The New Pro Display is Surely Coming

[enc0re]

This thread is to collect rumors and information about the successor to the Pro Display XDR.

I’m in need of an upgrade for my current 32” 1440p display. I’m tempted by the current Pro Display but I also want integrated speakers/mic/camera and Hey Siri. Also the current one is three years old.

The Studio Display is right there but I don’t want to go down to 27”, the performance is a little disappointing (zones? ProMotion?), and I would prefer a stand that pivots. Of course the last part could be fixed with a VESA mount.

So let’s gather what information there is for the new Pro Display that is surely coming…

 

[macsplusmacs]

Agreed. at this point I am not spending 5K$ on a studio display unless its an updated one.

I hope we hear things by Sept. for a Mac Oct Mac Pro event which I believe would be accompanied by the new 6K or 7K display.

 

[enc0re]

Here is the original 7K display rumor from 9to5, all the way back on March 4, 2022. If 7K is true, one question will be display size. It might stay at 32" and the new PPI could match what the Macbook Pros are doing (254 PPI). But that would move away from Apple's precious scaling on the desktop.

I doubt Apple will go larger than 32" though.

 

[macsplusmacs]

I could see 34" perhaps, esp. if they keep the 6K around. nothing bigger though.

 

[rumz]

Here’s the other rumor that hints at a 32” Pro Display XDR refresh:

LG Possibly Developing Three New Apple Displays, Including Pro Display XDR With Apple Silicon Chip

LG is developing three new standalone displays that may end up being for Apple, including one based on the current 24-inch iMac, one based on the...

www.macrumors.com

This was back in December 2021; displays in question said to be in “early development”.

My current thinking is that, unless we start to hear more rumbling about a 32” (or larger) display in the next couple months, an update to the 32” Pro Display XDR might be quite a bit further out than this fall.

My logic is that if Ross Young saw a 27” mini LED display as pretty imminent (and subsequently pushed back twice now, supposedly, to Spring 2023), and hasn‘t been talking about a 32” display in the pipeline, an update to the 32” display might not appear anytime soon. (Based on where he gets his information, he seems to know about stuff that’s closer to release rather than displays that are much earlier in development.)

Hopefully October / November are interesting.

 

[enc0re]

Here are my guesses:

1. The Pro Display will get a refresh with at least mini LED when the Apple Silicon Mac Pro is announced. The current one is high-zone regular LED, which I understand to be more expensive to manufacture and worse in quality.

2. 5K120 is not easy to get through a Thunderbolt cable. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the rumored 27" model of that showed up in an iMac Pro. I'm reminded of the iMac 5K at release using the "two DisplayPort stream" (like the Dell 8K30) approach internally. Didn't Apple also have to use a custom overclocked display driver chip to get to 60Hz or something like that?

 

[rumz]

2. 5K120 is not easy to get through a Thunderbolt cable. I wouldn't be at all surprised if the rumored 27" model of that showed up in an iMac Pro. I'm reminded of the iMac 5K at release using the "two DisplayPort stream" (like the Dell 8K30) approach internally. Didn't Apple also have to use a custom overclocked display driver chip to get to 60Hz or something like that?

Interesting thought— that would definitely elevate the iMac Pro to the same “Pro” display category as the XDR! And I was just warming up to the idea of a 27” XDR (maybe a pair of them…)

 

[macsplusmacs]

Here’s the other rumor that hints at a 32” Pro Display XDR refresh:

LG Possibly Developing Three New Apple Displays, Including Pro Display XDR With Apple Silicon Chip

LG is developing three new standalone displays that may end up being for Apple, including one based on the current 24-inch iMac, one based on the...

www.macrumors.com

This was back in December 2021; displays in question said to be in “early development”.

My current thinking is that, unless we start to hear more rumbling about a 32” (or larger) display in the next couple months, an update to the 32” Pro Display XDR might be quite a bit further out than this fall.

My logic is that if Ross Young saw a 27” mini LED display as pretty imminent (and subsequently pushed back twice now, supposedly, to Spring 2023), and hasn‘t been talking about a 32” display in the pipeline, an update to the 32” display might not appear anytime soon. (Based on where he gets his information, he seems to know about stuff that’s closer to release rather than displays that are much earlier in development.)

Hopefully October / November are interesting.

