Does the new Macbook Pro 15" (late 2013) supports 4K via Thunderbolt/Displayport?

AnotherAppleUser wrote:

Big.Lou - Last question: the externals function as two seperate desktop, not mirrored, correct?

Correct two seperate desktops

Kogir or other forumites:

1) Do you have an idea whether Iris can also output 4K @ 60Hz? Or is this exclusive to the top-of-the-line rMBP sporting the Nvidia 750M?

2) If your answer is yes, then even the lowest 13-inch October 2013 rMBP can theoritically output 4K @ 60Hz. Could you please comment on how the performance would be?

PS. I will be outputing only to one monitor/TV if that makes a difference.

1) No idea, sorry. You'd have to try it.

2) For web browsing it'd probably be fine. Don't think you'll be gaming on it though, and even full screen video would probably be dicey.

Iris can do 4K at 60HZ but only over Mini Display Port 1.2 (and for whatever reason, it looks like this is not implemented in OS X yet? whiskey tango foxtrot? So in order to get this you have to run windows 8 on your mac -- LMAO!) -- not HDMI.

Scroll down to "Display connectivity" section.

http://www.hardwareluxx.com/index.php/reviews/hardware/cpu/26405-haswell-test-in tel-core-i7-4770k-and-i5-4670k.html?start=2

The same thing goes for the 750M version, since 4K @ 60Hz requires HDMI 2.0

Regardless of the GPU, HDMI 1.4 maxes out at 3840×2160p at 30 fps

I guess this is why no one is pushing 4K tvs on black friday sales -- all of the TVs have HDMI 1.4!

So they're limited to 30Hz at 4K resolution....awful.

Maybe it's best to wait until HDMI 2.0 starts shipping in a Mac to upgrade your displays to 4K..

Interesting. I have a late 2013 MBP retina 13" 256/8 with Iris Graphics. I also cant wait to finally purchase an affordable 4k monitor, which i expect to run at 60 Hz.

First thing i am a bit worried about though is the performance of the iris graphics. Do you think it will be able to do 4k Video @60 Hz? That would be really nice.

In terms of ports, Displayport 1.2 integrated into the TB2 ports would work theoretically, but i understand it is not implemented in Mavericks yet, right?

If thats the case, what about Thunderbolt 2 itself? Not sure how the original Tunderbolt display was connected, via Displayport or otherwise?

Intel Demo'd Iris and yes, it can do 4K @ 60Hz.

Anand Tech did an article about it, IIRC.

The performance is OK, it's not great...you can't game at that resolution, for example...no way.

Iris Pro on the other hand, that is a different story. Iris Pro actually can perform well, and you could probably game on it at 4K @ 60Hz.

The weird thing is, the 13" does not have the "Iris Pro" graphics, only the one 15" model has that...which makes no sense....Why would you want the 15" *without* a discreet GPU and only Intel on-die GPU?

The problem (that I see) you'll run into is powering the built in 13" display in scaling mode (ie. any mode other than "best for retina display") AND a 4K display @ 60Hz -- I'm not sure that will work too well.

If you set the built in display to "best for retina display" then I think it will perform well powering both...but if you use scaling with the built in display, forget about it.

Even just on it's own, the fully loaded 2013 13" retina, just it's own built-in screen -- if it's set to anything other than "best for retina display" lags. Don't believe me? Go to system preferences -> displays, change the resolution to "More Space" and scaled -- the largest one.

Then open a PDF in safari. Try pinch to zoom. Woah, where is that lag coming from?

If you have it, open Adobe Photoshop and try pinch to zoom. Yeah. Not working so well.

This is the same exact behavior on the 2012 13" retina, which has an even crappier built-in Intel GPU (HD 4000). Why they choose to call these machines "pro" is beyond me. A pro machine deserves a **dedicated** gpu. Not a fake GPU.

Iris Pro (HD 5200) could have fixed this problem without any major effect on heat or power, because on those chips, the built in GPU has 128MB of eDRAM. But none of the Intel chips that have Iris Pro on them are available for the 13" retina. Great decision making, Apple. There is ony model of 15" retina you can buy that has just the Iris Pro graphics, and no dedicated GPU. Why anyone would want to buy the 15" retina without the 750M is beyond me.

Apple needs to either put the Iris Pro GPU in the 13" or give 13" the option to have a dedicated GPU. This will fix the problems with laggy graphics. One last thing -- if you have either the 13" retina from 2012 or 2013, upgrade it to Mavericks. Mavericks gives OpenCL drivers to both 4000 and 5000 Intel GPUs.

And yes -- lastly, Multi Stream Display Port (required to drive a 4K display @ 60Hz) does not work in OS X at this moment.

If you connect a 4K monitor and try to run it at 60Hz, you'll see black on half the display.

It *does* however work in Windows though. So yeah, in order to run 4K on your mac @ 60Hz right now, you need to not run OS X and run Windows 8.

Pretty funny...

