I built a 5K iMac Display
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Can you link to the supplier of the driver board?
How did you go about determining the board was ok to plug into a shinny new panel?
My previous experiences with Aliexpress where a bit hit and miss. Either with issues of using obvious counterfeit parts or batch quality issues (order 100 and 70 are OK, etc.).
How is the panel? Do you have any uniformity issues? In total, I've tried 7 units of LG 5K UltraFine (27MD5KA-B and 27MD5KL-B). All had [1] uneven brightness (visible on white background) and backlight bleed. Some of the units also exhibited tinting and/or faint vertical lines. I couldn't swallow these issues for the price that I've paid. Now I'm with Dell U2720Q, but I miss the high PPI of the 5K.
Frustratingly this was a native iMac feature "Target Display Mode" in 2009-2014 but they dropped it from the 5K model: https://applerepairstation.co.uk/Technical%20Desk/use-your-i...
edit: apparently I have the premium version. Not sure they used to be called premium. The spring mechanism counterweight makes adjustments to my 27 and 24 inch monitors seemless.
It’s great and handles the two screens fine, can lock it off by tightening up the Allen headed bolts once you have it just so.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07K9MQTB1/ and https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07T3KCQ94/
They're both extremely similar; you really can't go wrong for <$25. I actually have 3 of the cheap one now, only 1 (the initial order) of the more expensive one. They're functionally identical for my usage; and it's a huge ergonomics win no matter what.
Also, if you have a desktop mic, buy a microphone arm for it; is similarly fantastic price-vs-value proposition (though monitor arm is massively more useful upgrade just due to how much you use it).
A mounted VESA arm is such a nicer experience
I previously had many negative associations with VESA-mounted monitors, and I think other people have as well, due to poor-quality mounting arms. I've used VESA-mounts where monitors bounced every time someone walked by; that's a serious issue.
When I started working from home full-time, I set up a high-quality VESA-mount system using a pole mount and a professional monitor arm; the service I purchased it from actually looked up the monitor specs to figure out the level of support the arm required. The resulting setup is rock-solid and always stays exactly where I place/tilt it.
So I do think VESA-mounting can provide a great experience, but the difference between cheap and high-quality can make or break the resulting experience.
My main workstation is currently a PC with monitor on an arm, but honestly, I found the iMac to be a cleaner setup. Literally the only display-related issue would be height adjustment, but that wasn't a problem for me.
I got my inspiration back after watching [DIY Perks](https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUQo7nzH1sXVpzL92VesANw) on youtube. If you want a much more detailed instruction on how to build these screens, I highly recommend him. As intimidating as all our devices are today, all you need is to unglue the plastic housing to reveal their secrets.
PS: people love to throw away perfectly fine electronics. There is no shortage of practice devices by the dumpster.
Edit: typo
Besides the (now discontinued) Planar IX2790, which had severe quality control issues (went through 4- all with major dead pixels and burn-in), I don’t think there are any readily available DisplayPort-based 5K monitors out there :(
Feels like hidpi displays have pretty much stagnated outside of apple ecosystem
That said, 4k @ 27" vs 5k @ 27" is a bit of diminishing returns, and its hard to justify the price, when instead of a single 5k, one can get two 4k.
A step of 4x give or take in number of total pixels each time.
It’s a logical progression?
But either way, 8K is already pushing the limits of what today’s video transports can carry. 16K is currently impossible.
Uncompressed 8K/60Hz requires >64% of the max BW of DisplayPort 2.0 (which is not even on the market yet.) That’s why he needed 2 DP cables.
You can check out video timing requirements here: https://tomverbeure.github.io/video_timings_calculator
The UP3218K was released in 2018 and pretty much stands alone in that space, for the same reasons.
Is that true?
I bought one about two weeks ago from Saturn, for 19% off. Still waiting for the delivery though. According to "geizhals.de" there are a few stores that still have it in stock.
https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/21/lg-ultrafine-4k-display...
The wholesale vendor for DK says there is some contention with EU regulations that prompted them to hold on all orders :-( he does not know which regulations they are.
MacBooks for the last few years have shipped with a scaled mode enabled by default to give more screen space, I always bump it back down because I hate how fuzzy it makes everything look.
Gives enough real estate to have three 'panels' of windows, and it's all one monitor: I find that two-monitor setups mean I have to either always tilt my neck left and right, or set up one centrally and then really kink to the side to view the other one.
