Question Do I need a different GPU to support 4K monitor?

[MalcolmKK]

Hi All,
I have an old GPU Sapphire Vapor-X AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB GDDR5
I am looking to buy a 4k monitor.
Do I need to upgrade my GPU to support it?
Currently I have 4 monitors plugged in: 3 in HD resolution and 1 monitor in QHD 2560x1440

Just so you know I don't use it for gaming, only for work but nothing very GPU intensive. I am not a designer, CAD or use Photoshop.
I have an AMD Radeon RX 590 8GB GPU in my gaming rig that collects dust.
I could swap them over. Perhaps it's a good idea as the newer GPUs are more energy efficient, less heat and electricity used.
Please advise.

 

[Lutfij]

Make and models of all your monitors? As for your GPU, the architecture can only handle anything above 1600p, on the HDMI and DP connectors, using this as a reference;
https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/R9-270X-GAMING-2G/Specification
but the refresh rate won't be 60Hz at 4K resolution.

Yes the RX590 would be a better prospect if you're thinking of 4K at 60Hz. I would however be wary of your PSU in your build if it's as old as the R9 270x.

 

[Eximo]

The swap is wise.

A single 4K panel is equivalent to 4 1080p panels, you may not have the capability to drive all those at once. 5 is actually a very atypical number for a consumer GPU 3-4 is typical. I am surprised 4 works with the 270X. I recall needing an active adapter for one of the outputs to work. But that is likely card dependent.

Unless you are plugging some into an integrated chip from the CPU, then whatever that supports, plus the GPU support would be the maximum monitors supported.

Still a single monitor at higher resolution is still less of a headache than 4 monitors. Each monitor requires a clock pulse (sync/pixel) which is why there are display limits on most cards, even many with 4 ports can only use 3 at once.

 

[MalcolmKK]

Make and models of all your monitors? As for your GPU, the architecture can only handle anything above 1600p, on the HDMI and DP connectors, using this as a reference;
https://www.msi.com/Graphics-Card/R9-270X-GAMING-2G/Specification
but the refresh rate won't be 60Hz at 4K resolution.

Yes the RX590 would be a better prospect if you're thinking of 4K at 60Hz. I would however be wary of your PSU in your build if it's as old as the R9 270x.

3 out of 4 are BenQ monitors
BenQ EW2440L LED - 27 August 2015
BenQ EW2775ZH 27 - 23 May 2017
BenQ EW2780Q 27 - 20 January 2021
4th one is some Asus that is similar in spec to BenQ EW2775ZH.
The old BenQ EW2440L LED is going to be replaced with BenQ EW3270U

This system is much newer with a decent PSU so it should be fine.
Actually the only ancient item in it is this GPU but it holds up!

 

[MalcolmKK]

The swap is wise.

A single 4K panel is equivalent to 4 1080p panels, you may not have the capability to drive all those at once. 5 is actually a very atypical number for a consumer GPU 3-4 is typical. I am surprised 4 works with the 270X. I recall needing an active adapter for one of the outputs to work. But that is likely card dependent.

Unless you are plugging some into an integrated chip from the CPU, then whatever that supports, plus the GPU support would be the maximum monitors supported.

Still a single monitor at higher resolution is still less of a headache than 4 monitors. Each monitor requires a clock pulse (sync/pixel) which is why there are display limits on most cards, even many with 4 ports can only use 3 at once.

Yes, you are right two monitors are DVI, 1x is on HDMI and 4th one is HDMI plugged into HDMI to DisplayPort(I believe) adapter.

The AMD CPU (Ryzen 9 5950X) I have does not have integrated graphics so unfortunately I cannot use the video output(s) on the motherboard.

I think I eventually make all 4 Benq with Low Blue Light technology as the Asus has low blue light tech but it's different and stands out of the other 3. The temperature is different and I cannot make it as warm as the Benq ones.

 

[Glenwing]

The swap is wise.

A single 4K panel is equivalent to 4 1080p panels, you may not have the capability to drive all those at once. 5 is actually a very atypical number for a consumer GPU 3-4 is typical. I am surprised 4 works with the 270X. I recall needing an active adapter for one of the outputs to work. But that is likely card dependent.

Unless you are plugging some into an integrated chip from the CPU, then whatever that supports, plus the GPU support would be the maximum monitors supported.

Still a single monitor at higher resolution is still less of a headache than 4 monitors. Each monitor requires a clock pulse (sync/pixel) which is why there are display limits on most cards, even many with 4 ports can only use 3 at once.

AMD cards have supported 6 monitors for a long time, since Radeon HD 6000 series I believe. The only limitation was maximum 2 monitors on "legacy" connections (DVI/HDMI/VGA), the rest had to be on DisplayPort or active adapters from DisplayPort.

Although I think you could actually get more than 2 on DVI/HDMI if they used the exact same timing parameters; most commonly, by being the exact same model and set to the same settings, which is likely what's happened here, otherwise the R9 270X would be limited to 2 on DVI/HDMI.

