For the record, I am talking about my USB-C gigabit Ethernet adapters plugged into my Mac, not the monitor’s inputs. I wouldn’t trust the monitor’s inputs for anything more than keyboard and mouse.
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LG UltraFine 5K - Owners Thread
- Thread starter iBrooker
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I can definitely recommend it but be sure you buy the new 2019 version which fixed the problems the first version has (new version model: 27MD5KL-B). Almost all complaints are about the first version so i'd avoid that version.
It's the only 5K resolution option; the only Retina Display option. I would recommend the monitor as long as you know it has some quirks. The display quality itself is excellent.
After using these UltraFine 5K monitors for the past two years, I can't look at other monitors without seeing pixels now...
+1 on the original 21.5 4K, i've had it for a year.
Next to it, a 9.7" packed pixels display which is essentially an iPad panel.
everything i look at looks like someone rubbed shards in my eyes
Reading reports of how the XDR works flawlessly when plugging into a MBP with reliable wake from sleep every time makes the LG and its quirks slightly more irritating. I've been using this thing for 2 years, and it really does look beautiful, but it feels like there's a 15% chance it's not going to work when I plug it in each day. When that happens, it usually involves power cycling the monitor, rebooting, or both. I swap between a 2019 15" (work) and 2019 16" (personal) days and nights, so there's a fair amount of swapping going on. Probably more than most people.
A lot (or most?) of those quirks are fixed in the 2019 version. Switching, image retention, wave problem etc. You also have a Iiyama, Planar, HP and Dell 5K monitor but the LG is easily the nicest one. I think the HP and Dell are even discontinued. I totally agree on can't switching back to <5K.
Fixed in the new 2019 version.
They only sell the new one but I'd definitely check to be sure: 27MD5KL-B
That’s good to hear. Maybe it was a hardware thing if they didn’t push it down to earlier versions with a firmware update.
Can’t really justify buying another 5K, but if they drop an Ultrafine 6K, it’ll definitely be worth considering now that they seem to have things figured out.
It’s possible it’s hardware-related, but LG has been awful about firmware updates for this product. For all we know, a simple firmware update could fix all of these issues. I mean, when was the last one? 3.04 was over a year ago.
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This is my exact situation as well. I have two of these monitors and two MBPs. I am constantly switching between and most of the time I have to open the laptop to to get anything other than a black screen. So stupid.
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It's infuriating to be honest. It's so close to being a perfect solution, and then fails in the most miserable way. That dance where you're sitting there in front of a black monitor pressing keys on your kb and mouse wondering if this will be the time it doesn't wake up after thinking about it for 15-20 seconds is exactly the sort of thing I went to Apple to get away from. I'm damn near ready to drop $6000 on a monitor that's WAY overkill for what I do just to have something that works reliably.
Also, I'm sick of the ugly LG flopping around on the stand.
As mentioned before I have none of the problems with the new LG 5K monitor but that stand really is ridiculous. I replaced it with a Jarvis monitor arm which looks and works great and I wanted anyway. The higher end BenQ monitors for example have great heavy stands... it's possible around that (or lower) price.
FYI, one of my stands was wobbly as heck for some reason and my other one was rock solid. I called LG and they actually sent me two stands (weird, but cool). The replacement stands are rock solid as well. You may want to try and give LG support a call for that. It was free when I did it.
Sorry, if this was covered in the 73 pages... And I'm sure it was, but I just didn't see it in my quick review.
Regarding cables, do I gain any benefit if I'm going over 0.7 mm from an active TB3 cable (e.g., 40 max) vs. passive (e.g., 20 max)? Not that the price is that big of a difference, but why waste the money if no utility gained. I'm using the screen with a 2018 Mac Mini which is just a bit too far away to use a sub 1mm cable.
Thank you
Regarding cables, do I gain any benefit if I'm going over 0.7 mm from an active TB3 cable (e.g., 40 max) vs. passive (e.g., 20 max)? Not that the price is that big of a difference, but why waste the money if no utility gained. I'm using the screen with a 2018 Mac Mini which is just a bit too far away to use a sub 1mm cable.
