Question Suggestions for GPU for 4k video

[jamesdsimone]

The video card that came with my z420 is dying with screen artifacting and randon black screens. I think it is an AMD 7470. Since it's an OEM workstation card so not much labeling but it looks like model C264. I replaced it and the artifacting went away but it occured to me that none of the random video cards I have laying around support 4k and/or have Windows10 drivers. I can't get anything about 1024x768 resolution with the old AMD card I threw in since Windows is using generic drivers. Any suggestions as to what to replace it with? I don't want to spend a lot of money. It doesn't have to do anything but allow 4k video to play. It already has AMD drivers installed so an AMD card would be make installation a little easier

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I suggest you nuke the drivers and start fresh even when using the same vendor as it can avoid headaches in both the short and long term.

Your CPU can undoubtedly brute force 4K without help, so you can use a super cheap display adapter that doesn't support VP9 or AV1 and be fine if you don't want newer that supports both. Even something like this R7 430 for under $12 would get the job done. --- R7 430 2GB on Ebay

The ARC A310 and A380 are the best affordable new cards that support everything, but that is $100.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Your CPU can undoubtedly brute force 4K without help, so you can use a super cheap display adapter that doesn't support VP9 or AV1 and be fine if you don't want newer that supports both. Even something like this R7 430 for under $12 would get the job done. --- R7 430 2GB on Ebay

There so many of these low end GPU's, sorting through them is a problem. I decided to get an R7 450 cost about 10 dollars more than the R7 430 but has both an display port and HDMI outputs.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Yeah man, harvesting all of those old office PCs certainly makes for a glut of cheap display adapters to wade through. I'd use AMD's auto detect for the drivers since it's OEM. A quick look says the AMD drivers for the R7 M440 should work though.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Yeah man, harvesting all of those old office PCs certainly makes for a glut of cheap display adapters to wade through. I'd use AMD's auto detect for the drivers since it's OEM. A quick look says the AMD drivers for the R7 M440 should work though.

I can imagine. They aren't really good for anything except for producing a video output. I looked and they didn't have exact drivers but the one I got is an HP pull and it's going in an HP z420 so I'm sure I can find drivers.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Installed and 4k is up and running. Didn't bother with drivers might later but not sure what I would need them for.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Installed and 4k is up and running. Didn't bother with drivers might later but not sure what I would need them for.

AMD is only updating that generation for security patches, stuff like that, so the MS drivers are probably fine. I'm curious, what is the date on them in device mangler?

 

[jamesdsimone]

AMD is only updating that generation for security patches, stuff like that, so the MS drivers are probably fine. I'm curious, what is the date on them in device mangler?

The system came with an OEM AMD work station card with drivers already installed. I'll have to check what drivers the system is defaulting to.

 

[jamesdsimone]

I just checked. Device Manager is reporting the card as an R9 M360? It's an HP OEM card so who knows what special arrangements HP made with AMD. Looks like a mobile chip but guess HP was looking for the low power cards. Win10 is using the AMD drivers that were already installed. Everything seems to be working ok. The drivers are dated 11/5/15. Pretty sure this is the card that it came with. Overall super happy with this z420 purchase for a media computer. I only payed 158.99 delivered. I upgraded it because I wanted to but didn't have to. E5-1650 v2 --> E5-2690 v2 15.64USD. 4x16 ECC DDR3 PC1333 --> 4x16 DDR PC1866 29.68. I had to replace the video card for 24.35 but you have to expect that sort of thing with used computer. It has a 600w PS with 2 6 pin PCIe power connectors so might at some point install my 1080 with a 2x 6 pin to 8 pin adapter. I'd be interested in seeing how it games.

*LOT OF 3* AMD Radeon HD7000 1GB 102-C26457-01 | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for *LOT OF 3* AMD Radeon HD7000 1GB 102-C26457-01 at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[poke01]

the GTX 750 Ti. I'm serious you can find some for $30, would last a long time for 4k video and you play some old games too.

EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (02G-P4-3751-KR) for sale online | eBay

Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for EVGA GeForce GTX 750 Ti 2GB GDDR5 Graphics Card (02G-P4-3751-KR) at the best online prices at eBay! Free shipping for many products!

www.ebay.com

 

[DeathReborn]

Doesn't Netflix require 3GB of VRAM for 4K? I don't know about any other streamers.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Doesn't Netflix require 3GB of VRAM for 4K? I don't know about any other streamers.

Good question I'm not sure. I've been playing mp4 movies. Netflix runs fine on my old FX8350/3gb 7970 but it chocks on 4k video.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Doesn't Netflix require 3GB of VRAM for 4K? I don't know about any other streamers.