Anyway, by the RX 590 this limitation was gone. I tested 5 monitors all through DVI/HDMI and passive adapters on my RX 480 back in the day (should be able to do all 6 that way, but my card did not have that many ports. But I did test 6 monitors by using DisplayPort daisy chain to 2 of them).

 

[Eximo]

Yes, I do recall a gaming friend needing an active DVI adapter for a triple monitor setup with a 270X, that must have been it.

Good to know and I like that AMD has done it that way. Always bugged me that Nvidia cards almost never listed supported number of displays since it was often on a per card basis. That and they liked to keep the high display count to the Quadro series.

 

[Glenwing]

I should note for the record also that AMD dropped from 6 down to 4 maximum for the RX 5000 cards a few years ago. Then RX 6000 went up to at least 5, not sure if 6 worked. For current 7000 series I haven't looked into it.

For NVIDIA it was 2 max up to the GTX 500 series, then moved up to 4 for 600 series onward, been that way ever since on GeForce. But at least, no weird limitations on which interfaces you need to use.

 

[MalcolmKK]

This AMD Radeon RX 590 I have has 2x HDMI ports, 2x Display Port and 1x DVI.
I think I get another DP to HDMI adapter.
Do you think the energy consumption will increase?

 

[BFG-9000]

I can't imagine any adapter that doesn't require auxiliary power will appreciably increase energy consumption. But speaking of power consumption:
Besides the 30Hz limit over HDMI 1.4a on the R9 270x, it can't hardware accelerate any 4k video, not even H.264. The earliest AMD cards that could do that were GCN 3.0 such as R9 285 and 285x. While the Ryzen 9 5950X is fast enough to decode any type of 4k video in software, the extra power consumption to do so comes from the CPU, not the GPU.

Polaris cards such as your RX 590 were GCN 4 so could not only fully hardware accelerate 4k in H.264 and H.265, but also has partial assist for VP9. So most 4k videos on Youtube (except AV1) will be at least partially decoded by the GPU. And the HDMI are 2.0b so 4k60 is natively supported, at least in non-HDR 8-bit color. With two displayport monitors (or using adapters), RX 590 can run up to four 4k monitors, but note with that many monitors the card will never clock down and idle power consumption will be rather high at 38w

 

[MalcolmKK]

I can't imagine any adapter that doesn't require auxiliary power will appreciably increase energy consumption. But speaking of power consumption:
Besides the 30Hz limit over HDMI 1.4a on the R9 270x, it can't hardware accelerate any 4k video, not even H.264. The earliest AMD cards that could do that were GCN 3.0 such as R9 285 and 285x. While the Ryzen 9 5950X is fast enough to decode any type of 4k video in software, the extra power consumption to do so comes from the CPU, not the GPU.

Polaris cards such as your RX 590 were GCN 4 so could not only fully hardware accelerate 4k in H.264 and H.265, but also has partial assist for VP9. So most 4k videos on Youtube (except AV1) will be at least partially decoded by the GPU. And the HDMI are 2.0b so 4k60 is natively supported, at least in non-HDR 8-bit color. With two displayport monitors (or using adapters), RX 590 can run up to four 4k monitors, but note with that many monitors the card will never clock down and idle power consumption will be rather high at 38w

why is that Nvidia is better in that regard?
Maybe I should get a different card for multi-monitor office use.
The thing is this system is ON 247 so this 38W on idle will compound.

 

[BFG-9000]

But nVidia might not be better with 4 monitors than an AMD card, so you have to find reviews where someone actually ran that configuration. The chart above is for only two monitors where Polaris did a particularly bad job, and the other AMD cards in it didn't do quite that badly. AMD has a habit of defaulting to always running UVD clock on the memory (that's the speed things run at if you leave a Youtube video open in a tab) when two monitors are connected, something which may actually be required with 4 monitors but probably not at just 2. I suppose if you put more load on a GPU then it has to do more work, and plugging enough 4k monitors in should result in high idle power consumption and fans staying on.

Things could be worse--the very first GDDR5 card was rushed to market so there was no time to engineer in the ability to change memory clocks without blanking the whole screen, so HD4870 ran its memory at full speed all of the time and idled at ~60w and 70°C, even with just one monitor

 

[MalcolmKK]

I swapped the GPUs and installed the new 4K monitor. I also added 2x SATA 3.5" hard drives.
Before the shutdown the energy consumption was around 190W.
Currently it is at 140W. I would say about 45W less.
Perhaps it is due to the fact I don't have many tabs with YT opened or this old Sapphire Vapor-X AMD Radeon R9 270X 2GB was a lot more energy hungry.

I have 2 monitors on HD (1x Display Port, 1x DVI)
3rd one on QHD
4th one is on 3840x2160 (new 4K monitor)