MP 7,1 The Pro Display XDR buyers thread

[Nomad110]

• 6016 x 3384
• 3008 x 1692
• 2560 x 1440
• 1920 x 1080
• 1504 x 846
• 1280 x 720

I am seeing the same behavior on the 16" MBP with Pro Display XDR.

My work around was to use SwitchResX and drive the display at 3840x2160@60hz in HiDPI mode which is a native resolution but hidden from system preferences. Looks awesome and is very usable. Extremely crisp.

Apple really needs to offer a better "more space" option. I thought the issue was limited to the MBP 16" and I'm surprised to see the MacPro limited to this 3008x1692 UI resolution. This is a straight up downgrade from the UltraFine 5K display which had more usable space. See the comparison below (see UI resolution).

I posted a thread about this here.

Also regarding the local dimming zones. This thing looks just as good at this higher res than it did at the native 3008x1692. HDR content is just bananas. I can't imagine that is why Apple didn't include a better "more space" option.

 

[Adult80HD]

Meh. If FALD LCD TVs with even fewer zones can be made to work acceptably well with all manner of video content then I don't see that as a limitation.

Most FALD TV's have 1/10 the number of dimming zones and more importantly, are not intended to be used as reference displays, so you're comparing apples and oranges here. The only thing they share is the basic FALD architecture.

 

[Nomad110]

Most FALD TV's have 1/10 the number of dimming zones and more importantly, are not intended to be used as reference displays, so you're comparing apples and oranges here. The only thing they share is the basic FALD architecture.

I suppose this is possible for some of their certifications. But still...people upgrading from the UltraFine 5K to the 6K expecting the 40% more UI screen real estate Apple claims on their website are going to be disappointed.

 

[Adult80HD]

I suppose this is possible for some of their certifications. But still...people upgrading from the UltraFine 5K to the 6K expecting the 40% more UI screen real estate Apple claims on their website are going to be disappointed.

Not if they're using it at full resolution. I personally can't imagine NOT using it at full resolution--that's the whole reason I bought the 5K LG back in the day, and the whole reason I've bought a ProXDR.

 

[Nomad110]

Not if they're using it at full resolution. I personally can't imagine NOT using it at full resolution--that's the whole reason I bought the 5K LG back in the day, and the whole reason I've bought a ProXDR.

You would use your display in full resolution (6016x3384)? I don't think that is feasible. The UI is impossibly small on both the 5K and 6K. You would likely use a scaled option.

 

[Adult80HD]

You would use your display in full resolution (6016x3384)? I don't think that is feasible. The UI is impossibly small on both the 5K and 6K. You would likely use a scaled option.

Perhaps I'm the exception, but that is how I use my displays. I want to see my photos for work as close to 1:1 as possible and I shoot with a 61-Mp camera, so I use my 5k at full resolution.

 

[simonnelli]

AFAIK Photoshop always shows the pictures 1:1 no matter which resolution is chosen. Can somebody confirm or deny?

 

[Pressure]

AFAIK Photoshop always shows the pictures 1:1 no matter which resolution is chosen. Can somebody confirm or deny?

That's correct.

 

[Average Pro]

It appears early comments that no one would purchase the XDR display were inaccurate. The lead time for this keeps getting pushed out.

 

[Nomad110]

That's correct.

Same is true of video. Mac OS X handles all of this for you. UI and text is scaled for the retina effect but your content stays 1x1.

 

[wa5655]

Perhaps I'm the exception, but that is how I use my displays. I want to see my photos for work as close to 1:1 as possible and I shoot with a 61-Mp camera, so I use my 5k at full resolution.

Not if they're using it at full resolution. I personally can't imagine NOT using it at full resolution--that's the whole reason I bought the 5K LG back in the day, and the whole reason I've bought a ProXDR.

6K in retina mode? Or one needs to be in 4K in order to achieve retina mode?

 

[OkiRun]

Pro Display XDR doesn't have any buttons and automatically turns on when you plug it into power and connect it to your Mac.
===

The monitor 'never' powers down? Or it turns off when the Mac Pro is turned off?

 

[simonnelli]

The product page states that the USB-C Ports on the back are for charging and synching.
Footnote 3: https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/specs/#footnote-3

When connected to the Mac Pro they're supposed to be at USB2 speeds but when connected to a MPB 16" USB3. Is this because of the display stream compression of the Navi graphics found in the MPB 16"? If so this should mean that the ports also reach USB3 speeds when using the (not available yet) W5700X? (see (see under W5700X https://support.apple.com/kb/SP797?locale=en_US)?

 

[vodouman]

So who else bought one? I ordered mine in the first 20 minutes they were available but still in the "Processing" step.

