Need alittle help (Thinking of finally going over from PC > Mac)

[nastypaz]

Hello!

I'm a music producer and I'm had to sell alot of my stuff and I am about to purchase and get my new studio up and running!

I am very conflicted over what to pick tho, I have been a PC user, musican and a gamer all my life. As I grew older my interest for games has diminished and all I want, and will do on my computer are 3 things: Watch youtube videos, Create music through Ableton and record, edit and upload Videos on youtube. Nothing more, nothing less.

I have been playing with the thought to buying the M1 MAX Mac Studio with 64gig ram and 2TB drive.

I have watched SEVERAL videos on switching from Windows > Mac, what to expect and so on and all changes are fully acceptable.



I really like the idea of Mac cause most of my studio hardware, plugins and so on are prioritized for mac first and PC second, which means I will always get the best and newest updates on a mac first. They integrate good with my Iphone 12 and Airpod Pro and they seem to actually be tailored after what I want to do (Music producing & content creating)



To the only issue I have which maybe can get resolved here, IF i were to go with the Mac Studio. I have used a PC my whole life, and I am used to browse and work on my computer at a higher refresh rate (144hz at a minimum) and I will NEVER go down or go back to 60 HZ. And I have seen that Mac Studio (Maybe also mac mini) has had some problems with resolutions and scaling and stuff becoming blurry when using a different display with a higher refreshrate etc and even effecting performance

Then I saw alot of people saying that you can buy a USB-C to Displayport cable and you wont have any blurryness?



So my question boils down to; Can I buy a bigger curved screen (30"+) with maybe 144HZ or higher, and use a USB-C -> Displayport cable and get a good result without sacrificing performance and picture-sharpness? and NOT having everything super small? (Icons etc)



I tried to look this information up everywhere but i seem to get different messages everytime i look



Thanks!

 

[MacGizmo]

and NOT having everything super small? (Icons etc)

That is completely up to you and what resolution you choose. The higher the resolution, the smaller the GUI will be. The refresh rate has nothing to do with that. I will say that with a 30" screen, unless you get a 5k display, there's almost no chance that anything will be small on the screen. I have a 34" 5k/2k screen and I find the GUI to be perfectly readable at the full 5120x2160 resolution.

As for the rest of your question(s), I don't have enough knowledge about the various connection methods to help you with full confidence.

 

[Fishrrman]

Not sure if the Studio will sync with displays at over 120hz. This isn't to say "they won't work". They just will run at a lower refresh rate. Maybe even just 60hz.

For music production, if you want super-wide, I'd be looking at a display that is essentially two 1440p displays "side-by-side". Not curved, either -- flat. Plenty of room for a long timeline.

 

[ixxx69]

I tried to look this information up everywhere but i seem to get different messages everytime i look

And you'll get different messages here as well. Like the rest of the internet, it's really challenging on forums to know what's good info and what's bad info.

The Mac Studio supports 144hz displays (and higher) through the Thunderbolt ports. You can use a USB-C (data) cable end-to-end if the display supports USB-C input (or Thunderbolt cable if the display supports TB). You can use a USB-C to DisplayPort cable if your display has DP input.

It's critical that the USB-C cable support the resolution at the refresh rate that you desire. 4K@144hz is widely available (sometimes marketed at an "8K" cable). Higher refresh rates than 144hz will likely mean a drop in supported resolution. Higher resolutions than 4K will likely mean a drop in supported refresh rates. Here's an example that is very clear about the resolutions and refresh rates it supports:

Silkland USB C to DisplayPort 1.4 Cable Thunderbolt 4/3 to DisplayPort [8K@60Hz, 4K@144Hz, 2K@240Hz] C to DP, 32.4Gbps Compatible for MacBook Pro M1/M2/M3, Mac mini, Odyssey G8/G9, LG Ultrawide, 6.6ft

Silkland 8K USB C to DisplayPort cable 1.4 supports up to 8K@60Hz, 5K(5120x2880)@60Hz, 5120x1440@120Hz, 4K@144Hz/120Hz, 2K@240Hz/165Hz/144Hz /120Hz

www.amazon.com

The Mac Studio has an HDMI 2.0 port that's limited to 60hz output, so you won't want to use that.

