[RndTbl] recommendations for 4k video card under Linux

[Gilles Detillieux]

On 04/06/2018 02:33 PM, Sean Cody wrote:
> On 2018-04-06 14:09, Gilles Detillieux wrote:
>> Well, there is a surprising amount of cards that don't support 4k,
>> especially the lower cost ones.
>>
> Interesting.
>
> My Lenovo X220 and X230 with 'on board graphics' supports 4K quite 
> well (both specific 4K monitor and 4K TV).
> You don't get 60hz unless using DisplayPort and you will need an 
> active adapter if you have to convert HDMI or some other nonsense.  
> The older the device the higher the chance you will suffer 4K at 30hz but 
> that didn't kill me. :)
>
> My PoC T430 does 4K via DP and miniDP and through full DP on the dumb 
> dock (typing this now on said device attached to Samsung UE590 panel)
>
> Any ATI/Nvidia card with DP1.2 or better should be sufficient in my 
> limited experience.
>

As far as I can tell, the onboard ATI Radeon 3000 on this motherboard 
won't do 4k. We don't have the monitor yet so I haven't been able to 
try, but I'm pretty sure the maximum pixel clock rate is too low even 
for 30 Hz (which we probably could live with).

I know there are lots of cards out there that can do 4k at 60 Hz, and it's 
reasonably easy to weed out the ones that don't (as long as the online 
specs are reasonably detailed - so Best Buy isn't the best place to 
look). The issue is weeding out the ones that won't have reliable driver 
support under CentOS 7. If I stick to the chipset lists from X.org, I 
come up empty as far as 4k-capable cards on the market right now. 
Problem is those chipset lists aren't necessarily complete: we have a PC 
with onboard nVidia Quadro K2200 which does work with nouveau, even 
though that's not listed as a supported chipset. But I can't find a new 
Quadro K2200 card. I can find a K420 card, but it's anybody's guess if 
it'll work with nouveau. All I could find via Google was people 
struggling to get a K420 to work with nVidia's own Linux drivers (which 
somewhat suggests using nouveau wasn't an option).

-- 
Gilles R. Detillieux              E-mail: <grdetil at scrc.umanitoba.ca>
Spinal Cord Research Centre       WWW:    http://www.scrc.umanitoba.ca/
Dept. of Physiology and Pathophysiology, Rady Faculty of Health Sciences,
Univ. of Manitoba  Winnipeg, MB  R3E 0J9  (Canada)