2012 Mini & 4K Display

[OldTXSpook]

Last year I eagerly awaited the 2014 Mac Mini. Underwhelmed by the offering, I purchased a 2012 refurb with a 2.6 Quad I7 and 16 gig's of memory. It is a competent performer and I have no complaints, though I yearn for a revision with performance that looks more like the iMac 5K. I will likely die with that pipe dream swirling in my head.

But, hope springs eternal and my Asus VE278Q is starting to get flaky, so I'm looking for a replacement that will take advantage of that Mini drifting around in the smoky ether. I've honed in on a monitor that will be available at the end of July, the BenQ BL2711U. Now, sorting out all of the issues pertaining to displays falls just under Quantum Mechanics in the ability to bend your mind. So, I'm looking for some help with this one.

The BenQ has a native resolution of 3840 X 2160, while the Mini with its Intel 4000 video max's out at 2560 X 1600. I'm looking for two kinds of input, those who have actually tried connecting a 2012 Mini to a 4K display and those who have solved the riddles of The Universe and can shine light on whatever technical problems are associated with this marriage.

Thanks in advance for your help, it's much appreciated.

 

[Lowe Lilliehorn]

Cool, exactly the monitor I use to have... I do upgrade to an Curved Samsung 27"... Pretty good.... Not exactly 4k... but ok!

 

[crazeazn]

you may need to make or buy one of those custom thunderbolt enclosed gpus? not sure how well they work with os-x though.

 

[nebo1ss]

My MacMini connected to my Samsung UHD 4K TV no problem on the HDMI connector.

 

[espen.haagensen]

I have a NEC 32 UHD display connected to a mac mini 2012, kindof works at 30Hz. But there are some artifacts, so it is not ideal. But good enough for my use.

 

[MRrainer]

I have a NEC 32 UHD display connected to a mac mini 2012, kindof works at 30Hz. But there are some artifacts, so it is not ideal. But good enough for my use.

That display seems a bit wasted on a 2012 Mini, TBH. Like putting ketchup on an expensive Wagyu beef and drinking a mix of thousand dollar vintage red wine and Coca Cola to it ;-)

I'd either go for the 27" LG display, or one of the non-UHD 30" displays, to max out the usable resolution.
I got an old HP LP 3065 from work (free, just had to buy the adapter) and it's still great.
Of course, a new PA302 would have been much better (I think it also uses less than half the energy of the HP display) - not to speak of the (probably absolutely gorgeous) PA322 you have - but I decided to save the money for later.
Hopefully, at some point even the low-end entry-level desktop of Apple will also support higher resolutions than 2560x1600.

 

[espen.haagensen]

That display seems a bit wasted on a 2012 Mini, TBH. Like putting ketchup on an expensive Wagyu beef and drinking a mix of thousand dollar vintage red wine and Coca Cola to it ;-)

I'd either go for the 27" LG display, or one of the non-UHD 30" displays, to max out the usable resolution.
I got an old HP LP 3065 from work (free, just had to buy the adapter) and it's still great.
Of course, a new PA302 would have been much better (I think it also uses less than half the energy of the HP display) - not to speak of the (probably absolutely gorgeous) PA322 you have - but I decided to save the money for later.
Hopefully, at some point even the low-end entry-level desktop of Apple will also support higher resolutions than 2560x1600.

I don´t agree with you at all. I guess this depends on your usage. 98% of the time I use this for image editing in Lightroom, and for this it is ok, 30Hz is not a problem. Would I like a better solution? Sure, but in the current Mac lineup there is not a single offering that gives significantly better performance CPU wise for what I am willing to pay. So I have decided to live with this until there is a Mac with better performance, or if that doesn´t happen any time soon, switch to the dark side ;-)

 

[MRrainer]

Well, I guess you can add a cheap 27" display for watching video. With the price-tag of the PA322, that'd be chump-change ;-)
You don't have to worry about backlight-bleeding when watching a grainy youtube video after all.

I use mine for VMware, browsing, email, Omnigraffle, running ssh's to my servers at work. 30" does come in handy when you have a lot of terminals open.