Anyone actually get theirs yet?

I ordered a Pro Display XDR with poverty glass on 17th December. My order is processing... A mere 54 days until estimated delivery - 14th February.

I also plan to order a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro estimated delivery date is 9th - 16th Jan. So there's no point ordering it just yet if it's going to show up and sit around with a depreciating warranty and no way to use it!

- Vodouman

 

[simonnelli]

Pro Display XDR doesn't have any buttons and automatically turns on when you plug it into power and connect it to your Mac.
===

The monitor 'never' powers down? Or it turns off when the Mac Pro is turned off?

There is no information about power off. The support page only states "Pro Display XDR doesn't have any buttons and automatically turns on when you plug it into power and connect it to your Mac."

Set up and use Apple Pro Display XDR - Apple Support

Learn about Pro Display XDR and how to set up and use it with your Mac.

support.apple.com

I assume the display can be turned of like any iMac or MBP with a keyboard shortcut, active corner and/or power management settings (auto shutoff after X amount of time).

 

[OkiRun]

I ordered a Pro Display XDR with poverty glass on 1st December. My order is processing... A mere 54 days until estimated delivery - 14th February.

I also plan to order a Mac Pro. The Mac Pro estimated delivery date is 9th - 16th Jan. So there's no point ordering it just yet if it's going to show up and sit around with a depreciating warranty and no way to use it!

- Vodouman

I just checked on the anticipated arrival date for the XDR in Japan and it also lists the Feb 14th date. Must be common for international orders...?
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The product page states that the USB-C Ports on the back are for charging and synching.
Footnote 3: https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/specs/#footnote-3

When connected to the Mac Pro they're supposed to be at USB2 speeds but when connected to a MPB 16" USB3. Is this because of the display stream compression of the Navi graphics found in the MPB 16". If so this should mean that the ports also reach USB3 speeds when using the (not available yet) W5700X (see (see under W5700X https://support.apple.com/kb/SP797?locale=en_US)?

Can the USB-C ports on the Pro Display be used for a Time Machine Seagate External HDD backup as well as syncing of an iPad/iPhone?

 

[joevt]

The product page states that the USB-C Ports on the back are for charging and synching.
Footnote 3: https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/specs/#footnote-3

When connected to the Mac Pro they're supposed to be at USB2 speeds but when connected to a MPB 16" USB3. Is this because of the display stream compression of the Navi graphics found in the MPB 16"? If so this should mean that the ports also reach USB3 speeds when using the (not available yet) W5700X? (see (see under W5700X https://support.apple.com/kb/SP797?locale=en_US)?

The only info given by Apple is that the ports are USB 2.0 unless:
1) connected by MBP 16" (as mentioned in the footnote 3 that you linked)
2) the display is run at 5K (footnote 3 of a different set of tech specs at https://support.apple.com/kb/SP800 )

I guess we'll have to wait and see if the W5700X behaves like the 5300M or 5500M of the MBP 16".

Can the USB-C ports on the Pro Display be used for a Time Machine Seagate External HDD backup as well as syncing of an iPad/iPhone?

If you like USB 2.0 speed (at 6K) or USB 3.0 speed (at 5K).

Can you make the USB port speed change by switching between 5K and 6K mode? That would be weird. Or maybe the ports keep a USB 3.0 connection but are limited by the PCIe bandwidth. In other words, the System Information.app will show your device connected at "Up to 5 Gb/s" in the USB section but you'll get crappy benchmarks of less than 100 MB/s instead of 400 MB/s because of the limited PCIe bandwidth. You can simulate the same problem in a normal Mac Pro by reducing the PCIe speed of a USB controller PCIe card from 5 GT/s to 2.5 GT/s (250 MB/s).

 

[joevt]

The following command will show how the USB devices are connected (USB 2.0 or USB 3.0)

system_profiler SPUSBDataType

But you'll need a benchmark to see how the bandwidth is affected.

 

[masterbeat1]

Hey everyone! I received my XDR Display Friday (I was one of the first few minutes to order, originally had the December 20 - 30 ships by date, then strangely got an email a few days ago that said it was slipping to January 8 -11, but crazily it still arrived on the 27th.

I'm currently driving it from my new MacBook Pro 16" top of the line and it's GORGEOUS...

BUT - I'm experiencing a very strange noise issue when hooking up to external speakers. We do audio production, so we need nice studio monitors. I'm traveling now with it, so I don' have my home studio.

At first, I tried to hook up two external KRK Pro Studio Monitor Speakers just using the headphone jack of the MBPZ, and the audio distortion was horrible, it's like you can actually hear the computer thinking through the speakers - all kinds of interference (it even sounds like you hear disk writes and reads (which is silly because its an SSD, but you get the idea).

