ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro: Output Resolution

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ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro: Output Resolution

Hi,

I am interested in purchasing the latest iMac and am curious about the video output resolution of the ATI Radeon HD 2600 Pro video card. After consulting Apple's specifications website, I found output to be:

Support for external display in extended desktop mode
Digital resolutions up to 1920 by 1200
Analog resolutions up to 2048 by 1536

Source: http://support.apple.com/specs/imac/iMacMid2007.html

I was shocked the DVI output could not power a 30' display, such as Apple's own--with a resolution of 2560 x 1600 pixels. Thus, I researched ATI's specifications of the graphics chip and discovered them as:

Two integrated dual-link DVI display outputs
Each supports 18-, 24-, and 30-bit digital displays at all resolutions up to 1920x1200 (single-link DVI) or 2560x1600 (dual-link DVI)1

Source: http://ati.amd.com/products/radeonhd2600/specs.html

Is Apple's driver limiting the true capabilities of the ATI? That would be quite unfortunate...

-TM

Macbook Pro C2D 2.16, Mac OS X (10.4.6), 2.0 DDR, 128 VRAM, 120 gig Hardrive

Posted on Dec 23, 2007 9:47 PM

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The Looby

Level 4

1,285 points

Dec 23, 2007 11:05 PM in response to T.M.

T.M. wrote:

Is Apple's driver limiting the true capabilities of the ATI?

Not the driver's fault, not ATI's fault; it's an Apple hardware limitation.
The mini-DVI connector is single-link DVI only. The extra RGB pairs
required for dual-link DVI simply aren't there -- and there's NO WAY
to stuff a 2560 x 1600 x 60Hz video signal through a single-link DVI.
The DVI standard forbids it:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DVI

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mini-DVI

...yet another case of Apple-proprietary idiocy,

Looby

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