Mac Pro and NEC 30" display

Hi lungh,

You won't need any cable from Apple at all.

The NEC 30" display comes complete with the correct cable for connection to the Mac Pro's DVI Display Port (dual-link).

I purchased a Mac Pro and an NEC Multisync LCD 3090WQXi in July 2009, and everything I needed came with the display.

It was just a matter of connecting the display, switching on the power, and everything was set up automatically.

At that time I had a GT120 Graphics Card, but in November last year I upgraded to an HD4870, and the NEC display has worked impeccably with both cards.

Regards,

Bill

PS

I bought the Silver finish NEC display, instead of the more common black, and it looks superb alongside my Mac Pro.

Hi again lungh,

http://www.apple.com/uk/macpro/features/graphics.html

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Graphics on display.
Every new Mac Pro graphics card features three display ports for maximum workspace flexibility. Two Mini DisplayPort outputs connect to a pair of Apple LED Cinema Displays with ease. And a dual-link DVI port connects a 30-inch Apple Cinema HD Display or other DVI display. And with support for two ATI Radeon HD 5770 cards in the Mac Pro, you can connect more displays — up to six in total.
******************************************************************************** ************************

The above is just to confirm that the latest Mac Pro graphics cards have the dual-link DVI port to which you connect the 30" display, using the DVI signal cable supplied by NEC.

NEC also include a 15-pin mini D-SUB to DVI-A signal cable, which does require a Mac cable adapter, but that is not needed for connection to the Mac Pro.
Regards,

Bill

You get a better picture with the all-digital signal. A monitor as wide as 30" diagonal will require a Dual Link cable. (Basically, anything over 1920 Horizontal needs dual link.) If they didn't put a Dual Link cable in the box, they would be idiots.

Dual Link divides the screen data into left and right "panes", and sends each pane on separate pins using the same control signals. Splitting the data in this way reduces the speed at which the whole thing must be clocked back to a reasonable rate. Dual Link has nothing to do with multiple displays.

The Mini DisplayPorts are Digital plus Analog. It is not clear to me whether the DVI has the Analog signals as well, but a quick inspection can tell you. The Analog signals include the bar at the end of the connector, the four pins around it, plus pin 8 (last pin on the top row) from the Digital part of the grid. If the pins are there, its DVI-I, if not just DVI-D.

Is the DVI-D to DVI-D cable comes withe NEC 30" monitor is dual-link or not?

If the cable is shipped with a display that needs dual-link, it would be a dual-link cable.

is the Mac Pro's dual-link DVI port a DVI-D or DVI-I?

DVI-I, but it can accept any DVI cable.

Hi Howard,

Apologies for not replying sooner, but I have only just logged in again, due to the time difference between UK and USA!

The answers to your questions are:

(1) The NEC Video Signal Cable is dual-link (DVI-D to DVI-D cable).

(2) The dual-link ports of the HD5770/HD5870 graphics cards of the new Mac Pros are DVI-I.

The dual-link DVI-D to DVI-D video signal cable supplied with the NEC display is compatible with the dual-link DVI-I port of the Mac Pro's graphics cards.

Difference between DVI-D and DVI-I:-

DVI-D (D for Digital) can handle digital only

DVI-I (I for interlaced) can handle both digital and analogue

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

I hope this clarifies the matter.

Regards,

Bill

Worth keeping in mind that if you're buying this for color correction work and it is a 10 bit monitor, you cannot achieve 10-bit color through a DVI connection AFAIK. You need to use the DisplayPort, which means you have to buy a cable from a third party. I mention it only because many people are having issues with this setup. I've created a new catch-all thread where people can list their system setup and problem they're having (usually jumpy mouse cursor or sleep issues).

http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?threadID=2675861&tstart=0

Never mind; Apple censored my topic. Very helpful, Apple. Thank you for your strong efforts in helping to identify the causes of these display issues, as I tried to aggregate some useful information for you.

Dan,

What do you make of this, please:

I have just taken delivery of a Mac Pro 8-core, New Old Stock, last year's model, the 2.26 GHz stock model.

I started it up, and the display looks like a green blizzard. I am tempted to conclude a bad video card in the new machine -- because the display, a Samsung 906BW, gives a perfect picture with my old G4 and its dinosaur OEM Rage128Pro video card.

BUT: I've just plugged the Samsung into my MacBook (late 2007 Santa Rosa 2GHz) via the mini-DV output, and I get the "green snow" again.

Now, I'm using a 10-foot-long Cables Unlimited DVI-D dual-link cable. And again, it works flawlessly between the G4 and the Samsung monitor: the picture on the screen is perfect.

Could there some kind of cable compatibility issue here? Any idea? Thanks...

Hi Angus. Not exactly sure what's going on there but it would be worth trying another cable from your Mac Pro to the Samsung. If that produces the green snow you know it's probably not the cable (what are the odds you'd have two cables that cause green snow?). 🙂