Dell Ultrasharp Connection to Mac Mini M4

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Level 1

4 points

Dell Ultrasharp Connection to Mac Mini M4

Just bought a Dell Ultrasharp monitor to connect to Mini M4. Need help to choose the right cable for connection. The Dell monitor comes with a DisplayPort cable but I prefer to use HDMI cable which doesn't come with the monitor. I want to use the HDMI connection so I can use the HDMI port on the M4 and I am not favor of using hub for connection. Any suggestion for a HDMI cable? This is my first try to switch from Windows to Mac. So I'm not sure what is the USB Type-C upstream cable that comes with the monitor used for. Please explain.

Dell U2424H Monitor ports:

1 x DisplayPort 1.4 (DRR for Microsoft Windows) (HDCP 1.4)

1 x HDMI (HDCP 1.4)

1 x DisplayPort 1.4 (Out) with MST (HDCP 1.4)

1 x USB Type-C upstream port (data only, SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps, USB 3.2 Gen 2)

2 x USB Type-A downstream port (SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps, USB 3.2 Gen 2)

1 x audio line-out port

1 x USB Type-C downstream port (SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps, USB 3.2 Gen 2) with power charging (15W)

1 x USB Type-A downstream port (SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps, USB 3.2 Gen 2) with BC1.2 power charging

Dell U2424H Monitor provided cables:

1 x USB Type-C upstream cable

1 DisplayPort cable

1 Power Cord

Apple M4 chip with 10-core CPU, 10-core GPU, 16-core Neural Engine

16GB unified memory

512GB SSD storage

Gigabit Ethernet

Three Thunderbolt 4 ports, HDMI 2.1 port, two USB‑C ports, headphone jack

Mac mini (M4)

Posted on Mar 14, 2025 10:35 AM

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Answer 1

Tesserax

Level 10

159,706 points

Mar 14, 2025 10:49 AM in response to nemixus

For HDMI, your Dell monitor will be the limiting factor here. According to what you provided in your post, the Dell's HDMI port only supports the HDMI 1.4 standard. The HDMI cable for this standard would designated as "High Speed". Your Mac, on the other hand, supports the HDMI 2.1 standard.

The maximum supported video for this standard would be:

1280 x 720 @ 120 Hz (720p)
1920 x 1080 @ 144 Hz (2K / HDTV / 1080p)
2560 x 1440 @ 75 Hz (1440p)
3840 x 2160 @ 30 Hz (4K / Ultra HD)

However, the Dell, as you know, offers a DisplayPort. That ports supports the DisplayPort 1.4 standard, which in turn, supports the following video modes:

1920 x 1080 @ 30, 60. 120. 144. & 240 Hz
2560 x 1440 @ 30, 60, 75, 120, 144, 165, & 240 Hz
3840 x 2160 @ 30, 60, 75, 120, 144, & 240 Hz (4K)
5120 x 2880 @ 30, 60, & 120 Hz (5K)
7680 x 4320 @ 30, & 60 Hz (8K)

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Answer 2

nemixus Author

Level 1

4 points

Mar 14, 2025 1:09 PM in response to Tesserax

I understand the limit of the HDMI 1.4 I can use for the Dell monitor to go with the mini M4 HDMI 2.1. I suppose the performance will go with the lesser of the version which is 1.4. If 1.4 would give me 1080 performance, it would be acceptable. I didn't know if would drop down to 720. With a high speed or premium high speed hdmi cable help to enhance the performance?

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Dell Ultrasharp Connection to Mac Mini M4

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