Want a fast 5K Mac? Skip the slowpoke iMac and go faster in a cMP & GTX980 or Titan X

[MacVidCards]

The numbers speak for themselves

http://barefeats.com/mpt5k.html

Was hard to not blab this, now I've got to get a 5K

Tomorrow I'll dig and find the thread where I predicted that cMP would do this first while nMP just isn't capable with those 3+ year old GPUs. (A TB eGPU maybe? Details coming)

 

[Synchro3]

The numbers speak for themselves

http://barefeats.com/mpt5k.html

Was hard to not blab this, now I've got to get a 5K

Tomorrow I'll dig and find the thread where I predicted that cMP would do this first while nMP just isn't capable with those 3+ year old GPUs. (A TB eGPU maybe? Details coming)

Interesting news! And this is only possible with the GTX 980 because you need to use two Display ports simultaneously?

 

[mattspace]

How does this relate to issues with getting 4k/60hz to work (if that's still a problem).

Being a dual cable solution is this effectively the card outputting 2x2.5k screens?

Would you use the 980 to drive any other screens while doing this (iirc it supports 4) or is this a dedicate the card to 1 display idea?

 

[MacVidCards]

You use 2 DP ports of the 3 available, I imagine you could still run 2 more displays but I haven't tried yet.

I will need to get a 5K display soon and work out details.

I have been trying to use same method to fix 4K 60 hz on my PQ-321 for last couple days but so far no luck.

Great to know that someone at NVIDIA still cares about us. Or maybe they just wanted to make nMP look silly?

I have been told that our Mac Edition GTX980 shows boot screen in half res before desktop switches to full res.

 

[barefeats]

How does this relate to issues with getting 4k/60hz to work (if that's still a problem).

Being a dual cable solution is this effectively the card outputting 2x2.5k screens?

Would you use the 980 to drive any other screens while doing this (iirc it supports 4) or is this a dedicate the card to 1 display idea?

Good question. I will try adding two Cinema Displays on top of the Dell 5K to see how well it handles that scenario.

BTW, if you use the mini DisplayPort cable that comes with the Dell 5K to connect it to the Mac Pro tower, you get up to 3940x2160 HiDPI @ 60Hz. It can go to a higher resolution but you lose the HiDPI 'retina' effect.

 

[mattspace]

@barefeats the power cycling described as necessary for the display - is that only on a power cycle of the computer, ie does it cope with sleeping ok? I'm guessing that rules out using the built in usb hub to attach storage, otherwise it would give the "was not unmounted" error?

 

[netkas]

@barefeats the power cycling described as necessary for the display - is that only on a power cycle of the computer, ie does it cope with sleeping ok? I'm guessing that rules out using the built in usb hub to attach storage, otherwise it would give the "was not unmounted" error?

I think it was only about display.

 

[Pressure]

Yes we get it. You don't like the nMP form factor.

PCIe v2 will be holding the cMP back before you realize it (in less than 3 years). Plus, having a graphic card taking up two slots leaves you with a single expansion slot after the PCIe SSD. 4 PCIe slots only has so much expandability.

The iMac still has the fastest single core speed at 4Ghz, it's just held back by the Tonga GPU.

 

[h9826790]

having a graphic card taking up two slots leaves you with a single expansion slot after the PCIe SSD. 4 PCIe slots only has so much expandability.

The cMP has a double width slot for graphic card. The other 3 slots are usually free for other PCIe cards.

 

[MacVidCards]

2012 rMBP beats nMP to 5K flag

Beautiful, Dual-Retina

Magic of eGPU and the Mac Edition GTX Titan X

 

[R2FX]

Beautiful, Dual-Retina

Magic of eGPU and the Mac Edition GTX Titan X

Me wants! Take my money and tell me how?)))

MacbookPro9,1 here, not really sure I need to upgrade, have 2.7GHz CPU and 16GB, it's just non retina model

 

[kgapp]

You use 2 DP ports of the 3 available, I imagine you could still run 2 more displays but I haven't tried yet.

I will need to get a 5K display soon and work out details.

So now that you have had a bit of time to spend with your 5k display hooked up to the 980 have you had an opportunity to test if it is possible to run two additional displays on the additional 2 ports?

I am seriously contemplating the jump into a 980 along with a Dell 5k but have two primary questions/concerns about the setup and its long term viability.

1. Will it play nice with multi monitor setups (asked above)?

2. What do you think the chances are that Apple will come along and find a way to try and disable the workarounds (ie. bootargs) that were discovered to get the 5k up and running?

It sure is very tempting but I don't really have a lot of trust in Apple not to implement something that might cause grief down the road.

 

[AidenShaw]

It sure is very tempting but I don't really have a lot of trust in Apple not to implement something that might cause grief down the road.

Don't worry - you should be completely confident that Apple will implement something that causes grief down the road. The new "one port" laptop should be an indicator of that.

Their history on long-term support of anything shows that.

If you want long-term support, move to Windows/RedHat/CentOS/UbuntuLTS.

 

[MacVidCards]

10.10.3 brings better 5K support

After I finished confirming that the nMP can now do 5K in 10.10.3 I plugged in one of our GTX760 Dual DisplayPort cards.

