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Cheapest graphics card to drive 4k

DazQ87

DazQ87

DazQ87

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Joined
6 May 2011
Posts
1,467
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Milton Keynes
Hi all,

I'm searching for the cheapest graphics card I can find to drive a 4k display @60Hz via displayport for my missus PC. The machine is going to be purely for photo editing in photoshop and will be paired with a Haswell i3 and 16GB of memory.

So far the RX460 seems to be the cheapest I can see on the OCUK website which appears to have a DP1.2 port.
I guess the RX 450 would be the ideal card if such a thing existed.

Other requirements - as low power and quite as possible (preference would be a card with no extra power connector requirement)

Do nvida or AMD cards even give a boost to performance in photoshop?

would there be any advantage to workstation card? like the firepro or quadro?
 
I would suggest to you no graphics card :)

As a ps user myself the gpu is practically irrelevant it's all about the CPU.

Unless your video editing. Which your not as you've said exclusive photo editing I would spend the money on an i7 instead of an i3. That will power ps much better than an i3 and you can simply use the very good integrated graphics to happily power a 4K screen.
 
Brazo said:
I would suggest to you no graphics card :)

As a ps user myself the gpu is practically irrelevant it's all about the CPU.

Unless your video editing. Which your not as you've said exclusive photo editing I would spend the money on an i7 instead of an i3. That will power ps much better than an i3 and you can simply use the very good integrated graphics to happily power a 4K screen.
Click to expand...

This basically, there maybe features which benefit from a GPU in photoshop when rendering but a newer IGPU or rather newer CPU from Intel should be more than suffice for Photoshop.
 
As others mentioned... save the money or spend it on a better CPU and use integrated graphics... anything from 4XXX series Intel CPUs or newer is more than capable of powering a 4K display for that type of usage.

I'd suggest going for a 6600k or 6700k type build.
 
Wouldn't it be a shame to only be stuck with 30hz 4k output though guys? Don't most motherboards only offer a lower refresh rate on integrated chips?
 
I thought newer boards on z170 with display port supported 60Hz
edit -

1 x DisplayPort, supporting a maximum resolution of 4096x2304@60 Hz
* Support for DisplayPort 1.2 version.
 
Titan X (2016).

There are no other options, even though the 1080 gets close. Only the Titan X can reliably do 60 fps in most games.

If I were OP, I'd wait a year or few for 4k cards to become more common and accessible price-wise.

Otherwise just go with the cheapest 4k60 output supporting card.
 
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Seeing as the opening poster said it will be paired with a Haswell i3, I would assume he already has that part. Best to check if the motherboard you are planning to use has a display port output, even though I suspect you already have, hence posting on here for about a Graphics card.
The 460 seems like a good shout and at around £100 it seems to be the best you can get to do the job you need.
 
bru said:
Seeing as the opening poster said it will be paired with a Haswell i3, I would assume he already has that part. Best to check if the motherboard you are planning to use has a display port output, even though I suspect you already have, hence posting on here for about a Graphics card.
The 460 seems like a good shout and at around £100 it seems to be the best you can get to do the job you need.
Click to expand...

true! Brain fart moment!
 
Thanks for the replies guys, I was doing the build on the cheap, so I ended up with a H81 motherboard i got from the MM and an i3 4170 I got from a work colleague who had upgraded to an i7.

Looks like the CPU wouldn't support 4k@60 anyway even if I did find a displayport motherboard.

I feel like the 460 is probably going to be the best choice, it's a shame it wont improve performance in photoshop, but at least my girlfriends brother can use the PC to play WoW when he dogsits for us whilst we are on holiday.
 
DazQ87 said:
Thanks for the replies guys, I was doing the build on the cheap, so I ended up with a H81 motherboard i got from the MM and an i3 4170 I got from a work colleague who had upgraded to an i7.

Looks like the CPU wouldn't support 4k@60 anyway even if I did find a displayport motherboard.

I feel like the 460 is probably going to be the best choice, it's a shame it wont improve performance in photoshop, but at least my girlfriends brother can use the PC to play WoW when he dogsits for us whilst we are on holiday.
Click to expand...

It really depends what features she uses on Photoshop, if its just for light photoshop work (under 40 or 50 layers) then its worth skipping on the card and seeing what the performance is like before investing but if she is using features like liquefy a lot or other Accelerated GPU features with a lot of layers then i would highly recommend getting a Graphics card.

Something like the Gigabyte 380x in my sig is still the best bang for buck card imo at the moment and has handled everything ive thrown at it but i have only been using 1080 how ever ive seen it pushing out 40 to 50+fps on very high settings over 4k in games like GTA V (granted thats with it paired with a 6700K).
 
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richthomuk said:
It really depends what features she uses on Photoshop, if its just for light photoshop work (under 40 or 50 layers) then its worth skipping on the card and seeing what the performance is like before investing but if she is using features like liquefy a lot or other Accelerated GPU features with a lot of layers then i would highly recommend getting a Graphics card.

Something like the Gigabyte 380x in my sig is still the best bang for buck card imo at the moment and has handled everything ive thrown at it but i have only been using 1080 how ever ive seen it pushing out 40 to 50+fps on very high settings over 4k in games like GTA V (granted thats with it paired with a 6700K).
Click to expand...

I'll have to ask her how many layers she uses, she has the subscription for all of the Adobe products and uses more than just lightroom. (She's a semi-professional studio pet photographer). I know she has also paid for quite a few addons, (brushes, filters and fill tools I think)

We already have the monitor, which is a dell IPS 4k job (which I used to use for gaming before dropping down to 1440p 144Hz), which she had been using plugged into the HDMI port on her old laptop, but because it could only drive at 30Hz she was getting headaches (that and having more than 1 photo open would fill all the memory on her laptop and cause it to grind to a crawl!), hence the new build on the cheap. Driving the monitor at a lower resolution to increase the refresh rate isn't an option because it becomes too blurred for photo editing.

I did have a feeling that a dedicated card would be wasted somewhat, but not being able to drive the display at 60Hz (which requires DP1.2a) will mean the entire build is wasted.
 
DazQ87 said:
Thanks for the replies guys, I was doing the build on the cheap, so I ended up with a H81 motherboard i got from the MM and an i3 4170 I got from a work colleague who had upgraded to an i7.

Looks like the CPU wouldn't support 4k@60 anyway even if I did find a displayport motherboard.

I feel like the 460 is probably going to be the best choice, it's a shame it wont improve performance in photoshop, but at least my girlfriends brother can use the PC to play WoW when he dogsits for us whilst we are on holiday.
Click to expand...

Believe it or google it but products like Adobe ps and Lightroom often benefit speed wise from disabling 3D hardware acceleration. A better CPU that supports your 60hz rate will provide significantly better performance. A discrete gpu could actually end up slowing you down (a tiny bit!)
 
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