I took a quick look. You are on the money for Nvidia. It states it needs to be Pascal or newer with 3GB VRAM. For AMD it just says 400 series or newer. It also states 7th gen or newer Intel, Ryzen for AMD which seems a bit odd.

 

[tcsenter]

Wow you coming from the older Caicos 7470 (rebadged 6450), almost anything would be an upgrade to that. If you want up to HEVC/H265, which I would recommend as minimum, something like Radeon RX 550 4GB (OEM or other) will do fine but avoid the 400 series because some variants do not fully support HEVC/H265 decode in hardware and you have to kind of dig to find which. BTW the Radeon RX 640 4GB (OEM) is just RX 550, slightly different clocks. As is the Radeon Pro WX 3200. All are Polaris.

For NVIDIA, 2nd gen Maxwell (not 1st GEN!) is minimum for hardware HEVC/H265 decode. Pascal is the minimum for VP9 support. Not sure about AMD and VP9 but I think the min is Navi.

 

[jamesdsimone]

I took a quick look. You are on the money for Nvidia. It states it needs to be Pascal or newer with 3GB VRAM. For AMD it just says 400 series or newer. It also states 7th gen or newer Intel, Ryzen for AMD which seems a bit odd.

I got the R7 450 and it plays 4k video fine. The only reason I got it was because the card the computer came with was artifacting and it was really annoying. I have the 10 core E5-2690 v2 which has enough brute force to play most everything. As for Netflix, I stream everything fine with the FX8350 and 7970 so the "requirements" are not exactly what they say. I'm sure they are just covering themselves so they don't have to deal with legacy hardware issues.

 

[tcsenter]

I was fairly impressed with hardware decode of HEVC/H265 over AVC/H264 (especially the improvement over grunting out H265 video on CPU). Nothing I couldn't live without but better all around, especially CPU utilization. I don't know why Netflix would 'require' 3GB VRAM. I did a bunch of testing and nobody seems to be using as much VRAM as they could be, never saw VRAM utilization more than ~400MB for video decoding. Even system RAM utilization was pretty light, plenty of system RAM available.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I don't know why Netflix would 'require' 3GB VRAM.

And only for Nvidia at that.

 

[coercitiv]

NVIDIA Support

nvidia.custhelp.com

To enable Netflix UHD playback, the following is required:

• NVIDIA Driver version 387.96 or newer driver. No older GeForce driver will support this functionality at this time
• NVIDIA Pascal based GPU or newer, GeForce GTX 1050 or greater with minimum 3GB memory
• HDCP 2.2 capable monitor(s). Please see the additional section below if you are using multiple monitors and/or multiple GPUs.
• Microsoft Edge browser or Netflix app from the Windows Store
• Microsoft Windows 10 Fall Creators Update (10.0.16299 Build 16299 or newer)

 

[DAPUNISHER]

NVIDIA Support

nvidia.custhelp.com

We get that part, what is the techinical explanation for why it needs a 3GB card when it does not list the same requirement for AMD?

 

[tcsenter]

Me thinks this came from NVIDIA's end, after discussion with Netflix? i.e. Netflix is just posting the requirements that NVIDIA has supplied to them (and the public)

Also why not 2nd Gen Maxwell? According to NVIDIA it supports HEVC/265 (but not 1st gen Maxwell).

Edit: well it seems only *some* 2nd Gen Maxwell parts (with 2nd Gen NVDEC) support it, not others. e.g.

Support HEVC/265

GeForce GTX 750 / GTX 950 > 960
GeForce GTX 965M

NOT support HEVC/265

GeForce GTX 745 > 750 Ti
GeForce GTX 960 Ti / 970 / 980
GeForce GTX 980M / 980MX
GeForce GTX 980 Ti
GeForce GTX Titan X

Wow, what a mess, like the AMD 400 series.

 

[coercitiv]

We get that part, what is the techinical explanation for why it needs a 3GB card when it does not list the same requirement for AMD?

I have no clue, found the link while trying to understand the requirement myself.

 

[coercitiv]

Decided to ask the AI, surely the Silicon Valley little baby will burn a few kilowatts and come up with something useful... the second link it came up after the same Nvidia link was... the Anandtech forum thread discussing this topic back in 2017. Unfortunately we were as clueless then as we are now

 

[jamesdsimone]

Me thinks this came from NVIDIA's end, after discussion with Netflix? i.e. Netflix is just posting the requirements that NVIDIA has supplied to them (and the public)

You think maybe Nvidia is trying to sell more GPU's?