Kaby Lake processors are no longer the only means to watch Netflix in 4K on a PC. Nvidia recently rolled out a preview version of Netflix streaming in 4k for the company’s GeForce GTX 10-series graphics cards based on the Pascal architecture. Better late than never, right?
NVIDIA’s GTX 10-series cards were introduced almost a year ago with the launch of the GeForce GTX 1080. The Pascal GPU architecture that powered the card comes with Microsoft’s PlayReady 3.0 DRM certification required for playing Netflix content in 4K on Windows PCs.
However, in reality, the promise of the ability to play 4K Netflix never materialized in the months that followed, eventually allowing Intel the lead as its Kaby Lake chips became the first hardware in the industry to offer Netflix content in 4K.
Note that the software and hardware requirements for NVIDIA’s version of 4K Netflix are somewhat more complicated compared to those of Intel’s. Although you won’t have to buy a high-end processor to use this new feature. In fact, the CPU barely matters as the 4K decoding is done by the discrete graphics card. NVIDIA will require a GeForce GTX 1050 graphics card (or higher) with at least 3GB of RAM to stream Netflix at 4K.
In other words, you must have a GTX 1050 Ti or higher because GTX 1050 only has a 2GB variant (unless of course, NVIDIA is planning to release a new variant of the card with higher memory). Also, worth noting that since this is just an early preview, the 3GB requirement may change afterward.
Apart from the graphics card, you will also require an HDCP 2.2 capable monitor or TV set, as well as a 25 Mbps or faster Internet connection.
On the software front, 4K Netflix will need a Windows Insider preview edition of Windows 10 — perhaps the post-Creators Update release.
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