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avoidant

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Aug 4, 2014
2
0
London
I would like to connect a 4k TV to my Macbook Pro 15" Mid 2012 with thunderbolt port?
Graphic card: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
what are the ways around it?
Would it be economical to upgrade the graphic card?
I would appreciate your advice.
 
I would like to connect a 4k TV to my Macbook Pro 15" Mid 2012 with thunderbolt port?
Graphic card: Intel HD Graphics 4000 1024 MB
what are the ways around it?
Would it be economical to upgrade the graphic card?
I would appreciate your advice.
As far as I know, no, you cannot push 4K out of that computer.

Upgrading a graphics card in a laptop(any laptop, not just Apple) is, 99% of the time, impossible. Everything is soldered to the logicboard.
 
The Intel graphic card is actually taking 2/3 of the silicon so it is impossible to replace the integrated card.
 
But the 2012 do come with dedicated graphics Nvdia 650m
Yes if you're willing to carefully unsolder the GPU (may not even be possible depending on location), find a GPU that will fit in the exact space (seems unlikely), doesn't exceed power and thermal (I'm guessing any of the Nvidia x50m series might do), carefully solder on the GPU and "bake" it, and finally have the correct mac drivers for the GPU (only 650m and 750m officially have drivers, the iMac do have others but they wouldn't fit in the Macbook Pro due to power constraints).
 
It's not a graphics card problem and yes you can use it with a 4K TV, it will work through the HDMI @30Hz but that is the best you will get out of that machine I'm afraid due to thunderbolt 1 bandwidth limitations.
 
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