resolution of external display higher than 1920x1080

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Level 1

4 points

resolution of external display higher than 1920x1080

Hi community,

I have bought a Mac mini 2018 (i7 6-core) a week ago. And I am using NEC external monitor with this new Mini. Unfortunately Mac is not supporting the External monitors actual resolution 2560x1440, it gives me only 1920x1080 resolution.

So I was asked by Apple service engineer to connect the monitor with other laptop or desktop and check whether it give the required 2560x1440 resolution. I have done two example checks

(THE SNAP SHOTS ARE IN GERMAN LANGUAGE, still one can understand)

Case-1:

Connected the same NEC monitor with a MacBook Air through a DisplayPort cable and surprisingly I got the supported 2560x1440 resolution on the monitor. see attached snap "Macbook air+Ext display.jpg".

Case-2:

Connected the same NEC monitor with the Mac mini through a DVI-HDMI cable and surprisingly I did not get the supported 2560x1440 resolution on the monitor, rather only 1920x1080 (although I have a eGPU connected to Mac mini). see attached snap "Mac mini+Ext display.jpg".

Until now I haven't got any solution from apple why it is so?

Has any one faced the same problem in the past?

If Apple has to say that Mac mini can deliver only 1920x1080 resolution with whatever external monitor, then it is buyers stupidity to invest money on Mac mini.

Please give me a solution.

Posted on Jun 27, 2020 12:07 PM

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Answer 1

Top-ranking reply

Malcolm J. Rayfield

Level 7

23,095 points

Jun 27, 2020 9:14 PM in response to 1-apple-user

Your problem is the DVI-HDMI cable. DisplayPort and Mini DisplayPort work fine with 2560x1440. The Mac mini's HDMI port will also support it if you use the correct HDMI cable. Many HDMI cables can't handle more than 1920X1080.

Mac mini (2018) - Technical Specifications

"HDMI 2.0 display video output

Support for one display with 4096-by-2160 resolution at 60Hz"

There are two varieties of DVI:

Single-link DVI. Maximum resolution 1920X1200

Dual-link DVI. Maximum resolution 2560X1600

HDMI to DVI adapters and cables use single-link DVI, so can't handle 2560X1440 resolution. They may use dual-link DVI connectors but the extra connector pins are not connected.

There are many HDMI to DVI adapters that say Dual-link, but that just means they use a dual-link DVI connector, not that they can handle the higher resolutions of dual-link DVI. If they don't specifically say they support the higher resolutions, they are actually single-link DVI.

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