Studio Display XDR Impressions

[Zubba]

That's so sad. Good to know. Thank you

Why would they include the cleaning cloth designed for Nano-texture displays with the standard glass model? The whole reason they include the cloth is because most standard microfiber cloth break up and pieces of the fiber lodge inside the edges of the NT, the glossy display can be cleaned by regular materials.

 

[thenewepic]

just looking at the spec sheet of the M5 Max and seeing 4 daisy chained displays is supported, the first thing that came to my mind was if Apple finally gave up and implement DP MST?

why?

Otherwise how else would this have been achieved.

via Thunderbolt. TB4 supports up to two display streams from one port. If Apple's implementation of TB5 in M5 Max supports four display streams (and it does, as we can see) then MST still is not needed.

 

[Delarock]

We should wait for someone who own 3x studio XDR display (i have just 2) and he should try 3 xdr displays with M5 max via one cable. Theoretically it should be possible with DSC and 120 gb. bandwitch of thunderbolt 5

 

[thenewepic]

and he should try 3 xdr displays with M5 max via one cable

are you talking about MacBook Pro M5 Max? Because Apple clearly says:

M5 Max

• Supports up to four external displays over any combination of Thunderbolt and HDMI ports:
• Four displays up to a native resolution of 6K at 60Hz or 4K at 144Hz or
• Two displays up to a native resolution of 8K at 60Hz or 5K at 120Hz or 4K at 240Hz

That means third Studio XDR will not work. Period.
But I think there is a small chance that a low-demanding display (1080p or 1440p) could work being connected to downstream TB port of the second Studio XDR in the chain.

 

[Tymscar]

Why would they include the cleaning cloth designed for Nano-texture displays with the standard glass model? The whole reason they include the cloth is because most standard microfiber cloth break up and pieces of the fiber lodge inside the edges of the NT, the glossy display can be cleaned by regular materials.

Well I didn't expect it to be the same cloth. As far as I can tell in the US they're different clothes.

 

[jabbr]

how could one get 120Hz 4K HDR HDMI from Switch 2 to the XDR? Would I need multiple adapters?
The 120Hz support would be nice for games that support it (+ 40Hz multiple like Cyberpunk has)
I'd be content with console's headphone out for audio

 

[Bolvline]

Has anyone noticed the difference in visual quality, particularly in terms of blooming control, when connecting Windows and macOS?

I used the same blooming/local dimming test video on YouTube and played it while connecting to both operating systems. The difference is quite noticeable. On macOS, the blooming is significantly reduced, while on Windows, the blooming is quite severe, and there’s a noticeable glow at the corners of the screen.

Not sure if it’s a cable thing. I connected to my MacBook using the jncluded tb5 cable whereas to Windows, I use a DP 1.4 to type C bi-directional cable.

I haven’t seen anyone else discussed this so I would like to ask around if anyone had similar issues.

 

[Zubba]

Well I didn't expect it to be the same cloth. As far as I can tell in the US they're different clothes.

The standard displays don’t come with a cloth at all.

 

[Tymscar]

Has anyone noticed the difference in visual quality, particularly in terms of blooming control, when connecting Windows and macOS?

I used the same blooming/local dimming test video on YouTube and played it while connecting to both operating systems. The difference is quite noticeable. On macOS, the blooming is significantly reduced, while on Windows, the blooming is quite severe, and there’s a noticeable glow at the corners of the screen.

Not sure if it’s a cable thing. I connected to my MacBook using the jncluded tb5 cable whereas to Windows, I use a DP 1.4 to type C bi-directional cable.

I haven’t seen anyone else discussed this so I would like to ask around if anyone had similar issues.

For me it looks basically the same on windows, mac, and linux

 

[Bolvline]

For me it looks basically the same on windows, mac, and linux

I see. Probably a cable thing then. What cable are you using? Might try that one

 

[Norre8]

View attachment 2612560
Got a pair of XDR. Connected to MBP 14" M4 Pro. On first try plugging both displays in directly to the MBP, only one screen would turn on (5K 47-120Hz). Unplugging the working XDR would turn on the other XDR. After rebooting MBP, both turned on, but each only at 5K 47-60Hz. I had thought, per Apple's description, one XDR would be 120Hz and the other would be 60Hz when both used together. Guess not? I have a M5 Max MBP14 coming next week. I have a M4 Max 16" MBP also but not on me right now, but that's supposed to support dual 5K 120Hz.

