Card for 4k videos

[bling]

Hi everyone, I have an old pc that I don't use anymore I was thinking to re-porpoise it as a media station for my TV to play 4k videos/movies with hdr if possible.

TV input will be HDMI e probably with a 2 or 3 mt cable.

 

What graphics card should I get?

 

Other specs are 3570k and 16GB of ram.

I already try to use a gtx 660 but the 4k recording from the GoPro were literally unwatchable.

 

[circeseye]

amd 500 series or nvidea 1000 series or newer with hdmi 2.0 on them if you want 60hz and if tv supports it, hdr

otherwise if cards dont have 2.0 you only get 30hz....then youd need a displayport to hdmi 2.0 active adapter to get 60hz

[BobVonBob]

HDMI 2.0 is supported on Nvidia 950+, 1050+, and RTX cards, and AMD 460+, 550+, and Vega cards

[SupaKomputa]

I think the build in intel graphics can deliver 4K video. No need for external card.

But for HDR you may need a more powerful gpu like RX560 or 1050.

[BobVonBob]

As a side note, be careful buying these cards used or off of ebay/jet for "too good to be true" pricing. They are very commonly faked. The quickest test is if they have a VGA port, they are fake, but that is not a surefire method of avoiding them.

[BobVonBob]

2 minutes ago, SupaKomputa said:

I think the build in intel graphics can deliver 4K video. No need for external card.

Not on a 3570k.

[SupaKomputa]

The cheap RX550 officially supports HDR:

Quote

The entire Radeon™ RX 500 Series is engineered with a refined version of our powerful, future-ready "Polaris" architecture. That means built-in support for next-generation display advancements, allowing consumers from all price segments to enjoy features that bring pixels to life, including Radeon FreeSync™ 2,¹ HDMI™ 4K60, and Display Port 1.4 HBR3/HDR.²

https://www.amd.com/en/partner/radeon-rx550-rx560

 

get a low profile case and your set

[bling]

@circeseye @BobVonBob @SupaKomputa thanks for the replies!

I can't find the hdmi version of TV input but since I'm already using them for 4k hdr I guess they're 2.0b.

 

I already looked at the cards supporting hdmi2.0b, but I'm not sure that they are actually capable of playing 4k hdr video. This is really the point of my post, sorry if it was unclear.

 

By also looking at the prices my base choice could be a 1050ti, is it enough for playing videos with no problems or should I go to a 1060 to be safe?

[circeseye]

videos yes....its gaming you need a more powerful card

[BobVonBob]

Playing 4k HDR video isn't actually all that intensive, the GPU built into my laptop's CPU can handle it just fine. The problem comes when the display outputs aren't able to support it. This was your issue with the 660.

[JoostinOnline]

17 minutes ago, bling said:

By also looking at the prices my base choice could be a 1050ti, is it enough for playing videos with no problems or should I go to a 1060 to be safe? 

Even that's excessive. An RX 550 or GTX 1050 are more than enough.

[mariushm]

Use a cheap RX 460 or  higher (RX 550 would probably be the cheapest), or GT 1030 or better.   With the mention that GT 1030 is kind of a bad choice because it has hardware encoders disabled, it can only do decoding in hardware (which seems to be enough in your case).

 

Another option would be the cheap Athlon 200GE , dual core Ryzen with integrated graphics and a 35w TDP so it's super low power.  The integrated graphics has a hardware decoder, so it will play pretty much anything with no problems.

Get the 60$ cpu, a 50$ A320 based motherboard, a 20$ 4 GB memory stick (you can find cheaper at other stores) and you're done... you can sell the mb,cpu and 16 GB of memory on eBay or somewhere and get maybe more than half the money back. In the end it would probably be cheaper than buying a separate video card.

The CPU alone is still sold on eBay these days at 70-90$ ... put it on sale at 50$ and you'll probably sell it fast. You'll probably get 30-50$ for the 16 GB kit of DDR3 as well. Or sell the whole bundle for around 100-150$.

You'll also save on power if you'll leave the pc running 24/7.... let it idle at around 20-30w instead of 50w+ for the old Intel.

 

[bling]

1 hour ago, JoostinOnline said:

Even that's excessive. An RX 550 or GTX 1050 are more than enough.

 

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

Use a cheap RX 460 or  higher (RX 550 would probably be the cheapest), or GT 1030 or better.   With the mention that GT 1030 is kind of a bad choice because it has hardware encoders disabled, it can only do decoding in hardware (which seems to be enough in your case).

Looking at the prices here there's not much a difference from a 1030 to a 1050ti, that's why i was looking at the 1050ti. This way i could also use it for short gaming session at 1080p if needed.

 

1 hour ago, mariushm said:

Another option would be the cheap Athlon 200GE , dual core Ryzen with integrated graphics and a 35w TDP so it's super low power.  The integrated graphics has a hardware decoder, so it will play pretty much anything with no problems.

Get the 60$ cpu, a 50$ A320 based motherboard, a 20$ 4 GB memory stick (you can find cheaper at other stores) and you're done... you can sell the mb,cpu and 16 GB of memory on eBay or somewhere and get maybe more than half the money back. In the end it would probably be cheaper than buying a separate video card.

The CPU alone is still sold on eBay these days at 70-90$ ... put it on sale at 50$ and you'll probably sell it fast. You'll probably get 30-50$ for the 16 GB kit of DDR3 as well. Or sell the whole bundle for around 100-150$.

You'll also save on power if you'll leave the pc running 24/7.... let it idle at around 20-30w instead of 50w+ for the old Intel.

 

I didn't think about that configuration, interesting idea.

About selling I already tried but the only offers i got for the whole lot were basically giving it away for free, therefore i guess it will stay with me for the foreseeable future. I even thought about pairing it with a 1070 for gaming but the prices are still too high for a secondary gaming pc.

[JoostinOnline]

2 hours ago, bling said:

Looking at the prices here there's not much a difference from a 1030 to a 1050ti, that's why i was looking at the 1050ti. This way i could also use it for short gaming session at 1080p if needed. 

Well then you should get an RX 570. It's cheaper but performs better.