Just built the following machine http://pcpartpicker.com/p/DjNPBm and feeling heartsick. It doesn't play 4K or 1080p@120fps any better than my Dell Inspiron 570 with upgraded Phenom II 945 CPU and GTX 750 Ti with 8GB of RAM. Hesitates and jerks along. Windows performance monitor shows it only using 3GB of RAM and 14% of the CPU. I know other people are playing/editing 4K with this same setup. Any ideas what I could be doing wrong?
You are saying that it isn't playing back video well? That requires nothing in the way of compute performance. That sounds like a problem elsewhere. (P.s. Make sure that you aren't using 32bit OS).
64-bit Windows 7. Yep, not playing 4K video well.
From what it looks like, you did the same thing I did and skimped in the wrong place. Too much CPU and not enough GPU. Wish I could help...
4k video playback doesn't require all that much. A 750ti should be able to do it just fine. Are you sure that the video file itself isn't just choppy? HTPCs playback video all the time and are usually really weak in comparison. Hell, people use rasberry pis for HTPCs and they do 1080p just fine. People use them for shield streaming too. The hardware isn't the problem here.
I thought about that so I tried a 4K video I shot with my GoPro. Same problem. EVGA advertises the 960 as 4K capable and I've just heard from someone using the same setup (but with 4GB card instead of 2GB) that their system does 4K just fine. I'm lost.
Make sure that your video playback software properly supports the resolution (try VLC if you aren't using that already).
Make sure that your drivers are installed properly and that you aren't having overlap of drivers.
Just now got a response from EVGA support (Question was, did I underbuy?) suggesting it is a driver problem. They said to use a program called DDU to wipe out all display drivers and reinstall. Guess I'll try that. They didn't suggest the 960 couldn't do the job.
The problem was QuickTime. Plays perfectly in VLC. My heart is beating again. :o)
Quick Time is garbage, in my experience. VLC is king.