Graphic Card For Watching 4K Videos Without Gaming

Question

Please, I need your help in selecting a graphic card that supports 4K resolutions (3840x2160 pixels). I mostly need it for general work and for watching some 4K videos. I don't play games at all and thus I am not interested in high-end graphic cards for 4K gaming experience.

In Summary:

• Type Of Recommendation: Graphic Card
• Brand: I don't mind the brand at all.
• Usage: I only need it to support 4K resolutions and to be able to play 4K movies. No game support is required.

System Information:

• CPU: Intel(R) Core(TM) i5-6500 - 4 Cores at 3.20 GHz.
• Motherboard: ASUS Z170-P D3
• Operating System: Kubuntu 16.10

Any ideas, recommendations, or comments will be greatly appreciated!

Answer 1

According to this page on Intel's ARK, the integrated graphics card inside your processor already supports 4K video at 24fps over HDMI or 4K video at 60fps over DisplayPort.

tl;dr - You don't need to buy a graphics card.

Answer 2

A question and two good options:

1. Question: Are you sure you need it? When did you see 4K doesn't run well? Can you link to the file/video you've tried?

The I5-6500 with its iGPU should run 4K smoothly, at least at 30FPS, according to my tests (with an I5-6300HQ)

Also, I have an "old" laptop with an I5-4300U which much slower than your CPU and doesn't have the playback features the Skylake CPU has, and it can do 4K almost smoothly.

1. Replace the CPU. The newer Kaby Lake CPUs with a certain iGPU (integrated GPU) and up will do 4K playback smoothly + efficiently. This will save you the need for another card = less heat + less energy required. With reselling your Skylake I5, the difference in price will be small - at least as small as getting a new Graphics card

I would suggest places like /r/hardwareswap on reddit (no feed and such like eBay)

2. GPU from the latest series. The cheapest is the Nvidia GT 1030. I see it for $65-$70 on newegg/amazon and pretty sure that with minimal effort and some patience you'll get it for much lower price

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Some additional notes:

• Very important to keep in mind that playback performance depends not only on the hardware, but on the software and played back file.