The XDR is really bright and stunning compared to the MBP. iPhone pics make the XDRs look washed out, but it's just a brightness difference. Speakers sound louder, bass a little stronger I suppose. Fans are silent, same as ASD, but by feel seems to have a lot more airflow output at max brightness.

Mine did not work. How are your plugs set up.

 

[Padre_Pio]

Is there any noise from the fans you can hear in a quiet room?

Zero sound

 

[Padre_Pio]

Why would they include the cleaning cloth designed for Nano-texture displays with the standard glass model? The whole reason they include the cloth is because most standard microfiber cloth break up and pieces of the fiber lodge inside the edges of the NT, the glossy display can be cleaned by regular materials.

The cloth also came with the standard Pro Display XDR--you buy an XDR display, you get a cloth. Such as it has been.

 

[taphil]

Mine did not work. How are your plugs set up.

I only briefly used dual SD XDR with M4 Pro MBP. Only reliable way I could get it to work was to unplug both monitors from power and plug them back in simultaneously while MBP was on and connected to both displays directly to 2 TB ports.

 

[joevt]

Right from the get go when the MBPs were announced last month, just looking at the spec sheet of the M5 Max and seeing 4 daisy chained displays is supported, the first thing that came to my mind was if Apple finally gave up and implement DP MST? Otherwise how else would this have been achieved. Then, knowing how the M5 Pro is just a chiplet with the GPU cores and media engine section on the M5 Max missing, wouldn't it supposed to have lost half the display buffers as well like what happened on M1 Pro/Max and M2 Pro/Max? But instead it only lost one display off the chain. This does look like something proprietary was done on the M5 Pro, then by extension the +1 is carried forward to the M5 Max?

Apple makes their own integrated Thunderbolt 5/USB4v2 host controllers. They don't use Intel's PCIe based Thunderbolt 5 controllers. Apple included 4 DisplayPort In Adapters in their integrated Thunderbolt 5 host controller for the M5 Max so that 4 full DisplayPort signals (SST, no MST) can be tunnelled through a single Thunderbolt port.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-complete-list-of-27-5k-displays.2390249/post-34481935

A Thunderbolt controller can have several Adapters (64 or something like that) built into it. See the USB4v2 spec for more info about Adapters.

Interesting example: The Thunderbolt 1 host controller used in the iMac Late 2013 has 4 PCIe Down Adapters even though the controller only has two Thunderbolt 1 ports. I think that means each Thunderbolt 1 channel (two channels per port) can have a separate PCIe connection so you could exceed the 10 Gbps limit of a single Thunderbolt 1 PCIe tunnel? But Mac OS X only ever used one PCIe tunnel per Thunderbolt port. This same Thunderbolt 1 host controller has a DisplayPort Out Adapter (along with the usual two DisplayPort In Adapters). This DisplayPort Out Adapter allowed a DisplayPort tunnel from another Mac to send DisplayPort data to the display of the iMac. A software controlled switch inside the iMac switches the DisplayPort signal to the display from the internal GPU to the DisplayPort Out Adapter of the Thunderbolt controller. This is called Thunderbolt Target Display Mode.

Thunderbolt 4 introduced USB tunnelling which uses USB Down and Up Adapters.

Apple's Thunderbolt 5 controller in the M5 Max has a new type of USB Down Adapter which support USB Gen T. I wonder if there are any USB4 or Thunderbolt devices with a USB Gen T Up Adapter to take advantage of the features of USB Gen T? (specifically, a USB hierarchy not limited by the 10 or 20 Gbps of a tunnelled USB 3.2 signal from a host USB 3.2 controller).

 

[AbeLincoln1984]

Apple makes their own integrated Thunderbolt 5/USB4v2 host controllers. They don't use Intel's PCIe based Thunderbolt 5 controllers. Apple included 4 DisplayPort In Adapters in their integrated Thunderbolt 5 host controller for the M5 Max so that 4 full DisplayPort signals (SST, no MST) can be tunnelled through a single Thunderbolt port.
https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/the-complete-list-of-27-5k-displays.2390249/post-34481935

When you say "4 full displayport signals" I'm assuming this doesn't necessarily refer to 5K@120Hz.

If it does, would you help with the bandwidth arithmetic? Because even with a 120 Gbps bandwidth boost connection (which I'm sure couldn't be used for daisy chaining more than one display) I'm not understanding how four 60 Gbps video signals are travelling across one 80 Gbps (or even 120 gbps) pipe.