And low & behold, you no longer have to do the power-cycle Two-step !

Still no boot screen but when the desktop pops up it is already in 5K, no fiddle-faddling.

Seems like there are still issues with sleep but not having to cycle the power button or yank the plug is a nice step forward.

For now the best setup would be to use a Maxwell card using all 3 DP into the Dell, you could use one button on display to start in 4K SST mode, see & interact with boot screens then switch to 5K mode when you want.

Maxwell cards still only way to see 4K SST boot screen, even nMP with it's new found 5K support can't do that.

 

[kgapp]

new apple support article regarding 10.10.3 and 4k/5k

came across this Apple support article this morning. it sounds like they updated this document a bit since releasing 10.10.3:

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202856

Interesting info as far as what Apple is now acknowledging regarding specific machine compatibility with 4k and 5k, SST vs MST, refresh rates, connection types, etc.

In this article Apple does now officially confirm compatibility with the Dell UP2715K 27 inch 5k for the following machines: Mac Pro (Late 2013) and iMac Retina 5k. I am quite happy to hear that there is some official Apple support of external 5k displays now.

 

[MacVidCards]

Nice find.

Kind of sad that they don't have a single mention of cMP anywhere.

 

[Synchro3]

The numbers speak for themselves

http://barefeats.com/mpt5k.html

Was hard to not blab this, now I've got to get a 5K

Tomorrow I'll dig and find the thread where I predicted that cMP would do this first while nMP just isn't capable with those 3+ year old GPUs. (A TB eGPU maybe? Details coming)

Obviously the update to OS X 10.10.3 brought 5K capability to nMP, also you must connect two DisplayPort cables: https://www.macrumors.com/2015/04/13/os-x-10-10-3-dell-5k/

 

[theSeb]

while nMP just isn't capable with those 3+ year old GPUs.

Indeed. It just can't be done.

 

[MacVidCards]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1864866/

Last week's news seb, try to keep up.

Many months ago I predicted that 5K would run on cMP before the nMP.

And I was right.

 

[theSeb]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1864866/

Last week's news seb, try to keep up.

Many months ago I predicted that 5K would run on cMP before the nMP.

And I was right.

I am just playing.

 

[kennyman]

@MacVidCards

Now that 10.10.3 is out. Have you noticed difference? If I understand correctly, we still have to install the web driver before installing the card, right? Any issues, like sleep, lag or reboot?

 

[MacVidCards]

Hi, as we all know Apple has refused to add any new Nvidia cards to OS X since 10.8.5.

We can speculate as to the "Why" but there is no denying that it is a fact.

Until they do, we have little hurdles. The EFI cards have an easier time dealing with these since you can navigate into the OS with Nvidia drivers turned completely off if need be.

Nvidia has done a great job supplying updates within a day or two of Apple's consistent monkey wrenches.

In addition, either here or on our blog I will be posting means of getting things up and running.

As I just did for the 10.10.3 "Supplemental Update". If tomorrow brings us a "10.10.3 Additional Update" I will amend again.

 

[MacVidCards]

Dell in dead heat with Asus for "Moronic Button Implementation"

I have previously mentioned that the 4K Display that Apple pushed for awhile, the Asus/Sharp 321 has an insanely inelegant means of switching from SST to MST. (8 buttons pushed in odd order for a total of 10 button pushes to go from one to another)

I was having an issue with my Dell 5K tonight where it would show a boot screen then go to black. I finally found this article online that described my predicament.

You can skip reading the whole page, the gist is this statement from a Dell employee:

"Workaround = Disable monitor Sleep from OSD (On Screen Display) Menu- Energy Settings- Monitor Sleep- Disable). This may help speed up Sleep/Wake cycle by about 1-2 seconds."

http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/peripherals/f/3529/t/19627646

Now here is where we get to the Catch-22 Part.

I kept trying to use the buttons on the side of the display to access the OSD. But no matter what button I pushed, all I ever got was the "switch from 4K to 5K" choice. Out of 5 buttons, 4 took me to this function. The last button was the power button, it still did what it normally does. It seemed I was locked out of getting to the OSD to fix my black screen problem.

Then I saw this gem in the manual:

"Activate the computer and wake up the monitor to gain access to the OSD."

http://content.etilize.com/User-Manual/1029465096.pdf (pg 47)

It turns out that the only way to use the OSD is to HAVE SOMETHING ON THE SCREEN. As in, you must have a computer outputting an image on the screen to be able to get that Menu button. When nothing is connected it goes into sleep mode and you can't access the OSD to make sure it doesn't go into sleep mode and cause a black screen which means you can't fix it.

I tried to navigate the Dell website to get some help, totally lost cause. If you wanted to make an Opaque website that kept anyone from finding any information whatsoever, Dell would be a good model.

So, I booted another card and in the brief moment that there was something on the screen I hit button 3 and LOW AND BEHOLD THE OSD APPEARED !!!

And I was able to disable "monitor sleep" which will hopefully keep me from getting locked out of changing settings again.

And for anyone using this display with a cMP, I would advise turning off display sleep in the OSD. If you ever get to see it.