So how does the MBP support 5k?

[Baldrake]

So back in the days of the epic Waiting for Skylake thread, it was conventional wisdom that the Skylake chips could not drive a 5k display. People were thinking maybe two connections would be required, or even that you'd need an eGPU in the display.

And now Apple and LG have announced a 5k display that requires only one connection, and presumably does not contain an eGPU.

So can anyone explain how this works?

 

[T5BRICK]

So can anyone explain how this works?

Thunderbolt3.

 

[Baldrake]

Ha, I found the source of the claim that Skylake can't drive a 5k display. It came right from the front page of MacRumors.

Intel's Skylake processors for Mac notebooks, launching in early 2016, and Kaby Lake processors, expected to launch in the first half of 2017, will not be able to drive a 5K Thunderbolt Display over Single-Stream Transport (SST). The underlying issue is that both processor lineups lack support for DisplayPort 1.3.

Instead, the display would sync two channels over Multi-Stream Transport (MST), which can cause some performance issues. That means Apple may wait until at least Cannon Lake chipset (which promise SST 5K support) in the second half of 2017, before releasing a 5K Thunderbolt Display.

So again, my question - did MacRumors get this wrong, or has Apple invented some wizardry to get around shortcomings of Skylake?

 

[curmudgeonette]

So again, my question - did MacRumors get this wrong, or has Apple invented some wizardry to get around shortcomings of Skylake?

Apple used the wizardy of the Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt controller to carry two DP1.2 streams in one cable.