I'm guessing you can get two displays daisy chained from one tb5 port on a new mac, regardless of refresh.

And if it's reducing image quality in any way then to hell with it.

 

[joevt]

When you say "4 full displayport signals" I'm assuming this doesn't necessarily refer to 5K@120Hz.

Right. Thunderbolt 5 is limited to 80 Gbps or 120 Gbps so the four DisplayPort signals added together cannot exceed that.
DisplayPort 2.1 is limited to 77.37 Gbps.
DisplayPort 1.4 is limited to 25.92 Gbps.
DisplayPort 1.2 is limited to 17.28 Gbps.

A 4K60 display is 16 Gbps without compression. That fits in a DisplayPort 1.2 signal. Thunderbolt won't use the entire 17.28 Gbps because Thunderbolt doesn't send the DisplayPort stuffing symbols used to fill the DisplayPort bandwidth.

Not every combination of frame size, frame rate, pixel rate, pixel depth is supported by the drivers. The drivers may also have limits on totals.

A 5K120 display is 1903 MHz x 12 bpp = 22.8 Gbps (using DSC @ 12 bpp). Four of them could work if Apple uses the 120 Gbps mode of Thunderbolt 5 and allowed that many pixels (7612 million pixels per second) to be compressed and output. But apparently they don't allow it since the specs say only two 5K120 displays can be connected? If Apple doesn't support the 120 Gbps mode, you could still get four of those using DSC @ 8 bpp (15.2 Gbps). The pixels per second is the same but the compression is even higher. Apple might not allow that number of pixels or that amount of compression or both.

 

[Chancha]

Currently the only Mac that can output to 3 displays at 5k120 HDR is the M3 Ultra Mac Studio, and it requires “splitting across port groups” so none can be chained.

We will have a clearer picture when the Mac Studio gets M5 Ultra update this year, it will then include the new (Apple flavour) TB5 controllers.

 

[iamFredT]

The cloth also came with the standard Pro Display XDR--you buy an XDR display, you get a cloth. Such as it has been.

Well. I think you are talking about Pro Display and not Apple Studio Display XDR.
I have bought an Apple Studio Display XDR and I have not received the polishing cloth and Apple’s website doesn’t state it as included in the box.

 

[the-doctor]

I only briefly used dual SD XDR with M4 Pro MBP. Only reliable way I could get it to work was to unplug both monitors from power and plug them back in simultaneously while MBP was on and connected to both displays directly to 2 TB ports.

Huh, I wonder how that works? Anyway, I was able to do it as well.

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/studio-display-xdr-impressions.2479042/post-34527033

 

[btrach144]

That's so sad. Good to know. Thank you

nano texture should technically only be cleaned with the included cloth or the apple polishing cloth sold separately according to apple.

The standard glass in theory can be cleaned with any soft cloth.

Hence why apple only includes it with one of them.

 

[Tymscar]

I see. Probably a cable thing then. What cable are you using? Might try that one

Some noname I found on amazon. Tried 3 cables, all look the same. I wanted to see if I can get 5k120hz, but apparently my 4080 can only do 4k120hz or 5k60hz

 

[Cobalt`]

Some noname I found on amazon. Tried 3 cables, all look the same. I wanted to see if I can get 5k120hz, but apparently my 4080 can only do 4k120hz or 5k60hz

Was this one of the cables? I was able to get 5k 120hz albeit with a 9070XT , https://www.amazon.ca/Cable-Matters-Premium-USB-C-DisplayPort/dp/B0FN3Q327G/ref=sr_1_11?sr=8-11

 

[Tymscar]

Was this one of the cables? I was able to get 5k 120hz albeit with a 9070XT , https://www.amazon.ca/Cable-Matters-Premium-USB-C-DisplayPort/dp/B0FN3Q327G/ref=sr_1_11?sr=8-11

That is one of them yes. It's because your AMD card has displayport 2.1a ports. nVidia thought it was a great idea to only do displayport 1.4a on the 4000 series, even on a multiple thousand dollar 4090.

Honestly insane.

 

[Cobalt`]

That is one of them yes. It's because your AMD card has displayport 2.1a ports. nVidia thought it was a great idea to only do displayport 1.4a on the 4000 series, even on a multiple thousand dollar 4090.

Honestly insane.

That is actually quite surprising 😵 whyy NVIDIA