GPU to run 3 4k Monitors and 1 1080p, No Gaming

[Gronnie]

I am looking to run 3 of the Monoprice 27" 4k monitors, with a 32" 1080p TV mounted above for YouTube, TV, etc. No gaming. Mostly coding, Excel, websites, RDP and VNC connections, VMs, etc.

 

What do you think the cheapest single card that will be able to do this smoothly is?

 

Right now I have 1 Monoprice 27" 4k, flanked by two 1680x1050 monitors, with the 32" TV above running on a Radeon HD 7970 and sometimes it seems a bit choppy. Is VRAM going to be the most important factor?

 

The card will need 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI.

 

I was considering either a GTX 960 or 970, or an R9 390. The 960 and 970 have 4GB VRAM, and the 390 has 8GB.

 

Rest of the system is I7 4770k cooled by H100i, Samsung 850 EVO, 16GB 1600MHz CL8 RAM. Case is Corsair 500R. Power supply is EVGA 1000W Platinum (I know it is way too much, but I used to run multiple GPU and I got a fantastic deal on it). Now that I dual boot with W8.1 and Linux, I prefer to stay single card because it works way better in Linux.

[kev507]

I am looking to run 3 of the Monoprice 27" 4k monitors, with a 32" 1080p TV mounted above for YouTube, TV, etc. No gaming. Mostly coding, Excel, websites, RDP and VNC connections, VMs, etc.

 

What do you think the cheapest single card that will be able to do this smoothly is?

 

Right now I have 1 Monoprice 27" 4k, flanked by two 1680x1050 monitors, with the 32" TV above running on a Radeon HD 7970 and sometimes it seems a bit choppy. Is VRAM going to be the most important factor?

 

The card will need 3x DisplayPort and 1x HDMI.

 

I was considering either a GTX 960 or 970, or an R9 390. The 960 and 970 have 4GB VRAM, and the 390 has 8GB.

 

Rest of the system is I7 4770k cooled by H100i, Samsung 850 EVO, 16GB 1600MHz CL8 RAM. Case is Corsair 500R. Power supply is EVGA 1000W Platinum (I know it is way too much, but I used to run multiple GPU and I got a fantastic deal on it). Now that I dual boot with W8.1 and Linux, I prefer to stay single card because it works way better in Linux.

GTX 960 should do the job for just under $200, vram shouldn't be an issue if you're not gaming

[CydiaDash]

Probably the most powerful card that your budget can afford

[Raffy98]

The 960 would be the best bang for the buck, since you're not gaming it should be enough.

[Curufinwe_wins]

yea 970 is plenty 960 should also work. Amd cards might work but I don't think the 380 and below have the right ports for 3x 4k.

[Gronnie]

My 7970 right now seems to struggle sometimes running the 1 4k, 2x 1680x1050, and 1x 1080p.

 

On Tom's Hardware hierarchy chart, the 7970 is on the same tier as the 960.

 

Are we sure the 960 will be enough?

[kev507]

There are also options out there specifically for handing multiple displays smoothly, like the Nvidia NVS 510 which will run you about $330, but has special drivers for Nvidia Mosaic and can drive four 4K monitors @ 60Hz. You won't be able to do really any gaming at all, but it's technically the best fit for the task, even if it's not the best bang for the buck.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvs-graphics-cards.html

[Gronnie]

yea 970 is plenty 960 should also work. Amd cards might work but I don't think the 380 and below have the right ports for 3x 4k.

 

I was considering a 390. Something like this.

 

I don't mind spending money on hardware as long as it is going to benefit me. I work for an HDD/SSD maker as a Firmware Engineer, so I make decent money and understand the value of quality.

[Curufinwe_wins]

 

I was considering a 390. Something like this.

 

I don't mind spending money on hardware as long as it is going to benefit me. I work for an HDD/SSD make as a Firmware Engineer, so I make decent money and understand the value of quality.

I mean a 390 is fine too. You won't get any benefits doing 390 vs 970 and a 960 may also do the job.

 

I would recommend an even cheaper gpu, but I don't think they have the ports you need.

[Gronnie]

There are also options out there specifically for handing multiple displays smoothly, like the Nvidia NVS 510 which will run you about $330, but has special drivers for Nvidia Mosaic and can drive four 4K monitors @ 60Hz. You won't be able to do really any gaming at all, but it's technically the best fit for the task, even if it's not the best bang for the buck.

http://www.nvidia.com/object/nvs-graphics-cards.html

That is intriguing. I do literally no gaming whatsoever, so gaming performance is not important to me.

 

I want a smooth experience when I have multiple IDE open, documentation open all over the place spread across all the screens, etc.

 

I will look into this more. I also need to make sure it has HDCP support, as I like to play movies, stream, etc on the 1080p display.

[Gronnie]

I mean a 390 is fine too. You won't get any benefits doing 390 vs 970 and a 960 may also do the job.

 

I would recommend an even cheaper gpu, but I don't think they have the ports you need.

Yea, I just did a PCPartPicker search and select min 3x DP, 1x HDMI -- the lowest cards that come up are 960 for Nvidia and 390 for AMD.

 

I am concerned about the 960 because it is on the same tier (at least according to Tom's Hardware) as my 7970 and my 7970 struggles already before replacing 2x 1680x1050 with 2x 4k.

 

So it kinda comes down to the 4GB 970 vs the 8GB 390 -- they are both about the same price point. Or possibly a business card as opposed to a gaming card, which would be fine I guess since I do not do any gaming.

