Computers & Electronics

CPU and Video Card for 32" 4K Monitor

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Deal Addict
Jun 15, 2006
1451 posts
305 upvotes

CPU and Video Card for 32" 4K Monitor

So I'm hoping to buy a 32"4K monitor if there's a good Black Friday sale. I don't game much and I want extra real estate for productivity tasks (Excel, Lightroom, browsing etc). My plan is to also look for a 1080 ti video card on BF sales. I think that will take care of the video card requirements and allow me to do some gaming if I start to get into it.

For my CPU - is there a minimum I need to drive a 32" 4K monitor? I'm actually thinking of going the cheap route and upgrade my ancient i7 920 CPU to a Xeon X5650 with 6 cores and easy overclocking. EBay sells them for around $30. I also have 12Gb of triple channel RAM. If this doesn't suffice, then I'll have to upgrade the whole platform to a current generation Ryzen or Coffee Lake. However, because I don't game, I'm hoping I can continue using my X58 platform.

Any advice?
8 replies
Deal Fanatic
Jul 26, 2004
5450 posts
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If you don't game, no need to waste money on a 1080ti. since even that is only " OK " at 4k gaming with all details turned up. Might as well look for one whenever you decide to play games that'll need a beefy video card, since it seems like you can afford to wait... and also its not that great of a time to buy video cards still due to cryptomining still kinda going on.
Deal Expert
Feb 29, 2008
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Montreal
A GTX 1050 or Rx 560 will be fine.
Deal Addict
Jun 15, 2006
1451 posts
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So the CPU horsepower doesn't figure into this equation at all?
Deal Fanatic
Mar 6, 2005
5785 posts
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enigma54 wrote: So the CPU horsepower doesn't figure into this equation at all?
If you don't game not really, the GPU will do the heavy lifting.
Deal Fanatic
Mar 6, 2005
5785 posts
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TheRock2012 wrote: Looking to get this range of monitor as well.

Someone mentioned getting a xeon processor as well from another thread.

Was going to get this G4400 processor since it is brand new at $65. https://www.amazon.ca/Intel-BX80662G440 ... 015VPX05A/
But will it be able to do 4k at this monitor size?
Yes the Intel HD 510 supports 4K/60Hz. 4K Video HEVC (H265) Main is also supported (10-bit is hybrid decode) entirely in hardware.
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Mar 17, 2006
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Burlington
TheRock2012 wrote: Looking to get this range of monitor as well.

Someone mentioned getting a xeon processor as well from another thread.

Was going to get this G4400 processor since it is brand new at $65. https://www.amazon.ca/Intel-BX80662G440 ... 015VPX05A/
But will it be able to do 4k at this monitor size?
Just wait and see if g4560 comes back or g4600/g4620 goes on sale, I'd say definitely worth the ugprade.
tkyoshi wrote: Yes the Intel HD 510 supports 4K/60Hz. 4K Video HEVC (H265) Main is also supported (10-bit is hybrid decode) entirely in hardware.
Intel HD 510 will do 4k/60Hz but only with DP (1.2). So you'll need a board with DP 1.2
HEVC 265 decoding is possible but will be horrible. I did with HD 530 on i3 6100 and i7 6700, tried with a few HEVC 265 movies I had (30gb - 80gb each movie), quality was horrible, and I'd say definitely unwatchable.
Deal Fanatic
Mar 6, 2005
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konsensei wrote: Intel HD 510 will do 4k/60Hz but only with DP (1.2). So you'll need a board with DP 1.2
HEVC 265 decoding is possible but will be horrible. I did with HD 530 on i3 6100 and i7 6700, tried with a few HEVC 265 movies I had (30gb - 80gb each movie), quality was horrible, and I'd say definitely unwatchable.
Were your movies HEVC Main or 10-bit? Have you reported it on the Intel Forums, i'm sure they'd probably like to know.

Not many boards have HDMI 2.0 anyway, the ones that do just use a DP LSPcon (basically a built in DisplayPort to HDMI2 Dongle). Intel also uses the LSPCon (albeit a problematic one) on their own products like the NUC.

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