Powerbook and 30" Display

[SoulBlighter]

Hello,
I have been seeing and reading much of the new 30" Displays and the new specific graphics card to power it. I have a few questions and doubts, if possible, to be confirmed.

Does the new 30" Displays require the new graphics card to power it.
or
Do you need the new graphics card if you wanted to power 2x 30" displays.

If so, does this mean that a Powerbook with a 128MB video card cannot power this new display?

If not, can it still power the 20" and/or 23"?

Also, that means only the Desktops can power these 30" displays, correct?

Like I've said, I've seen around many places that says a lot but nothing outright. It would seem to me a little disappointing that that level of beauty and art can only be attained with a specific system (desktop) type.
Thank you,
SoulBlighter

 

[edesignuk]

The 30" requires a card with dual channel DVI to pump out that many pixels, currently the 6800 is the only Mac card capable of this.

The 20" & 23" will work perfectly with your PB.

 

[kgarner]

Like edesignuk said, the 30" will only work with the 6800 video card. But 23" will work fine with your PowerBook and give you HD video if you needed/wanted that.

 

[stoid]

If you're after the size and not the pixel count, you can certainly get a third party standard DVI 30 inch monitor. Don't expect it to have any higher res than the Apple 23 inch though, as I believe is is the lid on how high a single DVI link can go.

 

[SoulBlighter]

Hey edesignuk,

Thank you for your quick reply. Much appreciated. I suppose then thats dissapointing for the non desktop users. I also suppose the only way to remedy that in the future is for the new generation Powerbooks to have a different version of the current 6800? I, unfortunatley, don't know too much of how that'd work, but I would suppose that isn't going to be happening anytime soon as it is... so a 23" is definatly bigger than a 17" on the PB as it stands.

Now one last question that just popped in my mind. Would the 30" simply not run/work/function at all, if tried with another system without the 6800, OR would it just not display the FULL, maximum pixels, possible.

Thank you,
SoulBlighter

 

[edesignuk]

I don't know this as fact, but I would guess that you could run the 30" off another DVI card but at a lower, non-native resolution (1920x1200 maybe). But there would be no point to this as everything would just look enormous and pixelated.

 

[stoid]

Hey edesignuk,

Thank you for your quick reply. Much appreciated. I suppose then thats dissapointing for the non desktop users. I also suppose the only way to remedy that in the future is for the new generation Powerbooks to have a different version of the current 6800? I, unfortunatley, don't know too much of how that'd work, but I would suppose that isn't going to be happening anytime soon as it is... so a 23" is definatly bigger than a 17" on the PB as it stands.

Now one last question that just popped in my mind. Would the 30" simply not run/work/function at all, if tried with another system without the 6800, OR would it just not display the FULL, maximum pixels, possible.

Thank you,
SoulBlighter

I'm almost certain that the DualDVI Link on the monitor is not backward compatible. Besides, as I mentioned before, you aren't going to get more res out of 30 inch than the 23 inch already allows. Just occured to me that there may not be many third-party suppliers on 30 inch monitors, but I'd surely think that there's one or two at least.

The 23 inch monitor will give you nearly twice the pixel resoultion as the 17 inch screen on the laptop (1920x1200 - 2.3MP) vs (1440x900 - 1.3MP)