I wonder if Ross Young has a blind spot for LG as a screens supplier. I don't know if he has predicted an LG screen before. Maybe?

Just a guess, but could explain why there is a gap in knowledge.

Why would he know about the pro 27", though? kinda blows my theory unless that screen is someone other than LG.

 

[enc0re]

Have there been any news or rumors about a new Pro Display?

I want to believe that Apple has something up their sleeve for the October event but I have heard nothing!

 

[rumz]

Have there been any news or rumors about a new Pro Display?

I want to believe that Apple has something up their sleeve for the October event but I have heard nothing!

Not that I've seen. I did watch part of some other podcast that had Ross Young on and the guy *did* try to pin Ross down on whether he knew of any other displays coming (besides the 27" 5K miniLED one he's forecasted for Spring 2023 now), and nothing. Nothing 6k, 7k, 32", etc. This podcast was a number of weeks ago, though, so not the most current intel.

So, my expectations are accordingly low for the short term (fall / spring).

 

[`Black]

A 6K or 7K 120Hz display would be a dream but the problem currently is the display interface I guess. Thunderbolt 5 is coming but even that doesn't allow for an uncompressed 6K 120Hz HDR signal, let alone 7K. But they could use stream compression for everyone who wants to use 120Hz I guess. I sincerely hope they doesn't keep the next pro display at 60Hz, that would be a disappointment.

So let's see if the new hardware in October could even drive such displays but maybe we need to wait for M3 (Pro) which would mean the next pro display won't be released before October 2023 I guess.

 

[gugy]

I know it might be wishful thinking but I would love Apple to update the XDR to a 7k resolution and maybe larger than 32" size. But most importantly, keep the current XDR on the line up and lower the price to $3k. and have the stand/Nano at $500 upgrades. I would then buy one.

 

[xraydoc]

I know it might be wishful thinking but I would love Apple to update the XDR to a 7k resolution and maybe larger than 32" size. But most importantly, keep the current XDR on the line up and lower the price to $3k. and have the stand/Nano at $500 upgrades. I would then buy one.

Very wishful.

 

[rumz]

I know it might be wishful thinking but I would love Apple to update the XDR to a 7k resolution and maybe larger than 32" size. But most importantly, keep the current XDR on the line up and lower the price to $3k. and have the stand/Nano at $500 upgrades. I would then buy one.

As much as I’m jonesing for that 32” 6k monitor… I just don’t think the target market is big enough for Apple to have any need to get any more aggressive than they have with it. If they can do it at lower cost using tech they’ve been developing for iPad Pros and MacBook Pros, then that might be possible. But personally I don’t know if they set out to compete with reference monitors as much as that was a good marketing angle to make a $5000+ display appear a good value (while serving a subset of “pro” customers.)

 

[enc0re]

The Pro Display is outdated. Zones using regular LEDs is both worse and more expensive than mini LED. The USB-C hub is slower than Studio Display. And it doesn't have Siri/Apple Silicon, although we don't know how much Apple cares about that being on all Macs.

I'm confident that Apple is going to either update or discontinue the Pro Display, at the latest when the Mac Pro is released.

 

[gugy]

As much as I’m jonesing for that 32” 6k monitor… I just don’t think the target market is big enough for Apple to have any need to get any more aggressive than they have with it. If they can do it at lower cost using tech they’ve been developing for iPad Pros and MacBook Pros, then that might be possible. But personally I don’t know if they set out to compete with reference monitors as much as that was a good marketing angle to make a $5000+ display appear a good value (while serving a subset of “pro” customers.)

Only hoping the new tech on a possible update for the XDR, might entice Apple to drop the price on the older tech. I know, it feels like wishful thinking but a man can dream lol

 

[rumz]

Only hoping the new tech on a possible update for the XDR, might entice Apple to drop the price on the older tech. I know, it feels like wishful thinking but a man can dream lol

Well, my other snowball’s chance in H wish would be for that 7k / larger screen to be ultra wide I can’t even imagine Apple making an ultra wide display.

 

[xraydoc]

The Pro Display is outdated. Zones using regular LEDs is both worse and more expensive than mini LED. The USB-C hub is slower than Studio Display. And it doesn't have Siri/Apple Silicon, although we don't know how much Apple cares about that being on all Macs.

