AMD RX550 might work OOB, anyone want to try?

[zebrum]

1440p @ 2x is 5k. I haven't been able to find a 5k monitor it seems they stopped making them do you have one? Anyway, have you looked at the WX 4100? It's low power and can do 5k however no one has confirmed compatibility. It's on ebay UK for 30% off retail but double the price of the cu crippled 560 but it has 4GB, 4 DPs out for 4x4k or 1x5k and a long warranty and possibly a quieter fan but who knows.

 

[dmitry_matora]

1440p @ 2x is 5k. I haven't been able to find a 5k monitor it seems they stopped making them do you have one?

1440p HiDPI looks pretty good at 4K monitor.
Any particular reason you want to spend $1500 on 5K monitor instead of $300 on 4K monitor?

 

[zebrum]

I currently have 24” 4K and I find the 2x slightly too large, so run it scaled one step smaller however I find it drives my R9 280X too hard such that the dual fans are loud on during a safari window scroll and also the blur is slightly annoying. So I’d like to try 27” 5k like the iMac has just in the hope it solves at least one of my problems, given we have DP 1.3 now which supports 5k 60hz it should be possible but not only are there no $300 27” 5k but they have disappeared completely and instead we are getting wide HD monitors.

 

[dmitry_matora]

I find the 2x slightly too large, so run it scaled one step smaller however ... blur is slightly annoying.

1440p is blurry on your monitor because R9 280X doesn't support 1440p HiDPI (which is basically 2880p).
You don't really need 5K monitor for it (although 5K monitor will display it better, but the difference is not that huge).
All you need to enable 1440p HiDPI is 8K video card.
RX 460/RX 560 are most affordable among those that work.

 

[la-tristesse]

It's 65W, so it's closer to RX 560 75W, than to RX 550 50W, not sure it's worth messing with.
Anyway, i've already ordered RX 560 from AMD, which seems to be smallest among AMD 8K cards.

@dmitry_matora Where did you order this model? I cant find a distributor of this single slot design?

 

[zebrum]

1440p is blurry on your monitor because R9 280X doesn't support 1440p HiDPI (which is basically 2880p).
You don't really need 5K monitor for it (although 5K monitor will display it better, but the difference is not that huge).
All you need to enable 1440p HiDPI is 8K video card.
RX 460/RX 560 are most affordable among those that work.

As I said I'm running 1 step smaller than default, which is "looks like" 2304x1296 which is rendered to the offscreen video buffer at 4608x2592. However my card has no issues with "looks like" 2560x1440 rendering it at 5120x2880. Calculating (5120x2880x32bits) / 8 bits / 1024 bytes /1024 K = 56.25MB well within my 3GB video card RAM ;-) I think you may be confusing video buffer resolution with output resolution? Mac display scaling works a bit different from HiDPI, it renders to an off screen buffer at a massive resolution then scales the bitmap texture back down to the native output display resolution, and is blurry when there is a mismatch or no longer pixel accurate, i.e. it can't be divided perfectly by the native res.

 

[dmitry_matora]

As I said I'm running 1 step smaller than default, which is "looks like" 2304x1296 which is rendered to the offscreen video buffer at 4608x2592. However my card has no issues with "looks like" 2560x1440 rendering it at 5120x2880. Calculating (5120x2880x32bits) / 8 bits / 1024 bytes /1024 K = 56.25MB well within my 3GB video card RAM ;-) I think you may be confusing video buffer resolution with output resolution? Mac display scaling works a bit different from HiDPI, it renders to an off screen buffer at a massive resolution then scales the bitmap texture back down to the native output display resolution, and is blurry when there is a mismatch or no longer pixel accurate, i.e. it can't be divided perfectly by the native res.

If you want crisp fonts you want HiDPI.
Max resolution R9 280X can do is 2160p, so max HiDPI resolution you can get is 1080p.
If you want to use higher HiDPI resolution than 1080p you need another video card.

Install SwitchResX and try comparing 1080p with 1080p HiDPI, and then imagine how crisp 1440p could look at your monitor at HiDPI

 

[dmitry_matora]

@dmitry_matora Where did you order this model? I cant find a distributor of this single slot design?

https://www.ebay.com/itm/263440812432/
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07927PRHQ/?tag=tonymacx86com-20

 

[zebrum]

If you want crisp fonts you want HiDPI.
Max resolution R9 280X can do is 2160p, so max HiDPI resolution you can get is 1080p.
If you want to use higher HiDPI resolution than 1080p you need another video card.

Install SwitchResX and try comparing 1080p with 1080p HiDPI, and then imagine how crisp 1440p could look at your monitor at HiDPI

What SwitchResX calls HiDPI isn't a good thing to go by and perhaps leading to the misunderstanding. In SwitchResX my card does 1440p HiDPI, 1692p HiDPI, 1800p HiDPI, 1890 HiDPI. And even though it also offers 2160p HiDPI that actually ends up at the native res of my 4k monitor, so doubling it and halving it again is completely pointless, it's exactly the same as 2160p native.

 

[dmitry_matora]

You still should be able to compare 1080p and 1080p HiDPI