Sidebar Sidebar
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Best 4K Monitor for MacBook Pro

southerndoc

southerndoc

Contributor
Original poster
May 15, 2006
1,873
531
USA
My wife purchased a Retina MacBook Pro last year around February.

We are looking for the best 4K monitor to use. Unfortunately, it's a little confusing researching things between single-stream and multi-stream.

Does a multi-stream monitor require 2 Thunderbolt/Mini DisplayPort cables to operate?

When monitors include USB ports, do you also have to run a USB cable to the monitor in order to use the monitor's USB ports or will data transmit over the DiplayPort/Thunderbolt cable?

What monitors do you guys recommend that will work the best with a rMBP 15"? I've looked at the Dell UP3216Q, Dell P2715Q, and an LG MU-3197B and MU-3197Z (Thunderbolt) monitors.

Any thoughts?
 
I have heard a lot of good things about the Dell P2715Q and really want to pull the trigger with the price being under $500 here for the Black Friday/Cyber Monday sale. Problem is that I need to sell my 24" ACD before I can really justify making the purchase...might just go for it anyway. Anyone have any thoughts on this one with the MBP?
 
There is a huge thread on this site centering on the Dell P2715Q/P2415Q displays, and I'm in there somewhere. I have two attached to my late-2013 rMBP, and it's a pretty nice display. I bought several for my small company. A tip - if you buy one, buy direct from Dell - their support is hugely better if you buy from them, and pay a bit more for expedited delivery.

We also have a few displays from BenQ, specifically the BenQ BL2711U and its 32" counterpart. The BL2711U is a far nicer display than the P2715Q - my next employee is getting my Dells and I'm snagging a couple of these. I get to look at both of them, use them with Macs and PCs, and pay for them. Same 3-year warranty, the BenQ has a nicer and more color-accurate display, has been more Mac-friendly, and is more future-proof - yeah, it's more expensive, but it's what you look at 99% of the time when you're using your Mac/PC - right?
 
campyguy said:
There is a huge thread on this site centering on the Dell P2715Q/P2415Q displays, and I'm in there somewhere. I have two attached to my late-2013 rMBP, and it's a pretty nice display. I bought several for my small company. A tip - if you buy one, buy direct from Dell - their support is hugely better if you buy from them, and pay a bit more for expedited delivery.

We also have a few displays from BenQ, specifically the BenQ BL2711U and its 32" counterpart. The BL2711U is a far nicer display than the P2715Q - my next employee is getting my Dells and I'm snagging a couple of these. I get to look at both of them, use them with Macs and PCs, and pay for them. Same 3-year warranty, the BenQ has a nicer and more color-accurate display, has been more Mac-friendly, and is more future-proof - yeah, it's more expensive, but it's what you look at 99% of the time when you're using your Mac/PC - right?
Click to expand...

Just as a quick question - how similar is the display quality of that in the retina Macbook Pros? I will be jumping between the two screens quite a bit and want as much similarity as possible.
 
Psyfuzz said:
Just as a quick question - how similar is the display quality of that in the retina Macbook Pros? I will be jumping between the two screens quite a bit and want as much similarity as possible.
Click to expand...
Excellent, for both brands of displays. I have my two Dells on arms, and my rMBP on a 3rd arm. I have come to prefer the BenQ I mentioned as the picture quality is a bit better and there's a few features I've come to want - auto-rotation, more customizability of the workspace and display - it's designed for an office workspace and a CAD/CAM workspace, updated interfaces like HDMI 2.0.

But, imagine your rMBP with a 27" display. Yup.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Psyfuzz
MCAsan said:
B&H has the monitor for under $500. The Dell 24 and 27 4K monitors use a single TB 2 Display port cable to the monitor; 4K at 60Hz.


There is lots of details and experience in the this thread:https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/dell-p2715q-and-p2415q-4k-ips-displays.1816805/
Click to expand...

Will the USB hub work off the TB cable or do you need to run a USB cable as well?

Ideally I would like to find a monitor where she plugs in one cable and it provide USB hub, ethernet, etc. If I have to use a USB to ethernet adapter then that's fine (so long as it's gigabit ethernet).

EDIT: Can I hook a Thunderbolt to ethernet adapter to the monitor?
 
southerndoc said:
Will the USB hub work off the TB cable or do you need to run a USB cable as well?

Ideally I would like to find a monitor where she plugs in one cable and it provide USB hub, ethernet, etc. If I have to use a USB to ethernet adapter then that's fine (so long as it's gigabit ethernet).