[Curufinwe_wins]

Yea, I just did a PCPartPicker search and select min 3x DP, 1x HDMI -- the lowest cards that come up are 960 for Nvidia and 390 for AMD.

 

I am concerned about the 960 because it is on the same tier (at least according to Tom's Hardware) as my 7970 and my 7970 struggles already before replacing 2x 1680x1050 with 2x 4k.

 

So it kinda comes down to the 4GB 970 vs the 8GB 390 -- they are both about the same price point. Or possibly a business card as opposed to a gaming card, which would be fine I guess since I do not do any gaming.

Yea that was why I was a little bit hesitant over the 960 (although if you actually needed more HP then overclocking a 960 takes 10 seconds and maxwell overclocks like a GOAT)

 

I don't think you will find a halfway decent business card in the price point, but that's really getting down to business though.

[kev507]

That is intriguing. I do literally no gaming whatsoever, so gaming performance is not important to me.

 

I want a smooth experience when I have multiple IDE open, documentation open all over the place spread across all the screens, etc.

 

I will look into this more. I also need to make sure it has HDCP support, as I like to play movies, stream, etc on the 1080p display.

HDCP is a yes 

stupid links lol... just google nvs 510 hdcp and it's the first result (nvidia datasheet)

[Tycho]

Yea, I just did a PCPartPicker search and select min 3x DP, 1x HDMI -- the lowest cards that come up are 960 for Nvidia and 390 for AMD.

 

I am concerned about the 960 because it is on the same tier (at least according to Tom's Hardware) as my 7970 and my 7970 struggles already before replacing 2x 1680x1050 with 2x 4k.

 

So it kinda comes down to the 4GB 970 vs the 8GB 390 -- they are both about the same price point. Or possibly a business card as opposed to a gaming card, which would be fine I guess since I do not do any gaming.

I'd go for the 970 then because it's probably quite a bit more silent. If the get the asus strix 970 model the fans won't even spin up at all in the desktop

nvm that card doesn't have the display ports you need, the gigabyte 970 does howerver have them

[Gronnie]

3x 4k plus a 1080p is a lot of pixels.

 

Do we not think that 8GB will be a benefit over 4GB?

 

If not, I agree the 970 is probably better.

[Nizo_GTO]

Consider 980 cause 3 4K monitors and 1 1080p...

[EpicAdom]

GTX 960 should do the job for just under $200, vram shouldn't be an issue if you're not gaming

Probably the most powerful card that your budget can afford

But the 960 doesn't perform as well as the 7970 (280X)

How would that work if he's stuttering with his current setup?

 

I would go with a GTX 970, GTX 980, R9 390 or R9 390X

[kev507]

But the 960 doesn't perform as well as the 7970 (280X)

How would that work if he's stuttering with his current setup?

 

I would go with a GTX 970, GTX 980, R9 390 or R9 390X

Yeah, once I thought about it I changed my vote to the NVS 510 or Quadro K1200, which are designed for 4x4K 60Hz and have different drivers and utilities specifically for multi-monitor setups

[Gronnie]

Yeah, once I thought about it I changed my vote to the NVS 510 or Quadro K1200, which are designed for 4x4K 60Hz and have different drivers and utilities specifically for multi-monitor setups

 

The card looks awesome, but I am concerned it only has 2gb VRAM... apparently that is not a problem?

[kev507]

The card looks awesome, but I am concerned it only has 2gb VRAM... apparently that is not a problem?

Check out the Quadro K1200, it's very similar but with a 4GB frame buffer and a little more HP for the same price. 4GB should do the trick for desktop use. I have personally only used the NVS 510 for an 8x1080p display and it worked extremely well once I had the orientation and bezel correction set the first time. I've also used the AMD Firepro W600 (up to 6x4k) for a display with two 4K and 4 1080p displays and that is only a 2gb card. Granted, both of those setups were display walls where you're not moving windows around from screen to screen, but running video smoothly on all of those displays at once is fairly vram intensive.

 

So that's why I'd pick up the 4GB K1200, just in case you would've run over the 2gb frame buffer. Keep in mind, both are legitimate enterprise class devices that are specifically designed with better drivers and utilities because Nvidia wants people to run 16 1080p displays (or 4x4K) from a single slot GPU. If you're not doing rendering or 3d modeling, the 4gb frame buffer should be more than enough, plus you get the extra tools like Nview and Mosaic to make your setup more manageable and customizable. 

[Hieb]

I wouldn't think the HD 7970 should be struggling with it... I used to run dual 1080P monitors with a crummy HD 4450 or something and it was only a problem while gaming. For other stuff like web design, watching videos, writing documents all simultaneously it wasn't a problem

[Gronnie]

Decided to go with an EVGA GTX 970.

 

It is one tier or so above the 7970, and I think the 7970 issues may have been more some other settings, etc than the card not being able to handle things. Also, from what I was able to read there is hardly any driver support for the 390 in Linux and Nvidia 970s supposedly run awesome in Linux.

 

Will update once the 2 new monitors and the card arrive and I have a chance to play around with them. 

[noob pc gamer]

I say 2x titan x would be good.solid card

[Gronnie]

Got the EVGA 970 installed and all setup.

 

Had issues in Windows 8.1 with the 4th screen (the 1080p TV). No matter what adjustments I made, I couldn't get the over/under scan correct using the driver from Nvidia website. Windows Update offered me a driver to try, and that one works great. Everything is smooth and works well for my use case(s).

 

Linux is another story. Not much for driver choices, and have the same problem getting 4th screen to over/underscan correctly. For some reason, it fits perfect at 1600x900 though, so I guess I will just go with that for now.