Filip Novotny Apple this week unveiled a new top-of-the-line iMac model with an ultra-thin display it's marketing as "5K Retina." This is the highest resolution screen in the world, which is why some have begun to speculate whether the new iMac can be used as an external display or whether we can expect a new, retina Thunderbolt Display. The answers to both questions are closely related.
A number of users have been using the large 21,5″ or 27″ iMac screen as an external monitor for, for example, a MacBook Pro for several years. For the time being, Apple supported this option via a Thunderbolt cable connection. According to claim server editor TechCrunch however, a similar solution is not possible with the retina iMac.
This is due to the insufficient throughput of Thunderbolt technology. Even its second iteration is unable to accommodate the data required for 5K resolution. The DisplayPort 1.2 specification that Thunderbolt 2 uses can "only" handle 4K resolution. For this reason, connecting an iMac and another computer to use a larger display is not possible using a single cable.
The reason for this shortage is simple - until today there was no demand for such high resolution. The market for 4K televisions is only slowly getting started, and higher standards like 8K are (at least as a widely commercial product) the music of the distant future.
That is why we will probably have to wait a while for the new Thunderbolt Display. Its current generation - still sold for a dizzying 26 CZK - is a little out of place among modern displays in Apple devices.
If Apple decides to satisfy the long wait of users and introduce a new generation of Thunderbolt Display, it will have two options to choose from. Either settle for 4K resolution (and rename it 4K Retina in terms of marketing), or work on the new version of DisplayPort with the number 1.3. How about on your blog though points out programmer Marco Arment, this will only be possible with the launch of Intel's new Skylake platform, which will replace the current Broadwell family processors.
Before the new external display, the iMac itself will probably undergo another update. Retina displays will most likely not remain only with the 27″ model, but instead will be extended to the 21,5″ model, following the example of the MacBook Pro. (The MacBook Pro with Retina display was also initially only available in the 15″ version.) According to analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, a smaller model of the iMac with Retina display would have come in the second half of 2015.
Well, I almost don't want to believe that TB 2 can't feed 5K, how about some data compression, I don't know some interlacing mode, I will secretly believe that Apple will come up with some super technology that will push the retina through the current TB, if they knew in advance that it it won't work, they should have forced intel to provide them with this technology for this year's notebooks, it's very illogical, we'll see, I believe they'll solve it, just because of the brand, after all, just a macbook connected to an LG or Samsung 4K monitor is really yuck :).
by the fact that apple introduced 5K, it gained nothing except that it can boast that it is better than 4K. The rest are only disadvantages – compatibility with 4K movies, compatibility with 4K standards. Excessively high resolution for playing games. Well, I don't think there is a single reason for 5K :(
The reason is for photographs :-) because professional photographers usually have 12-14 megapixels in SLRs :-) it will be irreplaceable for them :-) I don't see such a disadvantage in this for films :-) 4K film on 5K will still be beautifully sharp :-) I understand the games will suck, but the mac was never built for gamers :-)
Another thing why apple decided to take this step was that if it is to be the best for retina resolution, then one pixel of the virtual resolution of 2560×1440 must have 4 real pixels. So if they put 4K there, there wouldn't be such a density, and the second thing would be that their "retina resolution" would be the default FullHD only... any other option would only be an increase to 3 or less pixels... so it would end up like the macbook retina when a higher resolution is set, for example FullHD, and the graphics have more work to do with it than when it runs in the best for retina resolution, i.e. 1440×900. - for explanation, if you set 1920×1200 on a macbook with retina, the computer will first set a resolution close to 4K and then it divides by the resolution of the retina and it works out how many pixels to display for one virtual pixel .. Which are practically no longer multiples of two ... So in the end, the owners of the new iMac will get the resolution of the old iMac with exemplary sharpness like a razor :-)
I, as a designer, can imagine it. I have a retina macbook pro and I can't praise it enough. the field of view in cad and sketchup is huge even on a 15″ display. what about the field of view on a 2x larger resolution and a 2x larger display? I will never have to scroll from one drawing to another like I had to on windows with fullHD.
