VOGONS


First post, by archsan

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Background: I have the chance to get a new LG 27UD68 for about $450 -- which is quite cheap considering the prices we had just a year or two ago for 4k/UHD monitors (or even currently from other makers).

On the other hand, the prices of GTX 1080/1070/980Ti/980 (new and used) are far from being reasonable at this point. Maybe in a couple of months they will stabilize to their intended MSRP for the new ones and the used ones should also follow. So I decide not to buy any of them in the mean time, and just get one inexpensive card for light 2D graphic works (e.g. photo, digital painting).

tl;dr QUESTION: What's the cheapest card with DisplayPort 1.2+ that supports a minimum of 3840x2160 @60Hz?

I don't mind buying used cards (with warranty still in effect), but don't know which gen started supporting DP 1.2 and 4K/UHD @60Hz... HD 77x0? GTX 7xx?

Thanks in advance! 😀

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)

Reply 1 of 8, by PhilsComputerLab

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Wait for Polaris?

460 / 470 / 480 lineup should all support what you're after 😀

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Reply 2 of 8, by archsan

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Yeah, Polaris is a bit tempting... even more so as the said LG monitor above does support Freesync (and no GSync sadly).
(update: RX 480 should be in the stores by today/tomorrow/next week!)

I was aiming for something like $40~60 though. 😊 Though I suppose an RX 480 could be easily sold off in a couple months with just a little loss.

----
After a little research, so far the most convincing candidate for this thread's original question seems to be the HD 7700 series e.g. 7750/7770/7790 (assuming I could find one for under ~$60). It satisfies the requirements of having DP 1.2 "HBR2" mode (17.28 Gbit/s) for UHD @60Hz. And generally cheaper than GTX 750 variants (looks like only few models have DP).

Reports on earlier models are either scarce or unclear (running UHD at 30Hz or 60Hz by stitching two streams together).

Intel HD graphics on Broadwell and beyond should be OK (though I'm still holding on to the good ol' X58)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#1.2

SST, MST, HBR2, HBR3 ... MOAR ACRONYMS 😲

Last edited by archsan on 2016-06-26, 14:25. Edited 1 time in total.

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)

Reply 3 of 8, by PhilsComputerLab

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If you're in the US, the Polaris 460 should sell for $99. It should perform on the level of a Nvidia 950 and won't need a PCIe power plug.

Might be worth holding out for and stretching your budget. It will be miles faster than older cards.

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Reply 4 of 8, by Scali

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archsan wrote:

(update: RX 480 should be in the stores by today/tomorrow/next week!)

Stores are starting to receive stock, but as far as I know they won't be allowed to sell them until the 29th. There's also an NDA on reviews/benchmarks in effect until then.
So at this point we don't know exactly what the prices of the Polaris cards will be, what kind of features they do or do not support, and how well they perform.

http://scalibq.wordpress.com/just-keeping-it- … ro-programming/

Reply 5 of 8, by Kahenraz

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The new Radeon RX 480 seems like a real pcie/perf winner.

Reply 6 of 8, by archsan

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PhilsComputerLab wrote:

If you're in the US, the Polaris 460 should sell for $99. It should perform on the level of a Nvidia 950 and won't need a PCIe power plug.

I'm in Indonesia, currently in the capital region. The prices here are a bit mixed, but mostly at the high side, I think.
Lowest online preorder price for RX 480 I've seen equals ~$285 (yeah, smells fishy, but there are much worse listings at 400+) so I'll see it when it actually hit the stores (soon).

No preorder offered for the RX460, but it seems like a great value indeed! I guess the RX 460 will fall into the range of the current R7 360 (bad value imo), HD 7850/7870, and 750 Ti's (here old stocks just don't get aggressively discounted even after the new gens came out 😖 )

DisplayPort version on the new gen cards should be 1.4 (1.3 at the very least), which exceeds the required bandwidth for UHD@60Hz comfortably.

I kinda need one asap though so I'll get the screen+card this week (it's ok, I won't do heavy gaming on this setup for a while).

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)

Reply 7 of 8, by Scali

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Kahenraz wrote:

The new Radeon RX 480 seems like a real pcie/perf winner.

Yup. Problem is, it's relatively low-end.
The GeForce GTX970 has been one of the most popular cards in the past 2 years, and ranks highest on Steam: http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

For all these people (let alone people with more high-end cards than a 970), the RX480 will barely be an upgrade at all.
AMD is having the same problem as they do on the CPU-side: their products arrive too late to the market. Many people have already upgraded to that performance level 1-2 years ago, and when they look for another upgrade, Intel/nVidia is the only option, because they are the only ones offering products with more performance. Which also means that they have full control over their prices.

One could argue that the 1070 is a great price/performance deal as well. Thing is, the performance is just that high (matches the absolute fastest options of the previous generation at a fraction of the price).

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Reply 8 of 8, by archsan

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OK a couple of things I found while searching:

* Different makers give different features, apparently, and you still have to check whether a model has DisplayPort (1.2 or later) and the actual max bandwith (ergo, max resolution & refresh rate) that's supported. I think DP has already become standard feature in the last gen cards at least from midrange and beyond, but there are so many models to check to confirm that.

* There are/were reports on Radeon R9 290/290X cards having flicker problem when running 3840x2160 @60Hz ... I didn't look further since I don't have time to investigate, probably have to do with specific card makers and/or drivers.

* In the end, I'm going to hunt for a cheapie Quadro K620/K600/K420 which are proven solutions. (side benefit: they're all practically screaming, "NO GAMING! BACK TO WORK!!!" 😁)

Aaand the LG 27UD68 should come tomorrow! 😀

P.S.
A nice & helpful list for users looking for 4k/uhd compatibility:
http://www.eizoglobal.com/support/compatibili … raphics_boards/

"Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic."—Arthur C. Clarke
"No way. Installing the drivers on these things always gives me a headache."—Guybrush Threepwood (on cutting-edge voodoo technology)