HERE'S THE DISTURBING PART - If I unplug the XDR Pro Display from the laptop, ALL DISTORTION goes away. Monitors sound fine. I was suspecting interference from the thunderbolt cables next to the microphone port - so I changed sides (power / display on opposite side of headphone jack), and distortion got a little bit better.

Hoping this was a microphone jack issue not happy powering studio monitors, I went and sprung for the latest version Universal Audio's $1000 Twin X USBC 3 Audio Interface, a studio quality audio interface that hooks up via USBC to your computer, then it has it's own external sound card and is now driving the monitors.

Sadly, about 20% of the sound noise and distortion is still there - they are constantly crackling and popping and giving "computer noise" (when you scroll through a web page or do something on screen, you "hear" it in the speakers as noise.). It's much better through the external sound card but still there.

AND AGAIn - HERE IS THE DISTURBING PART - if I disconnect the XDR Pro Display, all sound distortion goes away and they sound pristine and perfect like they should.

I'm starting to worry the Pro XDR display is causing interference issues - radio/magnetic/something - either through it's cabling or just in general giving off interference to the speakers. When it's unplugged, everything is fine, when it's powered up - speaker noise.

I will have to wait until I get back home to try on my studio setup by hooking up the display to iMacPro and different higher quality studio monitors... but this making me nervous.

Surely Apple tested the Pro Display with studio monitors near it.

Many are aware of the horrific issues the first LG 5k monitors had when they came out (they were Apples attempt to deliver a "supported" 5k monitor through LG when Apple discontinued their Cinema Displays and the first batch of them (until fixed 6 months later in version 2) had massive shielding issues - they hadn't properly shielded the monitor and it was causing all kinds of interference issues with speakers, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. It was a disaster for Apple and LG.

I'm having nightmares this is the same issue all over again with a $5,000 display.

Hoping to hear from anyone else who will get an xDR and use in a music studio environment with studio monitors speakers, some kind of sound interface, etc, and see if they get the sound interference I'm getting when the display is connected.

 

[nicho]

Hey everyone! I received my XDR Display Friday (I was one of the first few minutes to order, originally had the December 20 - 30 ships by date, then strangely got an email a few days ago that said it was slipping to January 8 -11, but crazily it still arrived on the 27th.

I'm currently driving it from my new MacBook Pro 16" top of the line and it's GORGEOUS...

BUT - I'm experiencing a very strange noise issue when hooking up to external speakers. We do audio production, so we need nice studio monitors. I'm traveling now with it, so I don' have my home studio.

At first, I tried to hook up two external KRK Pro Studio Monitor Speakers just using the headphone jack of the MBPZ, and the audio distortion was horrible, it's like you can actually hear the computer thinking through the speakers - all kinds of interference (it even sounds like you hear disk writes and reads (which is silly because its an SSD, but you get the idea).

HERE'S THE DISTURBING PART - If I unplug the XDR Pro Display from the laptop, ALL DISTORTION goes away. Monitors sound fine. I was suspecting interference from the thunderbolt cables next to the microphone port - so I changed sides (power / display on opposite side of headphone jack), and distortion got a little bit better.

Hoping this was a microphone jack issue not happy powering studio monitors, I went and sprung for the latest version Universal Audio's $1000 Twin X USBC 3 Audio Interface, a studio quality audio interface that hooks up via USBC to your computer, then it has it's own external sound card and is now driving the monitors.

Sadly, about 20% of the sound noise and distortion is still there - they are constantly crackling and popping and giving "computer noise" (when you scroll through a web page or do something on screen, you "hear" it in the speakers as noise.). It's much better through the external sound card but still there.

AND AGAIn - HERE IS THE DISTURBING PART - if I disconnect the XDR Pro Display, all sound distortion goes away and they sound pristine and perfect like they should.

I'm starting to worry the Pro XDR display is causing interference issues - radio/magnetic/something - either through it's cabling or just in general giving off interference to the speakers. When it's unplugged, everything is fine, when it's powered up - speaker noise.

I will have to wait until I get back home to try on my studio setup by hooking up the display to iMacPro and different higher quality studio monitors... but this making me nervous.

Surely Apple tested the Pro Display with studio monitors near it.

Many are aware of the horrific issues the first LG 5k monitors had when they came out (they were Apples attempt to deliver a "supported" 5k monitor through LG when Apple discontinued their Cinema Displays and the first batch of them (until fixed 6 months later in version 2) had massive shielding issues - they hadn't properly shielded the monitor and it was causing all kinds of interference issues with speakers, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. It was a disaster for Apple and LG.