EDIT: Can I hook a Thunderbolt to ethernet adapter to the monitor?
Click to expand...
If your monitor has a built in USB hub, you will need to connect a USB lead as well as the thunderbolt.
I'd recommend an Eizo CG318 or NEC Spectraview 322. But it depends on what you want to do with the monitor.
 
There's a bit of misinformation here that's new-ish. TB/TB2 is compatible with DP 1.1a - the Dell (and BenQ) display take advantage of DP 1.2. The cable that ships with both displays is DP 1.2-compatible, and of a much-higher bandwidth; I use aftermarket Accell DP 1.2-compatible cables with my DP displays, mainly due to they're the only cables certified by DisplayPort but also due to our Macs and PCs running much cooler since the cable brand switch.

TB carries PCIe and HDMI signals, plus each Thunderbolt port can provide a native DisplayPort signal with four lanes of output data at no more than 5.4 Gbit/s per Thunderbolt lane. My Accell mDP>DP cables carry more than 8 Gbit/s per lane - the difference in speed is very noticeable, even at 1080p or 1440p. The FUD is that DP and TB use the same port, the two technologies have nothing to do with each other - in essence, it's only "Thunderbolt" when two TB devices are connected. Using a TB port and TB cable gets you DP 1.1a.

Yes, you'll need to connect a USB cable to take advantage of the hub. I don't use the display's hub.

And, Apple fanboy, thanks for the laugh. Good one. OP, go price an Eizo CG318-4k. Yep, you can buy about 6-8 of those Dells for that price - plus a top-end rMBP! Or, about 6-7 of the NECs... :rolleyes: For those prices, I'd recommend a nice new iMac 5k and its awesome gamut.
 
campyguy said:
There's a bit of misinformation here that's new-ish. TB/TB2 is compatible with DP 1.1a - the Dell (and BenQ) display take advantage of DP 1.2. The cable that ships with both displays is DP 1.2-compatible, and of a much-higher bandwidth; I use aftermarket Accell DP 1.2-compatible cables with my DP displays, mainly due to they're the only cables certified by DisplayPort but also due to our Macs and PCs running much cooler since the cable brand switch.

TB carries PCIe and HDMI signals, plus each Thunderbolt port can provide a native DisplayPort signal with four lanes of output data at no more than 5.4 Gbit/s per Thunderbolt lane. My Accell mDP>DP cables carry more than 8 Gbit/s per lane - the difference in speed is very noticeable, even at 1080p or 1440p. The FUD is that DP and TB use the same port, the two technologies have nothing to do with each other - in essence, it's only "Thunderbolt" when two TB devices are connected. Using a TB port and TB cable gets you DP 1.1a.

Yes, you'll need to connect a USB cable to take advantage of the hub. I don't use the display's hub.

And, Apple fanboy, thanks for the laugh. Good one. OP, go price an Eizo CG318-4k. Yep, you can buy about 6-8 of those Dells for that price - plus a top-end rMBP! Or, about 6-7 of the NECs... :rolleyes: For those prices, I'd recommend a nice new iMac 5k and its awesome gamut.
Click to expand...
Hay I'd prefer the Eizo over the iMac. Not sure what you mean by awesome gamut on the Mac. Isn't it just sRGB? I'm using an NEC Spectraview alongside my iMac, with its 99% Adobe colour space.
Much better than my glossy screened iMac for photography work.
 
greywolfe said:
Quick question. Which is better, using hdmi or miniDP-to-DP for the Dell P2415Q?
Click to expand...

miniDP>DP is the best cable choice for the Dells, as they're DP 1.4. However, my Mini Server is attached to one of my two Dells via HDMI - the integrated graphic card drives the display at 1440p at 60Hz. The resulting display is what product is negotiated between the display card and the EDID info supplied by the display connected to the computer. Don't use the crappy cheap cables from Best Buy or Dell - there's different bandwidths available, look it up on Wikipedia; the lag present with the slow cables disappears with higher throughput cables.

3840 x 2160/30 is the maximum in the current HDMI 1.4 spec. 3840 x 2160/60 is the maximum in the current HDMI 2.0a spec - that's why we're investing in the BenQ displays, they'll go great with the new hardware we're ordering when the updated Macs come out next year.
 