I'm confident that Apple is going to either update or discontinue the Pro Display, at the latest when the Mac Pro is released.

I'm sure it'll be updated, but I think people hoping for 7K at 120Hz are going to be disappointed.

I'm guessing a stylistic update to match whatever the new M-series Mac Pro looks like (presuming it doesn't use the same extra large cheese grater motif), improved backlighting with mini-LED, possibly a built-in camera, microphone and speakers like the Studio Display, an A-series chip with Hey Siri, and a few other tweaks here and there.

But I doubt 120Hz is on the menu given the bandwidth limitations and I don't see them increasing the PPI, so we're either sticking with 6K or we're getting 7K with an increase in size (35-37") to maintain Apple's preferred PPI. While I'm sure it does (since I'm running two 5K Studio Displays over one TB4 cable, albeit with compression, no doubt), someone should do the math to verify that 7K @ 60Hz fits in the TB4 bandwidth.

 

[enc0re]

It’s my understanding that Thunderbolt 4 maxes out at 2x8K@120Hz or 3x10K@60Hz when utilizing DisplayPort 2.0.

 

[rumz]

I'm sure it'll be updated, but I think people hoping for 7K at 120Hz are going to be disappointed.

Agreed. Most clamoring for don't have a practical / professional need for it; they just seem to want feature parity with other Apple devices.

It’s my understanding that Thunderbolt 4 maxes out at 2x8K@120Hz or 3x10K@60Hz when utilizing DisplayPort 2.0.

I'm curious where you got that from. I'm not sure a single TB4 connection could drive 8k @ 60hz without some real compromises, though I'm honestly far from understanding all the various pieces involved in display bandwidth.

 

[xraydoc]

It’s my understanding that Thunderbolt 4 maxes out at 2x8K@120Hz or 3x10K@60Hz when utilizing DisplayPort 2.0.

I’m pretty sure that’s not right. My two 5K/60 Studio Displays use up virtually all the bandwidth of a single TB4 channel and that’s with DSC. There’s another thread in here somewhere where someone did a detailed calculation.

 

[enc0re]

I’m talking about DisplayPort 2.0 over Thunderbolt. Big increase in bandwidth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/29/displayport-alt-mode-2-0-for-usb4/

The current Pro and Studio Displays use DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC when available.

Radeon 7000 cards already support DP 2.0. Again with DSC, that’s 2x8K@120Hz with HDR.

https://www.cablematters.com/Blog/D...0-displayport-2-0-and-what-you-need-to-use-it

 

[rumz]

I'm confident that Apple is going to either update or discontinue the Pro Display, at the latest when the Mac Pro is released.

I’m talking about DisplayPort 2.0 over Thunderbolt. Big increase in bandwidth.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort
https://www.macrumors.com/2020/04/29/displayport-alt-mode-2-0-for-usb4/

The current Pro and Studio Displays use DisplayPort 1.4 with DSC when available.

Radeon 7000 cards already support DP 2.0. Again with DSC, that’s 2x8K@120Hz with HDR.

https://www.cablematters.com/Blog/D...0-displayport-2-0-and-what-you-need-to-use-it

I'm not confident at all that Apple will adapt Display Port 2.0 Alt Mode (or even Display Port 2.0) in the near future (by year's end / early next year, essentially). Though if there was going to be a Mac to support something the rest probably won't for some time, it might be the Mac Pro.

We're just *barely* seeing some Display Port 2.0 support from AMD and Nvidia as you've pointed out. (and displays don't exist that can take advantage of that, do they?)

I guess I am doubting anything M2-based will be designed to support these higher bandwidth modes and technologies. Maybe M3? Though again I will concede it wouldn't be too strange for the Mac Pro to be the first and initially only Mac to support the technology...

I'd love to be wrong. Maybe I will be. I jus think something like you're describing may be further out by 1+ years.

USB 4 v 2.0 is a thing now... (announced anyways). I don't see any sign of TB5 being announced yet though.

 

[enc0re]

I am confident that Apple is going to either update or discontinue the Pro Display, at the latest when the Mac Pro is released. I am not confident that Apple will use DisplayPort 2.0 on it.

However, if Apple wanted to do a 7K ProMotion display, the technology is off-the-shelf available. It would not need to be a custom job, like for example the original iMac 5K was.