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

I understand that the new Macbook Pro 15" (late 2013 with Nvidia) supports 4K screen resolutions via HDMI at low hertz. But does it support 4K via Thunderbolt/Displayport? I read on Intel's web that the NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M with 2GB memory in theory can support it. Would be important as a range of new 4K 32" monitors will come out over the next year. Would be great for photo, video editing etc.

MacBook Pro with Retina display, OS X Mavericks (10.9)

Posted on Oct 24, 2013 2:48 AM

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Posted on Oct 26, 2013 10:30 AM

I also am very confused by this because per apple's support page it only supports 4K via HDMI at 30Hz but SHOULD support 60Hz via a mini display port 1.2 specification built into thunderbolt 2.


However, I think it does include 60Hz support (although not mentioned on apple's website). My evidence of this is that on the ifixit teardown they found a an Intel DSL 5520 Thunderbolt 2 controller which according to Intel's and Wikipedia's website is falcon ridge which means it should support Display port 1.2 natively. Plus, on apple's thunderbolt page they specifically mention connecting a 4K display to a macbook pro through the thunderbolt port (not which is suggested by the support page listed above):


"Now with Thunderbolt 2 built into the new Mac Pro and MacBook Pro with Retina display, you can connect the latest 4K desktop displays and get double the bandwidth for your peripherals. And the two generations of Thunderbolt technology are compatible with each other."



Also, the Apple mini displayport support page has not been updated since 2012 but I believe it is just showing old information


The BIG piece of evidence against the new macbook pro's supporting 4K through the thunderbolt port is that on apple's tech specs page they specifically mention 4K under the HDMI section but make no mention of it under the thunderbolt 2 section.

312 replies

Dec 6, 2013 8:30 AM in response to ChrBart

It works on Windows because the 750M and Iris pro drivers support it.

On OS X Mavericks, the drivers don't support it, or there is something else in the OS that supports it.


""there is no display port to HDMI adapter that goes higher than 1080p." - but it should not be impossible to build one, right? Displayport does 4K@60Hz and HDMI2 does 4K@60Hz."


I guess, but it's probably going to be very expensive.

I don't know, can't speak on such matters as HDMI 2.0 products are not shipping and won't for at least a few months.

Dec 6, 2013 9:07 AM in response to NiqueXyZ

> The "Adapter" is not an adapter as you think.

> there is no display port to HDMI adapter that goes higher than 1080p.


It's not nearly as bad as that. There are < $40 adapters right now that do Thunderbolt to HDMI and gt 4K@30fps - with plenty of posts confirming this to be the case. The adapters DO have to be active, but they don't have to be an entire GPU. (Provided your GPU+drivers suport 4K@30) So I can't imagine things would look different at 60 Hz. But again it won't matter if most displays adapt DisplayPort.


There is great hope/anticipation in the community that Mavericks will get an update to enable multi-stream support, motivated in part by the Mac Pro release.

Dec 14, 2013 4:05 PM in response to kogir

Thank you, kogir. I had purchased the 1st gen rMBP, my only Mac purchase, which I had returned as I decided to wait for Haswell or Broadwell update. Before returning I had installed Windows 7 and as far as I remember, upon the installation, Windows 7 finds and installs the drivers for each hardware. Which driver are you referring to? Is it the one that Windows finds, or should I look for the updated driver of that or another driver?

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

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