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.
4K monitors & mac pro
- Thread starter ricefarmerr
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I don't have first hand experience with the 4K displays, so take this for what it's worth, but my understanding is that the D300/D500/D700 all have the same number of "render backends", so all can push up to three 4K displays @ 60 Hz equally well (the performance of the apps you're running can obviously be affected by the GPU, e.g. FCP). I've also read of 2013 MP D300 users pushing two Asus PB287Q @ 60Hz. However, be aware that there's been some growing pains with that display and 4K displays in general - make sure to research the caveats.
The cable question is easy: TB ports use the same connector type as mini Display Port (at least on all Macs). So you would get a mDP to DP cable (make sure it's a DisplayPort 1.2 cable).
Why the Asus? Are you gaming with this setup? Have you looked at the Dell 4K displays? https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1816805/
I assume you're talking about the Mac Pro, and not the MacBook Pro, which has only two TB ports running off a single TB bus. The new Mac Pro has six TB ports plus one HDMI port. Each of the first two TB busses run two TB ports each, while the third runs the remaining two TB ports plus HDMI.
You do not need an adapter since mDP and TB are compatible. You DO need a high quality cable. Asus makes some good components, but for the money, you'll be hard pressed to beat the new Dell P2715Q (or its 24: little brother), single stream, 60 Hz. and no issues running two at once (from separate busses) and even a third from the remaining bus, but only at 30 Hz. for that one. The Dell has DP, mDP, and HDMI inputs. Check the peripherals forum for a long detailed thread. There have been relatively few glitches, most have been worked out, or around, and the vast majority of users, including me are quite happy with it. I have the new MP with D500 and the new 15" rMBP with the 750m. Both run 4K/UHD SST at 60 without breaking a sweat. Also the Dell is IPS. The Asus you are looking at is TN if that makes any difference to you.
Last edited:
Mac Format, Techsource and Marquez Brownly have done reviews if this monitor. The price has come way down to $1400 as of this week.
I've been using a up2414q both at work and at the uni and they have worked amazingly well with my 15" rMBP. It's like using the native display of the laptop, but it's 24" instead of 15
Sure long for the 27" versions but they seem to be a bit unstable for now.
I'm not sure what instability he's referring to??? There's a forum full of owners of the P2715Q (and P2415Q) here with very positive reports and no instability or wide-spread issues...
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1816805/
As for size... it depends on what effective desktop resolution you want.
The 24" is really great if you want to run "Best for Display" with retina double pixel scaling 1920x1080 desktop rendered at 3840x2160. Everything will be incredibly sharp, but a 1920x1080 desktop doesn't offer a lot of real-estate.
The 27" is best (IMHO) at a scaled resolution. I run mine at an effective desktop res of 3008x1690 (rendered at double that before being down sampled to the display's native resolution of 3840x2160). It offers an incredible desktop real-estate while still being very sharp.
Many people with the 27" opt for a scaled desktop of 2560x1440 which will make everything effectively the same size as Apple's 27" TB display but sharper due to the added pixels per inch.
Here's a couple of photos I took that show how much sharper a scaled desktop is on a 4K display thanks to Apple's scaling algorithm...
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20580872/
https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20580922/
Last edited:
Only because I misread your post as saying the MP has only two TB ports, not TB 2.0 ports and many people post about MBP's post erroneously in this sub-forum, and the MBP does have just two TB ports. My mistake. Sorry 'bout that, lo siento, je suis désolé, es tut mir led, ma binu
Anyway you're welcome, and yes, the 24 is a Retina-like experience but some may find it smallish. Scaled rez, is no problem though. I wanted the extra couple of inches desk space and higher DPI, otherwise, I would have gone with the 27. Last week, on sale, it was cheaper than the 24!
Last edited:
ASUS PB278 Display
I'm using the ASUS PB278 Display with my MBP. I have used this monitor for about two weeks now. Love it and it is compatible with the output of the MBP but it is not a 4K. Bought an $8.00 mini DP to full size DP cable on amazon. I am good with the cost of the monitor which cost a lot less then the cinema display from apple although the Apple monitor has ports... I use the Elgato Thunderbolt II hub and happy with it but I do wish this hub had more USB connectors. OWC new TB Hub looks like a winner to me.
I'm using the ASUS PB278 Display with my MBP. I have used this monitor for about two weeks now. Love it and it is compatible with the output of the MBP but it is not a 4K. Bought an $8.00 mini DP to full size DP cable on amazon. I am good with the cost of the monitor which cost a lot less then the cinema display from apple although the Apple monitor has ports... I use the Elgato Thunderbolt II hub and happy with it but I do wish this hub had more USB connectors. OWC new TB Hub looks like a winner to me.
Last edited:
Thanks for bringing this all up. I have two 30" Dell UltraSharps (2560x1600 res) running off my 2013 nMP (D300) and now I'm very tempted to trade them in for two 27" P2715Qs.
I read through a bunch of pages of that link on the Dells, but it's 35 pages and all over the place, so it's hard to know what's current and what applies to the nMP.
- Anyone know if there are still sleep/wake issues?
- I use Boot Camp on occasion - I read something about that being an issue?
- Anyone know how they compare in quality to the UltraSharps? I see that the 24" 4K UP2414Q UltraSharp is several hundred dollars more than the 24" P2415Q. I compared the specs, and they seem really similar, even including the antiglare coating (which is a must-have for me - glossy screens are a deal-breaker). I've been buying UltraSharps pretty much since they came out in the early 2000s.
- I don't want to veer too far off topic, but is there a way to do the "scaling" trick with my current Dells? In the Display settings, I do have the option of HiDPI 1280x800, which looks fantastic, but doesn't offer much screen real estate. I want something like VirtualRain is talking about where it would use the native resolution but have an effective scaled resolution of something like 1920x1200. Obviously simply changing the screen resolution to 1920x1200 looks kind of crummy.
1. No sleep or wake issues if you disable a unneeded setting in the monitors menu options (I forget what it's called)
2. You don't get boot screens on SST 4K displays over DP - this happens with all such monitors due to lack of firmware support in Macs. This may or may not be an issue booting to Windows but if it is, the workaround is to connect your primary display with both HDMI and DP. Set the monitor to HDMI to boot and then switch to DP after boot.
3. Build quality is the same. The newer 2015 displays are much cheaper than the bleeding edge 2014 model mostly because the technology is maturing. The UP2414Q has a wider colour gamut backlight (Adobe RGB) but is an MST display (with wake sleep and other issues). The new models are SST and offer sRGB colour gamut.
4. As you've noticed, HiDPI scaling requires more pixels than you set your desktop resolution to. That's why it's sharper... More pixels used to render it.
Thanks - appreciate the response.
Just to follow up on #4, and maybe you just don't have an answer for this... but my screens do have more pixels than what I want to set my desktop resolution to. They're 2560x1600... so is there some way to force OS X to "render" the desktop at 1920x1200? For instance, you mentioned on your 4K (3840x2160) that you've "scaled" it to an effective desktop res of 3008x1690. I want to accomplish the same idea, except instead of staring with 3840x2160, I'm starting with 2560x1600.
edit: oh, also on #2, I assume if I always use the "startup disk" option in the preference panel (and similar from within windows), than it wouldn't matter if I see the boot screen?
It's likely that Apple doesn't consider a 2560x1440 native display high enough pixel density to offer retina scaling. I wouldn't either. You might be able to force it with SwitchResX but why? The pixels on such a display are not dense enough to add any sharpness.
And I believe you're right about the startup disk option. I've not tried it though.