4K output on old system?

Zer0

Hey all,

Picked myself up a nice Samsung ue55mu7000


Trying to upgrade my pc that is hooked up to it to output in 4k...wondering if I can just upgrade my gpu ? or will it need whole system upgrade.


Intel Core 2 Quad Pro Q6600 "Energy Efficient SLACR 95W Edition" 2.40GHz (1066FSB) - Retail
OCZ 4GB (2x2GB) PC2-6400C5 Dual Channel Vista Gold Series DDR2 (OCZ2G8004GK)
Asus P5K Pro Intel P35 (Socket 775) PCI-Express DDR2
Corsair HX 520W ATX2.2 Modular SLI Compliant PSU (CMPSU-520HXUK)
Gtx460 GPU

Many thanks for any advice

Backspace

4k is 3840 x 2160 or 4096 x 2160 and your card can only do 2560 x 1600 so yes, you need to upgrade your video card.

I've read that older systems can do 4k with the right video card so you probably can too. I don't know about your system ram. It may not be enough.

EndlessWaves

A 3840x2160 output is possible with just a graphics card upgrade (RX550 , GT1030 ).

However, depending on what you're doing you may need other upgrades (more power, DRM support etc.) and integrated graphics is also capable of outputting 3840x2160 on an HDMI 2.0 equipped motherboard.

Zer0

Thanks for replies, ye it's more to play uhd rips from the pc, so the graphics card would have to process it. Does it need more ram or better cpu to support the hardware decoding?

Edit just realised my mistake , clearly out of the loop of gpu model numbers, 960Gtx is better than a 1030?

Thanks

EndlessWaves

The last two numbers on nvidia cards are the position in the range, so 60 is a higher up, more expensive card than 30.

However, the first 1-2 numbers are the age, so 9 is older than 10.

A GTX 960 would have more raw power than the GT 1030, but poorer technology support because it's older.

Video decoding is primarily about tech support. It's a common enough task that it has dedicated hardware circuitry for common formats to minimise power use for mobile applications. That goes by the name of Purevideo for nVidia, UVD and VCN for AMD and Quicksync for Intel.

So as well as better DRM support etc. (if that's important for rips) the GT1030 will have more capable video playback ability (I believe it added 8K playback support for example).

It is subject to what your software supports of course, but more software supports the dedicated decoding hardware than decoding using the general purpose part of the GPU.