New display / performance questions

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Level 1

8 points

New display / performance questions

Greetings!

I am in the market for a new display (LG 34WK95U 34" 21:9 UltraWide 5K Nano IPS Monitor) and not sure how my current MacBook Pro can handle it, or what connection method would be best. Specs listed below. I am intrigued by this LG display for 2 reasons. First being the vertical resolution is 2160, so I wouldn't be sacrificing the vertical space of a standard 4K screen. The second being the new nano IPS and color reproduction, and also HDR 600 rating. I am starting to work with HDR photography, so this is important to me. The 21:9 aspect ratio would like being 2 wide screen monitors side by side which I normally do now anyway, so the ultrawide would cut that down to a single monitor.

The main workload I would use it for is photography, some video, and web design. The rest would fall into the productivity category. Long story short, I am not a serious gamer that demands high refresh rates and such. 60Hz should be just fine I would think. But I am curious about the performance impact on my productivity when running at the 5K resolution.

MacBook Pro (Retina 15-inch, Mid 2014)

Processor: 2.5 GHz Intel Core i7

Memory: 16GB 1600 MHz DDR3

Graphics: NVIDIA GeForce GT 750M 2048MB

Can someone please provide me with some solid insight on if I will notice any major drop in performance vs running my retina display? I understand upgrading my machine will make this a non-issue, but I am working very well off this 2014 MacBook and I plan to upgrade sometime next year but not quite ready to make the jump to a new machine just yet. Please advise.

Thank you,

Kevin

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014), macOS High Sierra (10.13.4)

Posted on May 26, 2018 10:08 PM

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Answer 1

May 27, 2018 8:16 AM in response to kjparenteau

Your Mac has two ThunderBolt-2 ports, which can supply Mini-DisplayPort (a ThunderBolt-2 subset) with just a cable. But:

2nd Display Support: Dual/Mirroring* 2nd Max. Resolution: 2560x1600 (x2*)

Details:
*This model supports a simultaneous maximum resolution up to 2560x1600 on two external displays via Thunderbolt.

Alternately, it can support a single display up to 2560x1600 via Thunderbolt and a single 1080p display at up to 60 Hz, 3840x2160 at 30 Hz, or 4096x2160 at 24 Hz via HDMI.

provided this is your macBook Pro:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/specs/macbook-pro-core-i7-2.5-15- dual-graphics-mid-2014-retina-display-sp…

Performance drop? none whatsoever.

Refreshing the screen is handled by dedicated hardware that has no impact on processing power. Best results are always obtained from DisplayPort family over older "legacy" display types like HDMI.

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Answer 2

kjparenteau Author

Level 1

8 points

May 27, 2018 9:18 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Thank you for your response. Yes that makes sense, and I didn't even think about the max resolution of the display adapter. I just read at the link below that there are some potential hacks to exceed the maximum resolution. Do you have any experience with this?

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pro-retina-display-faq/ma cbook-pro-retina-display-hack-to-run-nat…

My current display stopped working, so I am definitely in the market for a new display before a new system at this point. If there's any chance at all to efficiently run this new LG 5K Ultrawide I mentioned when it comes out, I think it would be a good way to future proof my setup a bit. Unless you have a different suggestion? Any input would be much appreciated.

Thank you so much in advance!

Kevin

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Answer 3

May 27, 2018 10:05 AM in response to kjparenteau

That article is referring to the Retina Display settings that draw pictures in memory at effectively high resolution and text as "doubled" to appear larger, then scale everything down to fit on the display.

With the third-party Utilities mentioned, you may be able to stretch the maximum resolution slightly, but not nearly as far as 3840 by 2160 "4K", or all the way to "5K".

That display on your current Mac may show a large black space around the image, may show a stretched image, or may turn the display black.

--------

You keep asking about efficiency. There is NO performance impact from running additional displays. The computation and the displaying is done by special-purpose Hardware, dedicated to servicing displays. Your computations on other tasks are not affected in any substantial way, except that computing special-effects for videos or photo editing takes longer, because there are more pixels to compute.

--------

Compare and contrast to a software solution: DisplayLink. An extension creates a display buffer in the computer's RAM memory. The extension sends the display data out over an "ordinary" interface, such as USB-2. An external stunt-box converts that data onto a display cable, and it is shown on an external display, with a slight delay.

These DisplayLink displays are known to be laggy and slow-to-update. Some users complain that using a mouse on such a display quickly becomes tiresome, because the screen updates as the mouse moves across the screen are too laggy. These would Not be suitable for full motion Video, in my opinion.

This artcilcle even includes a demo:

https://everymac.com/systems/apple/macbook_pro/macbook-pro-unibody-faq/macbook-p ro-air-how-to-connect-a-second-external-…

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Answer 4

kjparenteau Author

Level 1

8 points

May 27, 2018 10:32 AM in response to Grant Bennet-Alder

Grant,

Again thank you for your response. You make some solid points for sure. The only testing I have been able to do so far is I have already hooked up my MacBook to a 4K display with HDMI. It seemed to work just fine with the scaling options for "More Space" and 3840 x 2160 resolution. It was a TV so the subpixel layout is obviously different, and as such the text wasn't sharp, but the overall operation and workability was fine. I will only run a single display, the MacBook will be closed an in a dock, so it may be possible that one of those hacks will work.

Ultimately I am confident in a standard 4K resolution display, but the question of the New LG Ultrawide Display at 5120 x 2160 resolution is where things get a little fuzzy. Maybe I need to hold off on such a display until I get a newer machine. In any case, I appreciate your responses and I will definitely keep them in mind as I continue down the path of deciding what I would like to do.

Thank you again,

Kevin

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