Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
How many 4k monitors can MBPr run?
- Thread starter 2ms
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
And to elaborate a bit on the completely correct answer above, Thunderbolt 1 means DisplayPort 1.1a, which means too little bandwidth for 4K resolutions.
Actually ONLY THE 2015 Machines (MBA, RMBP13, RMBP15, iMAC, etc) officially support 4K output except the Mac Pro 2013. The number of display(s) being outputted on is 1 for MBA, 2 for MBP(13 and 15)and iMac and 3 for Mac Pro. The MBP15 with Radeon R9 M370X even support 5k using both thunderbolt ports.
He's wrong but probably confused with refresh rates. Only the 2015 models support 4k monitor at 60 Hz, older models support 4k at 30 Hz. Generally display output is considered "officially" supported when the GPU can render the display at 60 Hz since 30 Hz is generally not ideal (it's not usually very usable except for viewing documents).
Umm what the Iris 5100 does not support 4K at 60 hertz, the 5200 Iris Pro supports 4K at 60 Hertz under windows only (since I don't have that machine not sure if Apple added support for it later but initially there wasn't any). Same for 2014 since they weren't changed. The 15" has 750m but support was only under windows unless El Capitan added additionally drivers.
Last edited:
That's only one model, 2013 and 2014 MBP 13" and 15" with integrated graphics and MBA don't. Also certain iMac models may fall under this list depending on the graphic card option chosen at purchase (don't know what graphic cards they could utilized, but for certain anything over 780m support 4k at 60 Hz).
Can confirm. I have a 15" late 2013 rMBP with 750M. I'm running a 4k at 60hz in addition to the built-in screen.
This is a little of topic, but are you saying that a 2014 5k iMac cannot run an 4k second monitor, but that any 2015 5k iMac can? Thanks for the info.
- He means externally and in addition to the 5K internal it's already running. Whole different ballgame.
But it can, of course, run 4K externally. Even 5K with dual DP cables.
Well yeah, wouldn't make much sense to have a GPU that can only run the 5K internal and not an external 4K. At that point, one is only limited by bandwidth which I believe the max on the iMac is 1 external 4K at 60 Hz.