Hacker News Reader

Comment by vishwajeetv | Hacker News Reader

I think it supports 4K but not at 60 fps. You are stuck at 30 fps.

I have a 2015 and a 4K monitor and can confirm that this is the case. 30fps isn't great but it is usable for most day-to-day computer work.

However there is a workaround if you are willing to disable SIP and play around with a program called SwitchResX. You can customize the display timings in such a way that allows 4K60 video to just sneak in under the bandwidth limits of the Thunderbolt ports. It also requires a Thunderbolt to HDMI 2.0 adapter, and a compatible monitor. If you like fiddling around this is one way to do it, but I have found it finicky and not really worth it.

4k60hz is also possible over displayport, on my Late 2013 mbp I need to use switchresx to get it going (but I've found that pretty set-and-forget), but on the newer ones than that it works without any hacks AFAIK

Could you share some details about how you do this? Do you need displayport on both ends, and is it a monitor or TV? I have the same machine and a 4K TV with only HDMI-inputs and am curious if I can achieve this is in some way. Switchresx looks really useful anyway, so thank you for that. :)

There's no HDMI 2.0 support in 2015 MBPr AFAIK. So no 4k@60Hz over HDMI. You must get DP.

If you have a Displayport display, you can use a displayport to mini displayport cable, use switchresx, should work good.

If it's HDMI only, as the sibling pointed out the HDMI port won't work. However, Startech makes a displayport to HDMI adapter which works ( https://www.amazon.com/DisplayPort-HDMI-Adapter-Converter-60... ) (just make sure you get one which supports 4k60hz, most DP -> HDMI adapters don't).

I'll consider this though I it would be probably be sitting unused after trying it anyway as I really have no need for it. Thank you for the information. Just to clarify, we're both talking about a late 2013 macbook pro retina? The other helpful commenter mentions the 2015.

Yeah, this is all on the late 2013 15" with the nvidia dgpu - https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587 has the official details on this BTW - they state that SST Displayport 3840 x 2160 displays are only supported at 60hz on the 15" from Mid 2014 on, but it actually works on the Late 2013 also with Switchresx.

also got a 2015 and 4k @60hz is possible plug and play with a thunderbolt to displayport cable. anything other than default scaling gets a bit choppy though

2015 can drive 4k at 60hz over displayport if the monitor supports displayport. HDMI output is limited 30hz afaik.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com