Small upgrade to old machine

sbirtwistle · 23 Mar 2020 at 10:23

I have an ancient desktop that's still going strong, and wasn't getting much use until I started to WFH last week. I've hooked it up to a 4k TV, but the graphics card doesn't output 4k and I need the extra pixels.

I don't have time to fully rebuild now, so I'm looking to add a new graphics card so I can work in 4k, and I'll worry about upgrading properly later.

Please let me know your thoughts, and thanks in advance!

Current spec:
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
Foxconn P67A-S Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge)
XFX Pro 650W Core Edition PSU - Single Rail 9x SATA 4x PCI-E
Coolermaster CM 690 II LITE Version
HYPERX 16GB (2X8GB) PC3-14900C10 1866MHZ

orbitalwalsh · 23 Mar 2020 at 10:51

sbirtwistle said:
I have an ancient desktop that's still going strong, and wasn't getting much use until I started to WFH last week. I've hooked it up to a 4k TV, but the graphics card doesn't output 4k and I need the extra pixels.

I don't have time to fully rebuild now, so I'm looking to add a new graphics card so I can work in 4k, and I'll worry about upgrading properly later.

Please let me know your thoughts, and thanks in advance!

Current spec:
HIS ATI Radeon HD 6950 2048MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
Intel Core i5-2500K 3.30GHz (Sandybridge) Socket LGA1155 Processor - OEM
Foxconn P67A-S Intel P67 (Socket 1155) DDR3 Motherboard - (Sandybridge)
XFX Pro 650W Core Edition PSU - Single Rail 9x SATA 4x PCI-E
Coolermaster CM 690 II LITE Version
HYPERX 16GB (2X8GB) PC3-14900C10 1866MHZ

Seems people have got 4k to work via registry tweaks , but some effort !

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/asus...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-41j-as.html

HDMI 2.0 = 4k support

https://forum.kodi.tv/showthread.php?tid=318937

Phil87 · 23 Mar 2020 at 16:03

I think something like a GTX 1650 would be a good fit for that system, or if you don't care about gaming on it, any cheap modern GPU would support 4K. It's £140 here but I've seen it for £10 less elsewhere

https://www.overclockers.co.uk/pali...ddr5-pci-express-graphics-card-gx-04t-pl.html

Mrjobby · 25 Mar 2020 at 09:03

GTX 1030 is the lowest end card that can do 4k @ 60Hz

Not a gaming card but I would imagine in modern titles be better than the 6950 in games too.