External displays and Mac Book Pro Retina 13" Late 2013

[LibertyIsland]

Hello,

I work with a MacBook Pro Retina 13" Late 2013 with El Capitan and have connected 2 FullHD 27" displays with HDMI at the moment.

Now it would be very comfortable to have addditional vertical Space for e.g. Xcode or TextWrangler, and so I think about buying at least an UWQHD 34" Monitor(3440x1440). I think this is the highest possible resolution with 60 Hz for my model, but correct me if I'm wrong. I would even prefer to buy a 4K Monitor with impressive vertical resolution(2160), but I doubt that my MacBook can control that kind of display with 60 Hz.

The displays with Thunderbolt are much more expensive, so I would like to now if there is a solution for native UWQHD resolution and 60 Hz with one or two DisplayPort-Adapters and some special Combined-Screen-Settings in the Monitor?

Or is it possible to use 2 separate WQHD(2560x1440) 27" Displays with native resolution and 60 Hz using two DisplayPort->HDMI adapters?

I did allready read some documentation from apple about external displays, but the docs seems to be kept in a very general matter or confuse me with a bunch of device/os/cable-combinations while not mentioning my model in some sections and perhaps in the meantime El Capitan did change something, so I do not dare to order an expensive display without asking for my model.

Many thanks in advace.

Greetings
LibertyIsland

 

[Samuelsan2001]

You can't run a 4K at 60hz on your machine, although there are ways to run at 52hz.

The monitor you quoted will run fine, although there are a few 1600p monitors out there that will also run fine.

To be honest as long as it's not 4 or 5k your computer should run 2 of any other monitors on the market just fine.

 

[LibertyIsland]

The monitor you quoted will run fine, although there are a few 1600p monitors out there that will also run fine.

Thank you very much for your help. I diddn't considered the 1600p models so far because there are comparatively few models on the market and they normally seem to have 30" screen size, so two of them side by side would cry out for a curved display. Furthermore they seem to cost twice as much as 1440p models with 27", so this seems to be a relatively high surcharge for only 160 pixel additional height.

You mentioned 4K@52Hz, which may not be a bad thing at all or at least an interim solution until I buy a new MacBook - I will try to test this refresh rate with my current setup and SwitchResX, so i hopefully can evaluate the response time of this special setup in advance.

But I only found one model with Thunderbolt: LG 31MU97Z-B with 31" screen size and 4096x2160 pixel. Perhaps this is too small for my eyes...is Thunderbolt mandatory for 4K@52Hz, or is it also possible with a (Mini)DisplayPort cable or converter on my MacBook?

Greetings...LibertyIsland

 

[Samuelsan2001]

As long as it's a DP 1.2 cable it should be fine. Thunderbolt will use that protocol anyway and is only any use if you want to use the monitor as a hub for other peripherals. Do remember that your Mac may only be able to run one monitor if it's 4K.