Half-width 4k playback?

[aisle9]

I've just picked up a $12 Dell Optiplex 745 (no kidding) with serviceable specs:

Core 2 Duo E6600 (crazy props to the store manager for throwing that in to replace the Celeron D)

2 GB RAM (again, thanks to the store manager for giving me an extra gig)

1 TB Seagate Barracuda (I added this in myself)

 

I'm looking for a half-width card--the case is a hair under 4" wide--that can push 4k playback. The cheaper the better, and I'd prefer not to go north of $60 at the absolute max. I won't be gaming on it at all, just watching videos. I thought I'd found a winner in MSI's R7 240, which Newegg shows as running 4k, but other sites pin it at a cap of 2500x1600. Are there any half-width cards out there that push 4k playback, or am I better off buying something cheap like a GT 710 for 1080p and crossing my fingers for a 460 or 950 LP?

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

3 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

I've just picked up a $12 Dell Optiplex 745 (no kidding) with serviceable specs:

Core 2 Duo E6600 (crazy props to the store manager for throwing that in to replace the Celeron D)

2 GB RAM (again, thanks to the store manager for giving me an extra gig)

1 TB Seagate Barracuda (I added this in myself)

 

I'm looking for a half-width card--the case is a hair under 4" wide--that can push 4k playback. The cheaper the better, and I'd prefer not to go north of $60 at the absolute max. I won't be gaming on it at all, just watching videos. I thought I'd found a winner in MSI's R7 240, which Newegg shows as running 4k, but other sites pin it at a cap of 2500x1600. Are there any half-width cards out there that push 4k playback, or am I better off buying something cheap like a GT 710 for 1080p and crossing my fingers for a 460 or 950 LP?

 

How about a gt 750?

[aisle9]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

How about a gt 750?

I've got the half-width MSI GTX 750 Ti in another build right now. I love it--it handles Overwatch at 900p with ease--but that's a slightly larger case with much better ventilation, and that card got hot before I ghetto rigged a 120mm exhaust fan to the side. The Gigabyte version gets even hotter. There's no conceivable way to add another fan to an Optiplex 745, so the lower power the better in this case.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, aisle9 said:

I've got the half-width MSI GTX 750 Ti in another build right now. I love it--it handles Overwatch at 900p with ease--but that's a slightly larger case with much better ventilation, and that card got hot before I ghetto rigged a 120mm exhaust fan to the side. The Gigabyte version gets even hotter. There's no conceivable way to add another fan to an Optiplex 745, so the lower power the better in this case.

If your not gaming it won't get very hot, at its normally fine for a gpu to run hot.

[aisle9]

6 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

If your not gaming it won't get very hot, at its normally fine for a gpu to run hot.

I think you're gravely underestimating how hot the MSI 750 Ti LP gets. I bought a refurb and sent it back because it was pegging 85C, then the brand new one pegged 81. With a 120mm fan ghetto rigged as a side exhaust, it pings 78C during Overwatch, 65C during 1080p extended playback. I'm good with that, but there's nowhere to plug a second fan in on the Optiplex. I'm genuinely concerned that a GPU putting out that much heat into a cramped case which draws its intake air immediately through a CPU heatsink would just create way too much heat and lead to throttling.

 

The more I look at my options, the more I'm thinking that a cheapo GT 730 or R7 240 is the way to go for now, then hope for a LP 950 or (more likely) 460 down the road. It seems like I'm trying to bang an overkill peg into a really, really small round hole if I go the 750 Ti route.

[aisle9]

So I'm having to Lazarus this thread because the GT 710 isn't pushing 4k playback well at all. In fact, not even my 750 Ti's are pushing it. What exactly am I doing wrong here? The 710 should be able to push 4k movies...