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Looking for 4k card for old computer

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johannes33

New Member
Joined
Jul 21, 2015
Hi all.
I have an old computer that is from 2007.
I'm doing big mindmaps for school and want to be able to use a 4k screen to get the big picture. I would like a frame rate of minimum 60 Hz.
Is there a way to use my old computer with a new grapics card for this task?
I will probably want to run 4k on linux as well so I think a nvidia card is best (drivers are generally less buggy).
It would be nice to be able to watch movies on the screen as well.
Here are some gpu under linux benchmarks but since I don't game I can't translate them to what I want.


Motherboard:
GA-MA69GM-S2H with AMD 690G + SB600 chipset and PCI 1 or 1.1
CPU AMD Athlon 64 X2 5000+ Black Edition 89W TDI
PSU Corsair CMPSU-450VX 450Watt
HDD 6TB Hgst NAS drive

Thanks for your help :)
 
That's a tough one. On one hand, a 960 should work and be fine for up to movies. On the other, I don't know how much of a bottle neck PCIe1 and the old A64 will be for it.

What is your budget, BTW?
 
My budget is that I'll pay what it takes. But I would like to spend less of course that is why I'm looking for an upgrade. If the PCIe is the bottleneck for playing video and panning the screen with mindmaps it could work. That said that video is about the same data transfer in the PCIE and playing a video is about as hard on data transfer as a game I think it could work. See this article saying that PCIe 2 x8 is equivalent to PCIe 1.1 x16.
BD Video movies have a maximum data transfer rate of 54 Mbit/s an PCIe 1.1 x 16 can do a theoretical bandwidth of 2Gbit/s so I think it could work.

I have 8GB of memory and a 450w psu. and the old cpu. I dont know the load on the cpu since my computer wont boot right now due to some win 7 problem.

Is there a possibility for the graphics card to be without a lot of noise and still work?

Thanks for the reply! :)
 
The application I use is Xmind. I don't know how intensive it is. But when panning/scrolling and refreshing the whole 4k picture could be a little work. but since it would be mostly lines and text and a few images I think that HW acceleration would do it easy.
That said it is all 2D and BD videos or scrolling. I would estimate that if it could scroll a webpage at 4k and play a bd movie it would be equivalent. this is a picture of an xmind mindmap, but I integrate pictures as well.
It is also nice with a little headroom so that if I would use it for something else or want a higher frame rate I would still be able to use the graphics card if it is not to expensive with this.
 
just me but i think a GT630 used being 384cores or it getting rebadged to the GT730. still with all this being 2D, even at 4k i dont think you need something as powerfull as the 960. if its in your budget then go for it but i just think its going to be a waste of money, even with BD playback at 4k.

any mid range card is not going to be hampered by PCE 1.0@16x, it would be the same as it being PCIE 2.0@8x. im thinking at most, your going to need at least a 2GB card for all this 2D. i dont see needing a 4gb card even for 4k BD playback.
 
Playing video on a 4K display easily exceeds 1GB if postprocessing is enabled. I wouldn't recommend anything less than a 750 since there's not much savings going below that.
 
Playing video on a 4K display easily exceeds 1GB if postprocessing is enabled. I wouldn't recommend anything less than a 750 since there's not much savings going below that.

well given a 450watt psu, there are good reasons for lower end cards. though there is no telling how old that psu is till the op reply's, he may want to get a new one as well. seriously though if the VP engine is doing all the work then why more cuda cores even if using post processing, 192cores min/2gb. Though if playing back BD discs how do you do postprocessing in apps like powerdvd? cause i dont see any options that would help IQ in there that would be post processing.
 
I use mpv.

A 450W PSU will run a 960 and <100W CPU no problems whatsoever. I did a build several weeks back with a 960 and quad core Haswell and it's nowhere near the limits of the 450W PSU. I could have put as much as a 980 in it and still be well within limits.
 
His PSU should be fine with that system...its a budget corsair, but it will be fine. That system wont pull more than 300W with both the CPU and GPU fully loaded.
 
His PSU should be fine with that system...its a budget corsair, but it will be fine. That system wont pull more than 300W with both the CPU and GPU fully loaded.

we are forgetting age as a factor though ED, that model has been out for some time. more then 3yrs possibly 5yrs(i lost track when it first came out), cap aging is what im thinking about.
 
Thank you all for replying!!

Sorry for not getting back to you sooner. My computer has been out of commission and I have been away on vacation.
Since last I have upgraded my computer with a Samsung 840 Pro 256GB that I found on a good discount.
It is so nice with short boot times :).
For all interested with sata 3GB/s (sata2) you can look at this article about real world benchmarks.

About the caps: the PSU is since I buld the computer back in 2007 but I have not used it since 2012 so it has been used 5 years.

About selecting a card, correct me if I'm wrong.
I should have 2GB Graphics ram or more?
At least a gtx 750 but if I want to bump it up for a little headroom, 50-60 dollars is not so much for me. (500-600 sek (swedish currency))

Noise is a very important to me when it comes to selecting a graphics card. I would like it to be as quiet but it does not have to be fanless.

If I would like to run 2 screens at ones: the 4k screen and a small screen with 1280 x 1024 from the same video card. is that possible and which video card should I choose in that case?
Also would it be more work for my video card to display 4k movies on my 4k screens. If it is perhaps it would be wise to select a card with that capability.

Here is my selection of 2 and 4GB ram video cards with prices (in red) from Sweden (that is where I come from).

Could you help me select?

Thanks for your help!
 
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Hi all.
I just wanted to tell you lot what I ended up with.
I might be a little mad since I don't game. but here goes.
A gtx 750 ti costs about 150 euro, or 160 dollars. in Sweden right now.
The gtx 960 costs about 210 euro or 220 dollars and performs about double in tests I have seen.
So gtx 960 seem like the sweet spot for a little headroom on a 4k screen.
But then. for just 20 euros more you will get 2GB extra, why not for the extra resolutions in perhaps 5k or dual monitors (I think that takes extra memory).

so I ended up paying 258 euro inclusive paypal fees and p&p fees (224 euro without fees).

I bought a 4096MB Gigabyte GeForce GTX 960 Windforce 2X OC Aktiv PCIe 3.0 x16 2xDVI/1xHDMI 2.0/3xDisplayPort (Retail) (it comes with backplate and fits my box:s formfactor).


For those who want to by a similar card from the linked shop:
The fees where 34 euro which is awful.
34 euro is 15% extra charge in fees.
20 for p&p (I have payed 10 euro for a much heavier parcel from Germay to Sweden)
and 14 euros took paypal.
Paypal were scaming. they took first about 4 euro to make the transaction and then 10 euro to convert my currency, that is 6 euro more to use their currency converter (which is default) then to bill my bank the transaction in the non native currency and then let my bank make the currency conversion.
I ticked in not to use their currency converter but I think that got unticked when I missed something on their form and pressed submit or they scam you :-/.

Edit: I made a complaint to paypal about the unticking of the selected currency converter. They responded promptly an hour ago that they have added a credit of 15 euro to my account. Thank you paypal!!!

But then again I wouldn't use their services when paying to a legitimate company if I could avoid. A standard transaction costs about 3 cents with the visa credit card I use. Paypal takes a x13 times more fee for the 4 euro they have charged me as mandatory. For the conversion I would have payed my bank 4 euro. 10 euro is 2.5 times the cost. So I understand why they make money with prices x13 and x2.5 compared to the competition.
 
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I think you'll be happy with that card.

Most sites and manufacturers of 4K TVs and monitors recommend that card as a minimum. I can't imagine that they'd recommend it if a 750Ti would work better.
 
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