I'm having nightmares this is the same issue all over again with a $5,000 display.

Hoping to hear from anyone else who will get an xDR and use in a music studio environment with studio monitors speakers, some kind of sound interface, etc, and see if they get the sound interference I'm getting when the display is connected.

Have you tried hooking up the USB C sound card to the back of the XDR display?

 

[joevt]

AND AGAIn - HERE IS THE DISTURBING PART - if I disconnect the XDR Pro Display, all sound distortion goes away and they sound pristine and perfect like they should.

Have you tried connecting any other Thunderbolt 3 devices instead of the XDR?

Or, what about connecting the XDR to a Thunderbolt 3 device that is connected to the MBP?

 

[deconstruct60]

....

The product page states that the USB-C Ports on the back are for charging and synching.
Footnote 3: https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/specs/#footnote-3

They could be used for wired keyboard and mice which typically don't need much more than USB 2 either.
Also I suspect Display Calibration meters also can deal with that kind of bandwidth.

When connected to the Mac Pro they're supposed to be at USB2 speeds but when connected to a MPB 16" USB3. Is this because of the display stream compression of the Navi graphics found in the MPB 16"? If so this should mean that the ports also reach USB3 speeds when using the (not available yet) W5700X? (see (see under W5700X https://support.apple.com/kb/SP797?locale=en_US)?

Display Compression would help. The major issue is that 6K at 10-bit color and 60Hz is pretty close to saturating Thunderbolt with two mostly full DisplayPort 1.4 streams.

there is a bit more than USB 2.0 ( ~0.380 Gb/s ) left but not even to fully qualify for USB 3.0 ( ~4 Gb/s ).

Technically Display Stream Compression isn't lossless. It is 'visually lossless' but for "princess and the pea' color correction it wouldn't be surprising for someone to find a very narrow corner case where it doesn't work at 10-bit ( or higher) color. But even if only got a 1.5:1 compression ratio tha would open up room for decent amount of bandwidth for USB 3.0 bandwidth to get through.


The critical piece would be that the TCON in the XDR could handle Display Stream Compression (decompression part) too. The marketing page spec footnote is suggestive that it does ( that more bandwidth with the MBP 16").
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The only info given by Apple is that the ports are USB 2.0 unless:
1) connected by MBP 16" (as mentioned in the footnote 3 that you linked)
2) the display is run at 5K (footnote 3 of a different set of tech specs at https://support.apple.com/kb/SP800 )

I guess we'll have to wait and see if the W5700X behaves like the 5300M or 5500M of the MBP 16".

That is really odd that the "specs" page for the same product has two different explanations in "footnote 3" covering the same topic.

The 'odd' part is the 5k version of the footnote outlines Macs that aren't on the supported list above. ( So Apple is using 5k only mode to exclude from being formally compatible and then saying you can get to some boosted USB mode with these non officially supported configurations. ). Consistent support docs these are not.

Can you make the USB port speed change by switching between 5K and 6K mode? That would be weird.

It isn't weird at all. 6k of 10 bit color at 60Hz takes up way more bandwidth than 5k does. (even more so with simulated 10 bit color).

On a Thunderbolt network DisplayPort (DP) data gets higher priority than PCI-e data. if there needs to be a 'tie breaker" because at bandwidth limits then PCI-e data 'looses' ( it is throttled). If the DP isn't there than PCI-e can be allocated that bandwidth.

The 5K mode would be feed by two DP v1.2 streams which will take much less bandwidth that two mostly full v1.4 streams. That isn't the primary mode the XDR is designed for though. And it is quite expensive to be run in that limited video mode.


Thunderbolt v3.0 can't actually carry two full bandwidth DP v1.4 streams. But the 6k, 10-bit , 60Hz doesn't quite need two full v1.4 streams. But it is pretty close to the 40 Gb/s that TB v3 has. 6k is pretty much at saturation. ( uncompressed. if shrink it smaller then there is more 'left over' bandwidth available).

 

[deconstruct60]

....
Can the USB-C ports on the Pro Display be used for a Time Machine Seagate External HDD backup as well as syncing of an iPad/iPhone?

Can you? Yes. You can drain a swimming pool using a teaspoon too. The pragmatically the question would be do you really want to. The primary driving requirement for a XDR is handling large context files. That typically makes for very large backups. Those are a much bigger pain to do using USB 2.0 level of bandwidth.

If the context was completely excluded and mainly just backup up the OS image ( and not user context) that probably would be a better match ( e.g. a sub 300GB backup), but if getting up in the TB range that would be extremely slow versus most of the other far more viable options.

