Mac Pro 2013 - Three 4K Monitors at 60Hz?

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Mac Pro 2013 - Three 4K Monitors at 60Hz?

Hello,

I have a Mac Pro 2013 mode with the below specs:

2.7GHz 12cores cpu.
64GB RAM.
Dual AMD D700 GPUs.

I would like to connect three 4K monitors to it, two of them are BenQ PD2720U and the other one is Dell 2720Q. I read somewhere on Apple's website that this Mac Pro can support three 4K monitors by connecting two monitors using two different buses miniDP on the Mac Pro and the third one to the HDMI port on the Mac Pro. However, this will cause the third 4K monitor to be limited to 30Hz as the HDMI port on the Mac Pro is 1.4, which is quite old.

Would it be possible to connect all of the three 4K monitors using the three different miniDP buses on the Mac Pro, and thus have them all running at 60Hz? Did anyone try this and succeeded, please share your opinion.

Regards,

Shadi.

Mac Pro

Posted on Sep 20, 2020 3:52 AM

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Answer 1

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Malcolm J. Rayfield

Level 7

23,135 points

Sep 20, 2020 5:38 PM in response to Shadi.Apple

You can connect three 4K 60 Hz displays using Mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cables, such as:

https://www.startech.com/en-us/cables/mdp2dpmm6

Connect one per row of Thunderbolt ports on the computer.

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Answer 2

Sep 20, 2020 6:48 PM in response to Shadi.Apple

I don't have one but do remember seeing its display capabilities. The article seems to be gone from the Apple support site, though It can definitely handle three 4 K displays from its Thunderbolt ports. The specs even say it can handle three 5 K displays, and those are all 60 Hz.

Mac Pro (Late 2013) - Technical Specifications

(dual-cable doesn't apply for 4K displays)

The HDMI port shares its bandwidth the the lowest Thunderbolt ports, so there is no advantage using it.

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Answer 3

Shadi.Apple Author

Level 1

10 points

Sep 20, 2020 6:30 PM in response to Malcolm J. Rayfield

Thanks Malcolm for responding to my post. Have you actually tried this? As I read on multiple locations that the 2013 Mac Pro can run two 4K monitors at 60Hz, that are connected to the Mac Pro using Mini Display ports/Thunderbolt 2 ports running on different buses, and the third 4K monitor must be connected to the HDMI port on the Mac Pro, however, this monitor will be limited to 30Hz.

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Answer 4

Shadi.Apple Author

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10 points

Sep 22, 2020 4:37 AM in response to Malcolm J. Rayfield

Thanks, I will confirm back to you once I actually tried this, I am supposed to get my third 4K monitor sometime next week.

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Answer 5

Shadi.Apple Author

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10 points

Sep 23, 2020 7:01 AM in response to Malcolm J. Rayfield

Following up on our previous conversation I would like to confirm that I managed to run triple 4K monitors at full resolution at 60Hz by connecting them to my Mac Pro 2013 model using MiniDisplay Port/Thurnderbolt 2 to DisplayPort cables, the most important thing is to make sure that each cable on the Mac Pro’s side is connected to a different bus.

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Answer 6

Sep 22, 2020 7:46 PM in response to Shadi.Apple

The three Thunderbolt busses are not divided by row.

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Mac Pro 2013 - Three 4K Monitors at 60Hz?

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