Recommend low power graphics card able to handle 4K movies and 5.1 sound?

Can you recommend some low-powered graphics cards for an HTPC that is able to handle playing 4K video content as well as output 5.1 sound?

The GTX750 looks adequate but power usage seems a bit high:
Measured power consumption GTX 750 card

System in IDLE = 120 W
System Wattage with GPU in FULL Stress = 186W
Difference (GPU load) = 66W
Add average IDLE wattage ~10W
Subjective obtained GPU power consumption = ~ 76 Watts

 

What are the specs in the PC you are using? Everything from Haswell on support 4k on the integrated GPU.

 

Intel iGPUs do not support HEVC 4K decode fully in hardware. They rely on hybrid decoding whereby they use the video decoding hardware + some GPU shaders. Consequently, 4K decoding performance is not top... anything above 4K 24p 8-bit may not be played back smoothly.

Maxwell (2.0?) comes closest to supporting HEVC 4K decode in hardware, but AFAIK it's still not a full implementation. No idea if 750Ti has the hardware support, but the 900 series do. The lowest of the bunch is the GTX 960, which is generally overkill for video playback (unless you like to mess around with MadVR on MPC-HC).

This article explains everything:
http://www.anandtech.com/show/9152/futureproofing-htpcs-for-the-4k-era-hdmi-hdcp-and-hevc

 

Maybe a GTX 750 Ti and try undervolting it?

 

Don't think you can do better than the 750ti.
http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_750_Ti/23.html

 

It's a Lenovo TS440 with a Xeon E3-1245.

The server's mobo only has vga and no sound output. :-(

I plan to do several VMs on it including one VM for Windows Media Center as a DVR Outputted to my TV.

 

Here's one more. What do you think of the SAPPHIRE ULTIMATE R7 250 1GB GDDR5?

From another site: "Naturally, due to its higher number of stream processors, the Sapphire Radeon R7 250 Ultimate consumes a little more than an ordinary Radeon R7 250. Our test system under full load consumed up to 208.3 watts. A normal Radeon R7 250 consumed 192.2 watts, about 15 watts less. Compared with a Radeon HD 7750, this passive card also saved a few watts. During normal Windows operation, there are no significant differences."

Sorry unable to post links still.

 

No idea if 750Ti has the hardware support, but the 900 series do. The lowest of the bunch is the GTX 960, which is generally overkill for video playback (unless you like to mess around with MadVR on MPC-HC).

_____________
GuL

 

What are you going to use for that? Xen? Better read a few articles about 3D HW support, there are some nasty pitfalls.

 

If the rig is only used for media playback, you really don't need anything more than something as basic as an AMD Radeon R7 240. It supports 4K HEVC decoding via its UVD.

deltatux

 

750ti is a maxwell GPU the same as 900 series

http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/palit_geforce_gtx_750_ti_kalmx_review,4.html

GeForce GTX 750 and 750 Ti are based on Maxwell GPU architecture. The product however uses the GM107 which is based on a 28nm fabrication process. That chip has 1.87 Billion transistors.

Maxwell

NVIDIA’s first-generation “Maxwell” GPU architecture implements a number of architectural enhancements designed to extract even more performance and more power efficiency per watt consumed. The first Maxwell-based GPU is codenamed “GM107” and designed for use in power-limited environments like notebooks and small form factor (SFF) PCs. The first graphics card that is based on the GM107 GPU is the GeForce GTX 750 Ti. Because of GM107’s architectural efficiency, at 1080p resolution a GeForce GTX 750 Ti will have a TDP hovering at merely 60 Watt

Updated Video Capabilities

One of Kepler’s key innovations over prior GeForce GPUs was its hardware-based H.264 video encoder, NVENC. By integrating dedicated hardware circuitry for video encoding/decoding (rather than using the GeForce GPU’s CUDA Cores) NVENC provided a dramatic performance speedup for H.264 encoding while consuming less power. To improve video performance, Maxwell features an improved NVENC block that provides faster encode (6-8X real-time for H.264 vs. 4x real-time for Kepler) and 8-10X faster decode, and thanks to a new local decoder cache, higher memory efficiency per stream for video decoding, resulting in lower power for video decode. Maxwell also features a new GC5 power state that’s been tailored to reduce the GPU’s power consumption specifically for light workload cases like video playback. GC5 is a low power sleep state that provides considerable power savings over prior GPUs for these scenarios.

 

What about the GTX 950?

 

I wonder too?? :rpg: