of GPU itself is also irrelevant for the job, what matters is hdmi version and hardware video decoder. Both will be better on newer card.

Escrito originalmente por notkennyS:

You could ask your dad if it runs smoothly on his current setup, then if it doesn't then consider an upgrade.

IIRC both iGPU and gtx460 are unable to even output 4k over hdmi in current system.

Do you have a recommendation for something that's cheap and effective for what he wants? I've been looking at 980's, can he go lower than that or is that about where he needs to be?

[Komrade]

Escrito originalmente por Longy9999:

Escrito originalmente por L37:

Do not buy old high-end stuff. Noisy, hot, will cause PSU issues, most likely. Performance of GPU itself is also irrelevant for the job, what matters is hdmi version and hardware video decoder. Both will be better on newer card.


IIRC both iGPU and gtx460 are unable to even output 4k over hdmi in current system.

Do you have a recommendation for something that's cheap and effective for what he wants? I've been looking at 980's, can he go lower than that or is that about where he needs to be?

GT 1030 should be alright. 980 is overkill, videos aren't very demanding

[upcoast]

The GTX 1060 6gb about par with GTX 980 but 1060 only draws 120w.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Even with my old FX-8350, 16gb ddr3 1866, gtx 780 6gb, Win7 sp1 64bit pro. Latest update, drivers, runtimes, using latest firefox or chrome, 4k on youtube was not smooth at all times, and that was on an Asus 144hz display. And you need a very decent isp speed plan to buffer 4k videos fast enough to not be a pause, buffer, play, pause, buffer... type of situation.

From my experience your cpu just isn't good enough to handle it. Even if you stick a high end gpu in there. But speaking of what's put today even an 8th or 9th Gen i3 is good enough. Nothing on the FM2 socket that your dad has will ever come close to a cpu like that.

It mainly comes down to cpu, browser, and isp speed for the most part. Even onboard Intel 610/630 can playback 4K videos well enough if the cpu isn't too low end.

Changed the gpu to 980 Ti Hybrid and it barely makes a difference regarding video content such as youtube.

Once I got rid of Comcast and went to Fiber, it's much more doable and not a buffer fest.

[Talby]

Any GPU that uses 2gb VRAM or more is good for 4K. Personally I am using an i3-2320 with a GTX 760 2gb, works very well on my Visio 4K tv.

Alternatively an APU with 2gb or more dedicated to it would be just as well.

So if you have an A8-5600 simply go to your BIOS (under Peripherals => GFX Configuration => UMA Frame Buffer Size) then set to the max (which should be 2gb) - hopefully you have at least 6gb, 4gb left over for the OS should be ok for an HTPC with nothing else running in the background

[Snow]

Most of the modern iGPUs are capable of 4K playback, let alone discrete graphics cards.

Escrito originalmente por Talby:

So if you have an A8-5600 simply go to your BIOS (under Peripherals => GFX Configuration => UMA Frame Buffer Size) then set to the max (which should be 2gb) - hopefully you have at least 6gb, 4gb left over for the OS should be ok for an HTPC with nothing else running in the background

iGPU will take as much RAM as it needs withing the shared memory limits anyway, so cutting 2GB from RAM will make overall performance worse due to less RAM available for other tasks.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

FM2 apus aren't modern and barely enough for 1080p/60 youtube playback.

[Obsessive Power]

Is the 4K TV a smart TV? If it's a smart TV it will do 4K on it's own. If it's not smart, buy an Amazon FireStick or a Chromecast, they can all do 4K video, no PC required. Easy to set up, very cheap.

[Longy999]

Escrito originalmente por Obsessive Power:

Is the 4K TV a smart TV? If it's a smart TV it will do 4K on it's own. If it's not smart, buy an Amazon FireStick or a Chromecast, they can all do 4K video, no PC required. Easy to set up, very cheap.

Yeah it's a smart TV, he's got a Netflix login he can use for 4k on it, it was his pc he was wanting to run in 4k though, he already has another 4k TV in the living room for all the other stuff

[Obsessive Power]

It just seems overly expensive just to watch 4K via the PC. If he wants to type stuff in, that's fine, Smart TV's support a wireless PC keyboard too. Very useful on a Smart TV as searching for things with the remote is awful.

I only watch YouTube on my PC, not Netflix or Amazon Prime. For those I actually turn my PC off and use the Smart TV, even though my PC easily plays 4K.

The main reason is that the Apps have their own independent video playback and colour settings. On my PC I'd have to keep turning on HDR (or keeping it off for SDR) and turning off Game Mode on the TV. It's too much of a hassle.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Just set the PC to 1920x1080 while on the 4K TV. You can still ruN YouTube in 4K

[InfinityJosh]

What TV is it?
Most 4K TV can handle YouTube/Netflix/etc. at 4K resolution without the need of other systems (PC/Nvidia Shield/etc.)
Anyway his PC itself is capable to display any video at 4K.

[L37]

Escrito originalmente por Longy9999:

Do you have a recommendation for something that's cheap and effective for what he wants? I've been looking at 980's, can he go lower than that or is that about where he needs to be?

Take a look at this table: https://developer.nvidia.com/video-encode-decode-gpu-support-matrix
What interests you is NVDEC part of it. Youtube currently uses VP9 so you want that supported, or you can just go with something that supports everything like gtx1650. Again, performance of the card is irrelevant, it is integrated hardware video decoder and its characteristics that interest you.

Escrito originalmente por Bad 💀 Motha:

Even with my old FX-8350, 16gb ddr3 1866, gtx 780 6gb, Win7 sp1 64bit pro. Latest update, drivers, runtimes, using latest firefox or chrome, 4k on youtube was not smooth at all times, and that was on an Asus 144hz display. And you need a very decent isp speed plan to buffer 4k videos fast enough to not be a pause, buffer, play, pause, buffer... type of situation.

From my experience your cpu just isn't good enough to handle it. Even if you stick a high end gpu in there. But speaking of what's put today even an 8th or 9th Gen i3 is good enough. Nothing on the FM2 socket that your dad has will ever come close to a cpu like that.

It mainly comes down to cpu, browser, and isp speed for the most part. Even onboard Intel 610/630 can playback 4K videos well enough if the cpu isn't too low end.

Changed the gpu to 980 Ti Hybrid and it barely makes a difference regarding video content such as youtube.

Once I got rid of Comcast and went to Fiber, it's much more doable and not a buffer fest.

There is software playback which depends on CPU and requires a lot of performance and hardware playback which simply uses small part built into GPU with near-zero CPU load. You tried with old cards which do not support modern formats => your player/browser falled back to using software decoding. Yes, you can brute-force it with modern fast multicore CPU, but it is kind of silly. Expensive, inefficient and depending on codecs used and their multithreading capabilities might still not be smotth. Any modern device like phones, smart tv-s, tv boxes and such use hardware decoders. And it makes sense to use it on PC too.

[A Drifter]

Yeah, a GT 1030 (w/ HDMI 2.0) is the minimum I'd say for 4K 60hz HDR video. Or get a GT 1060 if you wanna get real fancy. I doubt there'd be much of a difference for his purposes.

The main thing to watch for is HDMI 2.0 (a or b) minimum.