Any issues with the above that you've seen on the internet is mostly random people having random problems. Crummy displays, crummy cables/adapters, defective devices, user error, etc. Try to determine the display(s) you're considering, and then check if there are known issues.

"Super small icons, etc" is adjusted with the scale setting in the macOS display settings. Just like in Windows where you can set a scale factor for the screen, you can do similar in macOS (only on HiDPI displays, e.g. 4K).

 

[nastypaz]

And you'll get different messages here as well. Like the rest of the internet, it's really challenging on forums to know what's good info and what's bad info.

The Mac Studio supports 144hz displays (and higher) through the Thunderbolt ports. You can use a USB-C (data) cable end-to-end if the display supports USB-C input (or Thunderbolt cable if the display supports TB). You can use a USB-C to DisplayPort cable if your display has DP input.

It's critical that the USB-C cable support the resolution at the refresh rate that you desire. 4K@144hz is widely available (sometimes marketed at an "8K" cable). Higher refresh rates than 144hz will likely mean a drop in supported resolution. Higher resolutions than 4K will likely mean a drop in supported refresh rates. Here's an example that is very clear about the resolutions and refresh rates it supports:

Silkland USB C to DisplayPort 1.4 Cable Thunderbolt 4/3 to DisplayPort [8K@60Hz, 4K@144Hz, 2K@240Hz] C to DP, 32.4Gbps Compatible for MacBook Pro M1/M2/M3, Mac mini, Odyssey G8/G9, LG Ultrawide, 6.6ft

Silkland 8K USB C to DisplayPort cable 1.4 supports up to 8K@60Hz, 5K(5120x2880)@60Hz, 5120x1440@120Hz, 4K@144Hz/120Hz, 2K@240Hz/165Hz/144Hz /120Hz

www.amazon.com

The Mac Studio has an HDMI 2.0 port that's limited to 60hz output, so you won't want to use that.

Any issues with the above that you've seen on the internet is mostly random people having random problems. Crummy displays, crummy cables/adapters, defective devices, user error, etc. Try to determine the display(s) you're considering, and then check if there are known issues.

"Super small icons, etc" is adjusted with the scale setting in the macOS display settings. Just like in Windows where you can set a scale factor for the screen, you can do similar in macOS (only on HiDPI displays, e.g. 4K).

Finally someone who knows what they are talking about, the problem with the internet is that everyone has a voice, so sometimes It can be very hard to navigate to whom you should listen to. I got some help over at Reddit aswell and at a swedish forum so I got it all covered now, thank you again for your very detailed and knowledgeable response! The new information I got here was what cable to look after (Did not know this yet) so now thanks to your response I got all information I need to proceed with my purchase!

Thanks a bunch!

 

[pshufd]

Finally someone who knows what they are talking about, the problem with the internet is that everyone has a voice, so sometimes It can be very hard to navigate to whom you should listen to. I got some help over at Reddit aswell and at a swedish forum so I got it all covered now, thank you again for your very detailed and knowledgeable response! The new information I got here was what cable to look after (Did not know this yet) so now thanks to your response I got all information I need to proceed with my purchase!

Thanks a bunch!

Ideally you want to find someone who has run into your same problem and has solved it. That can take a lot of tinkering, buying and returning cables, monitors and hubs and nobody really likes to be the person that does all of that tinkering. I have electronics parts boxes with all kind of cables, adapters, lots of Macs (I have 9 and the family has something like 15 in total), so I can tinker with the hardware that I have and can state what worked for me. But that's about it outside of what I read - but doing it yourself is a lot more authoritative than referencing what someone else did.