Apple fanboy said:
Hay I'd prefer the Eizo over the iMac. Not sure what you mean by awesome gamut on the Mac. Isn't it just sRGB? I'm using an NEC Spectraview alongside my iMac, with its 99% Adobe colour space.
Much better than my glossy screened iMac for photography work.
Click to expand...
Maybe you missed some of the recent press around a month ago about the new iMacs with El Capitan loaded? Front page here on MR. 10-bit color? We've got two nice Eizo displays we use for processing aerial photos, and a 5k iMac - we looked at a 12-bit RAW file and some of our aerials (6-inch accuracy) and, for once, none of us could tell the difference between the iMac (with a hood on it) screen or our Eizo displays - the images just popped on the iMac, for once. The apps were opened in Photos, I don't know if any of our apps are capable of viewing the new capabilities properly, although I haven't had the chance to check out the new Adobe CC apps yet. One of our 2014 5k iMacs is showing the same nice product. The surface of the screens aren't an issue here - I've been around CAD since the early 90s, and know how to set up rooms for my techs - I don't know how some of my competitors get work done in their brightly-lit rooms.

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/30/4k-5k-imacs-10-bit-color-depth-osx-el-capitan/
https://www.cinema5d.com/5k-imac-10-bit-color/

I was a doubter about Apple's displays, now I'm not. It's about time Apple dialed in 10-bit color IMHO. My next Mac will likely be a 5k VESA iMac, after the new ports are dialed in. Cheers!
 
campyguy said:
See my above post, right cable choice for that display, but not right about HDMI capacity. Cheers!
Click to expand...

Ah fair enough, I hadn't realised they'd updated the HDMI output on the recent Pros. Hoping to jump to the inevitable new model next year, hoping to see how Thunderbolt 3 could increase the options display wise.
 
campyguy said:
Maybe you missed some of the recent press around a month ago about the new iMacs with El Capitan loaded? Front page here on MR. 10-bit color? We've got two nice Eizo displays we use for processing aerial photos, and a 5k iMac - we looked at a 12-bit RAW file and some of our aerials (6-inch accuracy) and, for once, none of us could tell the difference between the iMac (with a hood on it) screen or our Eizo displays - the images just popped on the iMac, for once. The apps were opened in Photos, I don't know if any of our apps are capable of viewing the new capabilities properly, although I haven't had the chance to check out the new Adobe CC apps yet. One of our 2014 5k iMacs is showing the same nice product. The surface of the screens aren't an issue here - I've been around CAD since the early 90s, and know how to set up rooms for my techs - I don't know how some of my competitors get work done in their brightly-lit rooms.

https://www.macrumors.com/2015/10/30/4k-5k-imacs-10-bit-color-depth-osx-el-capitan/
https://www.cinema5d.com/5k-imac-10-bit-color/

I was a doubter about Apple's displays, now I'm not. It's about time Apple dialed in 10-bit color IMHO. My next Mac will likely be a 5k VESA iMac, after the new ports are dialed in. Cheers!
Click to expand...
Well I'm glad Apple are improving there displays. I just wish they would re introduce the matt screen option from a few years back. Yes a hood and room lighting help to a point, but no professional wants a glossy screen.
 
Psyfuzz said:
Hoping to jump to the inevitable new model next year, hoping to see how Thunderbolt 3 could increase the options display wise.
Click to expand...
I need some new Macs and PCs, but I'm waiting until the new ports get dialed in. I was demoed a couple of PCs (I think by HP) that are coming out in January that have the updated interface - holy sh..., er, crap! The USB-C/TB3 interface is the bees knees - the only downside was for my vendor, no by-year-end sales for him this time. The data and video capabilities are off-the-charts sweet. I started out - and don't miss for a minute - with SCSI and today's kids have no idea whatsoever how good they've got it. I've seen some PC demos, and that's why I invested in the 4k BenQs - the new HP and that BenQ were awesome together, and it's dropping in price by the month.
 
campyguy said:
I need some new Macs and PCs, but I'm waiting until the new ports get dialed in. I was demoed a couple of PCs (I think by HP) that are coming out in January that have the updated interface - holy sh..., er, crap! The USB-C/TB3 interface is the bees knees - the only downside was for my vendor, no by-year-end sales for him this time. The data and video capabilities are off-the-charts sweet. I started out - and don't miss for a minute - with SCSI and today's kids have no idea whatsoever how good they've got it. I've seen some PC demos, and that's why I invested in the 4k BenQs - the new HP and that BenQ were awesome together, and it's dropping in price by the month.
Click to expand...
It's exciting times - though I hope with USB-C/TB3 launching we can finally start cutting the cord to USB-A connectors, I'm so disappointed the Thunderbolt format isn't more commonplace.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.
Top Bottom
Back