MegaSack DRAW - This year's winner is user - rgwb
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I just put a 4k monitor on my wife's desktop PC and it appears that the Intel HD 2500 on board graphics card doesn't support 4k, it only goes up to 2560x1440. She wants as much screen space as possible so what's the cheapest way to get 4k resolution for basic office work? All the internet threads are about gaming.
She wants the screen space because she likes having lots of adjacent windows open and doesn't want to alt-tab. And there's no room for multiple monitors.
Looks like an Nvidia NVS 510 can be had for £20, that might be the best option assuming there's a PCI-e slot on there. The CPU it has was discontinued in 2012, I don't know how old the PC actually is.
Yep, if it fits you've got the answer. Quite a chunky fan on them so you might want to check the motherboard and chassis mounts are good to avoid excessive vibrations.
I think I might have an ATI card sat in a box that can do this which you can have for nothing. Will take a look and see if it can handle 4K output over HDMI / DVI.
Edit: It's a low-profile passively-cooled ATI Radeon 5450. Apparently it can do 4K output but at 30Hz. No guarantee that it'll work though. I've got the low profile and normal size backplates so it'll fit in anything.
https://viewfinderdesign.co.uk/?p=217
Drop me a message if you want it. Before replacing graphics card double-check Windows DPI scaling settings, which can make things much too big on larger displays.
check the motherboard can actually fit a PCIe card. PSU might not have a PCI power connector either so that will limit your card choice.
Is it a small form factor pc or a fairly standard ATX box?
If the latter then second hand graphics cards should be fairly easy.
You'll want something cheap that doesn't require an additional power cable, but something reasonably recent to support 4k.
The NVS 510 arrived, a lovely compact little thing in showroom condition, I'm not sure if was ever installed. It fits nicely but the bracket/mounting plate though is too high. But you can get spare plates on ebay!
The NVS 510 arrived, a lovely compact little thing in showroom condition, I’m not sure if was ever installed. It fits nicely but the bracket/mounting plate though is too high. But you can get spare plates on ebay!
You could run it with no bracket attached whilst waiting for a half height one, i'ts a pretty light card - just be aware of yanking the cable etc.
you might find a 10 year old CPU starts to struggle at 4k and you need to scale your windows to be readable (depending on the screen size) anyway. I've a couple of 4k monitors and have to run fonts at 150%, so there's no significant advantage over 1080p (its a little crisper)