Thank you
5K requires a 40 Gbps Thunderbolt 3 cable. 20 Gbps is only enough for 4K or two 1440p displays.
Yeah I know. Thank you. Which cable can you recommend that I can directly order from
Apple? Maybe one that is like 1m long?
Apple sells a passive 0.8m cable and a more expensive 2m Belkin cable. If you still have the cable that came with the LG, then you should use that unless it's too short.
I'm using a 5K Ultrafine with my 2015 27" iMac (with maxed out graphics card). It's a configuration that Apple claims isn't supported for 5K, and the system only has Thunderbolt 2. Yet the secondary display seems to match the internal 5K display, and all of the monitor reporting utilities I can find indicate that it's running at 5K. I don't see any lag on the display. I've reported this on the forum and people were convinced that it's somehow actually running at 4K and just scaling, but if the system utilities indicate that it's running at 5K, and the image and text looks the same with both monitors side by side, I'm not sure how else to explain it.
Either way, I bring it up because if it truly is running at 5K then it should mean that 5K can technically go over Thunderbolt 2.
5K@60Hz requires more than the 20Gbps TB2 provides, so you are getting upscaled 4K or maybe 5K@30Hz.
Hi. I finally unpacked the 5K and hooked it up to the left-most TB port on my Mac Mini. I have an eGPU with a Radeon 580 on the right most port. I have designated the LG 4K monitor I have as my primary, as I understand that it leads to higher likelihood that both displays use the eGPU? Not sure that's correct.
I have also gone through and updated the Get Info preferences on a bunch of key apps to preference the eGPU. But I still felt like I was getting some choppy scrolling.
I then went ahead and watched a 4k 60Hz video on YouTube via Firefox (also with preference eGPU box set).
Notably, in GPU History in System Monitor, the eGPU was clearly working with pretty high blue bars. The video was really nice and smooth on the 4K (which is connected via DisplayPort to the eGPU). But when I moved it over to the LG 5K, lots of frames were dropped. Nonetheless, the GPU History continued to seem like the eGPU was being used.
Is this just a function of having that many more pixels to push (for the exact same content)? I would have thought that a reasonable GPU like the Sapphire Radeon 580 would be more than enough for something like that. Or am I not really getting the eGPU to work?
The screen is beautiful to look at, but concerned this set up is a fail, if I can only use the internal GPU...
Thoughts? Has anyone had experience with set-eGPU?
Thanks!
EDIT: One additional note. I have a Akitio TB3 box with my User drive attached to the TB3 port next to the eGPU. Is that a mistake? What would be optimal if I have:
1. LG 5k Ultrafine
2. Akitio 4 drive TB3 enclosure
3. Razer Core eGPU enclosure
Thanks again.
I have also gone through and updated the Get Info preferences on a bunch of key apps to preference the eGPU. But I still felt like I was getting some choppy scrolling.
I then went ahead and watched a 4k 60Hz video on YouTube via Firefox (also with preference eGPU box set).
Notably, in GPU History in System Monitor, the eGPU was clearly working with pretty high blue bars. The video was really nice and smooth on the 4K (which is connected via DisplayPort to the eGPU). But when I moved it over to the LG 5K, lots of frames were dropped. Nonetheless, the GPU History continued to seem like the eGPU was being used.
Is this just a function of having that many more pixels to push (for the exact same content)? I would have thought that a reasonable GPU like the Sapphire Radeon 580 would be more than enough for something like that. Or am I not really getting the eGPU to work?
The screen is beautiful to look at, but concerned this set up is a fail, if I can only use the internal GPU...
Thoughts? Has anyone had experience with set-eGPU?
Thanks!
EDIT: One additional note. I have a Akitio TB3 box with my User drive attached to the TB3 port next to the eGPU. Is that a mistake? What would be optimal if I have:
1. LG 5k Ultrafine
2. Akitio 4 drive TB3 enclosure
3. Razer Core eGPU enclosure
Thanks again.