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Abbas

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 9, 2008
176
48
Dubai
Can anyone comment on how the Mac Mini's performs driving either a super ultrawide monitor (like the Samsung 48-inch) or a 4K display? Not planning on gaming on it but how is it for things like FCPX?
 

Stephen.R

Suspended
Nov 2, 2018
4,356
4,747
Thailand
For 4K (without an egpu) make sure you have at least 16GB of memory or it’ll be glitchy.

If you run one display it can usually handle non-even scaled resolutions (ie something other than “looks like 1920x1080”) without issue. Not 100% sure how this will play out with video heavy apps though.

If you run two 4K displays it won’t be smooth if they’re using a non-even scaled resolution - you’ll get glitches and some lag doing basic things.

An ultra wide is probably less strain on the system as they’re essentially all low enough PPI that you don’t need to use macOS’ UI scaling.
 
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Abbas

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 9, 2008
176
48
Dubai
For 4K (without an egpu) make sure you have at least 16GB of memory or it’ll be glitchy.

An ultra wide is probably less strain on the system as they’re essentially all low enough PPI that you don’t need to use macOS’ UI scaling.

Thanks- looking to just power one display and will see how it goes when I pick one up this week.
 

H2SO4

macrumors 603
Nov 4, 2008
5,822
7,090
Running an LG 38UC99-W. Runs great for day to day work certainly. Haven't gamed on it yet, still waiting for the Razer Core X to come back into stock.

EDIT: Well it did run great. Now I get a black screen on boot up, (but I understand this is related to Filevault).
 
Last edited:

mmomega

macrumors demi-god
Dec 30, 2009
3,888
2,101
DFW, TX
I have a 49" 5K2K Samsung and direct connected to the Mini it is usable but an eGPU makes it worth using.

The i7 mini and 32GB RAM.
 

Ploki

macrumors 601
Jan 21, 2008
4,324
1,560
I run LG Ultrafine 4K + Packed Pixels 9.7" 2K (2048x1536) on Mini i7/32GB RAM.

FCPX runs pretty poorly. But not because of the screen, because the GPU in the Mini is rubbish. If you want to do decent stuff in FCPX, think about running an eGPU.
It ran just as poorly on a single 1080p screen.

for everything else its smooth and well.
 

Fishrrman

macrumors Penryn
Feb 20, 2009
29,167
13,217
I would think that an ultrawide display would "work against" Final Cut Pro, because of the way the app is "set up" onscreen.
It would actually look better on a "standard aspect ratio" display, with enough "height" so that all the controls could be seen easily.

Re Ploki's comment about speed of 4k editing:
Do you create proxy media when importing your 4k clips?
 

Ploki

macrumors 601
Jan 21, 2008
4,324
1,560
Re Ploki's comment about speed of 4k editing:
Do you create proxy media when importing your 4k clips?

Yeah, unworkable with native.
The Iris Pro 655 on my MacBook 13" does FCPX better unfortunately :) 630 HD is not made for this, really.
 

afallnstar

macrumors regular
Sep 9, 2007
124
116
Seattle
I have a 49" 5K2K Samsung and direct connected to the Mini it is usable but an eGPU makes it worth using.

The i7 mini and 32GB RAM.

What resolution are you running? I have the 49" 5k2k monitor and I'm struggling to get decent clarity and scaling.
 

mmomega

macrumors demi-god
Dec 30, 2009
3,888
2,101
DFW, TX
What resolution are you running? I have the 49" 5k2k monitor and I'm struggling to get decent clarity and scaling.
at native 5k2k 120Hz running on an eGPU. Straight out of the mac mini HDMI port was pretty bad for this monitor.
 
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