Ultrafine 5K on nMP

[edanuff]

I just saw at the SF Apple Store a nMP hooked up to an Ultrafine 5K display via the USB-C Thunderbolt adapter. It is running 5120x2880 according to System Information, not 4K. This should not be possible given the bandwidth limitations of TB2. Is it possible its dropped down to 30Hz or something?

 

[curmudgeonette]

I just saw at the SF Apple Store a nMP hooked up to an Ultrafine 5K display via the USB-C Thunderbolt adapter. It is running 5120x2880 according to System Information, not 4K. This should not be possible given the bandwidth limitations of TB2.

System software is downsampling to 4K, sending that over the cable, and the monitor is upsampling back to 5K. There are some threads in this forum discussing this.

 

[edanuff]

System software is downsampling to 4K, sending that over the cable, and the monitor is upsampling back to 5K. There are some threads in this forum discussing this.

Interesting, I missed those posts before. It looks like Apple really went out of their way to hide that. Nothing I saw in System Information or Display preferences showed anything but 5120x2880. FWIW, there wasn’t any of the distortion I typically see when I look at a 4K monitor displaying HiDPI 2560x1440. I would have bet on the trick being they dropped to 30Hz but I did see the post in the forums where someone ran SwitchRes to find out the actually resolution.