 

[Nomad110]

Hey everyone! I received my XDR Display Friday (I was one of the first few minutes to order, originally had the December 20 - 30 ships by date, then strangely got an email a few days ago that said it was slipping to January 8 -11, but crazily it still arrived on the 27th.

I'm currently driving it from my new MacBook Pro 16" top of the line and it's GORGEOUS...

BUT - I'm experiencing a very strange noise issue when hooking up to external speakers. We do audio production, so we need nice studio monitors. I'm traveling now with it, so I don' have my home studio.

At first, I tried to hook up two external KRK Pro Studio Monitor Speakers just using the headphone jack of the MBPZ, and the audio distortion was horrible, it's like you can actually hear the computer thinking through the speakers - all kinds of interference (it even sounds like you hear disk writes and reads (which is silly because its an SSD, but you get the idea).

HERE'S THE DISTURBING PART - If I unplug the XDR Pro Display from the laptop, ALL DISTORTION goes away. Monitors sound fine. I was suspecting interference from the thunderbolt cables next to the microphone port - so I changed sides (power / display on opposite side of headphone jack), and distortion got a little bit better.

Hoping this was a microphone jack issue not happy powering studio monitors, I went and sprung for the latest version Universal Audio's $1000 Twin X USBC 3 Audio Interface, a studio quality audio interface that hooks up via USBC to your computer, then it has it's own external sound card and is now driving the monitors.

Sadly, about 20% of the sound noise and distortion is still there - they are constantly crackling and popping and giving "computer noise" (when you scroll through a web page or do something on screen, you "hear" it in the speakers as noise.). It's much better through the external sound card but still there.

AND AGAIn - HERE IS THE DISTURBING PART - if I disconnect the XDR Pro Display, all sound distortion goes away and they sound pristine and perfect like they should.

I'm starting to worry the Pro XDR display is causing interference issues - radio/magnetic/something - either through it's cabling or just in general giving off interference to the speakers. When it's unplugged, everything is fine, when it's powered up - speaker noise.

I will have to wait until I get back home to try on my studio setup by hooking up the display to iMacPro and different higher quality studio monitors... but this making me nervous.

Surely Apple tested the Pro Display with studio monitors near it.

Many are aware of the horrific issues the first LG 5k monitors had when they came out (they were Apples attempt to deliver a "supported" 5k monitor through LG when Apple discontinued their Cinema Displays and the first batch of them (until fixed 6 months later in version 2) had massive shielding issues - they hadn't properly shielded the monitor and it was causing all kinds of interference issues with speakers, wi-fi, bluetooth, etc. It was a disaster for Apple and LG.

I'm having nightmares this is the same issue all over again with a $5,000 display.

Hoping to hear from anyone else who will get an xDR and use in a music studio environment with studio monitors speakers, some kind of sound interface, etc, and see if they get the sound interference I'm getting when the display is connected.

I have your exact set up with my XDR and 16" MBP (maxed out) and I don't have any interference whether connected to speakers directly from the headphone jack or I use an audio interface.

To me this sounds like a bad ground to me on your display 3-prong connection. Remember your display is powering the Mac at full power via the Thunderbolt 3 cable. My guess is that this power is somehow dirty or has interference due to a bad ground.

Fortunately there is an easy way to test this. First test is to check your ground on the outlet you have the display plugged into. You can do this with a simple cheap plug tester that you can buy at any hardware store. Second would be to put a known clean power source between your screen and the AC power source. The best is a UPS of some kind...at least 1000 watts should do it.

Another test you can do is to plug your XDR display into your Mac and also plug your wall adapter into another port on your computer. I believe the Mac's SMC will always prefer the source of the included wall adapter over a monitor but I could be wrong (this was the case on the UltraFine 5K). Anyway assuming the XDR display has a damaged or faulty power delivery unit this could be the source of your problems. I would maybe be cautious of using the display until you validate that it's delivering safe power. The dirty power could damage a PCB or SMC on your computer.

Last thing to try is a full SMC reset on your Mac Book Pro. https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201295

I'm really sorry to hear you are having problems but we have a couple of these displays in the office being driven by a mixture of last GEN Macs and everyone has audio coming from their machines into reference monitors or headphones. No one has reported an audio problem while plugged into the display. I smell a power delivery issue here. Run the tests above and report back. We are all interested in seeing this through.

 

[Philllllip]

Hi Nomad, sorry to go off topic for a moment but please can you just tell me if the fans of your MBP kick off when its driving the XDR? I am torn between the MBP, Mac Pro or both plus the XDR!! Also which to get the nano or glossy!!!!!