It can be easily solved with one cable connected to two Thunderbolt 2 channels. I wouldn't be surprised if two Thunderbolt retina displays come out next year, one 24″ with 4K and one 27″ with 5K. And the new mac pro and iMac that would support it.
It can be done in several ways as I wrote here :-) it is enough for the 5K monitor to appear as two monitors with a resolution of 2560×2880 for thunderbolt :-) then it is possible to extend it like this with a cable :-) the point is that thundernbolt just doesn't support that resolution.
Or then a double thunderbolt cable, with the fact that you would lose one and one would be on the monitor...
it would be completely wrong to think that apple will cut other devices like this... Owners of the Macbook Pro 15 with Retina, which is currently priced as an iMac with 5k resolution, will not want a 24-inch monitor, but a 27-inch one with 5k resolution... and above all, apple would reduce demand if he would only put it in new devices that sell little since launch and will only be in the most expensive versions in the future...
With the fact that it will be 24 inches with 4K and 27 inches with 5K, but you are right :-) because the 24 inch imac now has a resolution of 1920×1200 :-) so 4K would correspond to the best for retina resolution.
As for me, I hope that Apple has kept their common sense, I hope, rather, I am 95% convinced that it will just happen.
Apple is very happy to drop support for current retinoic MBPs. They have support for 4K but only at 30Hz. Just for them, 4K at 60Hz can be connected via 2 cables. The MBA will no longer get more than 4K at 30Hz, because it only has one Thunderbolt 2 connector. And Mac Pro can also get 5K, but only through 3 or 4 Thunderbolt 2 connectors.
Not true :-) from 10.9.3. they have 4k in 60hz ;-) or at least the higher retina with the GT750m :-) and I doubt it will want to do it over more than two cables :-)
According to the Apple site, thunderbolt 2 supports these resolutions:
Support for 3840-by-2160 resolution at 30Hz
Support for 4096-by-2160 resolution at 24Hz
So sw support is enough and then some kind of reduction that will connect 2 into one and it will be connected with one cable to the 4K display and it should go to 60Hz.
Intel could produce the new Thunderbolt with Apple at any time as an additional chip, it doesn't have to be part of the chipset so that it has to wait until 2016. But only Apple knows what supplies of what displays and at what prices I can expect. So maybe even Apple doesn't want it yet.
http://support.apple.com/kb/HT6008?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US
When you look down, Multi-Stream Transport (MST) displays
I just don't understand whether the MTS then goes through one cable or through 2 cables. I'm afraid that via 2 cables, because macbook air is not supported there and it only has a Thunderbolt 2 port.
Only through one :-) but you have to have powerful graphics in your laptop :-) so anyway with a 4K or 5k monitor all devices will be stuck except Macbook Pro 15 with retina and second graphics, mac pro and imac with 5K
That's good then. Apple is quite happy to cut old devices and let customers buy new ones. I'm just afraid that 5K won't work even with MTS, only 4K.
It occurred to me that Apple could make a 30″ 6K display and ship it with the new mac pro when I am :-)
I do not know the exact specification of the flow in the case of MST. In any case, for Displayport the throughput is 22,18 gbit at 5K... Thunderbolt has a throughput of 20 gbit there and 20 gbit back in real time... the question is whether it can be modified so that the 20 gbit that goes back could also go in... Probably specifically at the request of Apple :- )
On mac rumors, on the forum, now the owners of not cheap mac pro are finding out that their 6, 8 core machines will not connect to the future possible 5K in the future. A number of them are thinking, just like Marc Arment here with switching to the iMac Retina and selling the mac pro. But it probably won't take long, the first performance measurements of the Retina imac will be released to the public, users will find out that it's no glory, and everything will be the same as before...
Just like the MacPro's (non)connectivity with the 5K display is really weird. When I take into account that MacPro owners would probably be the only ones who would really benefit from such a resolution.. Obviously, someone at Apple made this up.. It's a shame. Hello