Good to hear that the standard Iris graphics can output 4k @60Hz. Gaming is not an option sure, but Video (scaled 1080p or 4k) would be important for me. I mean, Apple is advertising 4k through HDMI on these late 2013 MBPs, at 30 and 24Hz. I read that even the mouse would lag at such low frequencies?

Not so good to hear that the necessary Multi Stream DP is not supported in Mavericks. Please Apple, get this fixed until mid 2014! I bought this thing to use it with OS X.

Btw i tried the pich zoom in a pdf directly and through safari on my Iris MBP. Im not an expert, but i didnt really see a lag on the different resolutions (i mostly use the best for retina, the other ones have really quite small fonts and icons on 13" dont they?). I do run Mavericks though, the late 2013s already ship with it pre-installed. So maybe its that OpenCL driver.

I prefer the smallest one (it says "looks like 1680 x 1050") -- because I have a bunch of apps running all at the same time, and it helps to have them all viewable on the same space.

Try opening up more tabs in safari, see if that matters...or try a larger / more colorful PDF, like a restaurant menu. But anyway...

No. Apple clearly states that the HDMI output is limited to 24 or 30 Hz.

This includes the 15" retina with the 750M!

And this is a limitation of HDMI itself -- HDMI 2.0 was just late to the game, so Haswell shipped without it.

All these 2013 macs, all of them, are stuck with HDMI 1.4.

Also, no GPUs have HDMI 2.0 yet as far as I know -- none that are shipping anyway.

So in order to drive 4K displays at this point in time at 60 Hz, you need multi stream display port (display port 1.2), which uses two 1080p streams and combines them into one...again, not supported in Mavericks yet. It's expected that when the "new mac pro" launches, this will be fixed...but I'm not holding my breath.

And yes, you'll see mouse lag running a 4K display at 30 Hz.

The "gold standard" for computing \ scrolling \ screen refresh rate has always been 60 FPS or higher. Some people say you really can't notice anything higher than 60 FPS, but whatever. 30 FPS is half of what you're normally used to....it won't be pretty 😝

Thanks for your reply! Lets hope that the multi-stream DP will be fixed soon.

Btw, i am still wondering why there are (or should be) performance issues with the "scaled" resolutions? I thought the OS would render Icons, text, menu bars etc. depending on the resolution, so best-for retina would have a higher cost than "more-space-1680"?

When it is in "best for retina" mode, it's running at the "optimized" DPI mode that Apple thinks is the best for that display size, regardless of your preferences of how small / large you prefer things to be.

All the icons / UI elements, etc. were specifically designed for this DPI scaling mode....the other, higher scaled modes tax the fake intel GPU more, as they have to adjust the "optimized" UI elements and make them smaller and give you more screen real estate. More screen real estate = more pixels to drive = more mathematical calculations = more taxing on the fake intel GPU (OK it's more like an APU but it's still not a real GPU).

Again, Iris Pro could have fixed this in a heartbeat because of the dedicated 128 MB of eDRAM and Crystal Well design ( for more info about that and why the memory bandwidth of Iris Pro is so much better, read http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i749 50hq-tested/3 ) but for whatever reason, Apple chose not to include Iris Pro chips as an option for the 13" retina. I don't know why they made this decision.

thanks for explaining. Seems to be quite a shame that they didnt out the Iris Pro on it. Anyway before i bought my 13" a friend of mine told me that his 2012 15" with the 750M was lagging as well.

I knew there would be a price to be paid for having one of the very early retina notebooks. So far i dont have any issues though, so i cant really complain. Now if i can also run my 4k Display next year properly, im happy. (and i dont need the mbp display at the same time)

Hi NiqueXyZ,

I don't mean to hijack this thread... Wondering if you have time to revisit the gmail push/activesync thread from a few weeks back. I'd be grateful for your help -- it's driving me nuts.

Thanks!

Kogir, in Mavericks/Displayport, can you use the Asus as two 1920x2160 screens? (Seems the only big downside is the menu bar would only span half the screen.) If so, can you do it @ 60 Hz?

Thanks so much. 🙂

In OS X I've only been able to get it to appear in two modes:

1) Single 3840x2160 with the monitor in SST mode. 30Hz max.

2) Single 1920x2160 with the monitor in MST mode. 60Hz max. The output area is centered with black bars on the sides.

In Windows:

1) Single 3840x2160 with the monitor in SST mode. 30Hz max.

2) Single 3840x2160 with the monitor in MST mode. 60Hz max. I suspect the Nvidia drivers are merging the two displays automatically under the hood, but the result is that it just works.

I have same results as Kogir with a Dell UP3214Q -- Tested this today in the lab.

Windows 8.1's scaling / HiDPI mode is not very good, but whatever...at least it works at 60Hz; OS X can not even claim that title yet 😀

Yeah...they *have* to fix this...hopefully sometime this month...the new trashcantube / mac pro is supposed to be able to power 3 4K displays at 60Hz. The MP uses AMD graphics but the problem I believe is in Mavericks itself.