Either you run at 1x scaling and everything is tiny, 2x scaling and everything is comically huge, or a non-integer scale and everything is fuzzy.
https://www.apple.com/shop/product/HMUB2LL/A/lg-ultrafine-5k...
But it looks like it was ~$500 less than the LG version all in all, so a decent project.
It's like voting with your wallet but still promoting the brand you didn't vote for.
They still are:
Pro Display XDR https://www.apple.com/pro-display-xdr/
The old displays were a thing because they had really been affordable.
Just like reference monitors which are much pricier, it doesn't mean they have no reason to exist.
This Apple Display fits in a strange zone in between reference monitors and high quality "regular" displays (which the previous Apple [Cinema||Thunderbolt] Display went at) that no one else went for.
The question is, is there a market for that niche or is that a "Vader trash can" Mac Pro mistake again?
Personally, I find the bezels on both monstrous, so I wouldn't go for either.
Usually with an iMac, the second display is always something else, this is a nice way to make the overall experience nicer.
Appearance aside, anecdotally I’ve seen numerous reports of quality control issues (dirty screen effect, backlight bleed, pinstripes, wobbly stand, etc).
I have legitimately considered just buying the Pro XDR because I want a monitor that looks good on my desk. I'd have pulled the triggers but the rumors about the new iMacs started, and I want to see where they go - I didn't buy an older iMac as I refuse to buy an Intel Mac at this point.
Instead, I am using a Dell 32inch directly in front of me, iMac 27inch to the right of me, and Dell 27inch portrait to the left of me.
But I cannot understand why there are no reasonably priced 5K or 6K monitors of around 30-35 inch. I would buy one in a heartbeat.
Because it's a niche market and unless they become more popular they won't be produced at enough scale to bring the retail price down.
4K is sharp but it takes some work getting used to it. You don't gain that much screen real estate if you don't have eyes like a hawk.
I've been using a 40 inch 4K monitor in another setup and it works well for coding at 100%. Entire functions on screen without the need to scroll. But anything else than coding the resolution is a bit grainy at 4K.
I switched back to a single 32 inch and increased the scaling. Neck pain went away.
When I could get hold of a 30" monitor years ago at work it was a real eye opener for me. I always had double screens but I tended to used only 2/3 of those screens and one was always to far off to the side to be more usefull than occasionally glance at.
Now with a 27/30" screen I can have 2 windows side by side within my field of view, of 1 large windows and 2 smallers ones like terminal.
It’s the aspect ratio I grew up with, but 14x the number of pixels and 4x the screen size, but probably half the weight and power consumption!
I’d pay about $500 for a square 2160p 30” screen. But then I’m a cheapskate and I have no way to justify even the $500 cost when I could get a couple 27” 2160p’s on sale for that.
And if I could use my iMac as a screen, I might have grabbed a M1 Mac already. Instead I am waiting on a refreshed iMac.
I'd love for this to be some flaw in my own setup, though.
I used to use this setup circa Mac OS X 10.6 and it worked very well (1Gbps wired connection). I could leave my home office and screen share in from the living room via my MacBook Pro from the living room, when I had to watch my kids or whatever.
Today, I don't even try that. Command-Tab lags, yes, but almost everything lags to the point of being super-annoying to use. Even typing lags. I also have a Windows box in my office, and this setup basically works (even from my MBP). So I've been assuming this is one of those features that Apple has let degrade to the point of unusability.
But am I wrong? I'd like to be. Are others using Screen Sharing or Remote Desktop on macOS with success beyond like click... wait... click... whew I got a system update installed? I mean, for like typing emails or coding?
(One thing I'd been thinking of debugging was whether my office Mac having 3 5K screens is an issue — I am only trying to screenshare one of them, but maybe they have a bug or something where total pixels of the host kill perf even if those pixels aren't being shared.)
For my usecase of development, it works fine. No noticable lag, even as I type this comment, also video calls and web browsing/scolling/youtube are fluid on 2560x1440 using around 7MB/s.
With 3 5K screen I could image video memory or some GPU bandwidth being an issue, limiting the screensharing although sharing only 1 screen. But the problem must be either one of lag or one of bandwidth. Maybe try measuring network throughput and ping?
A few years old 4K and 5K iMacs have high end integrated displays even from today's point of view, but their CPUs and especially GPUs are outdated for quite a few serious use cases. I think it would make a lot of sense to use one as a display for a new workstation setup.
But obviously my described use case is a "second chance" for an iMac having served as a standalone computer until its EOL.
What would be super cool is if Apple could take this further and you could use an iMac as both a second screen and off load work to the CPU and GPU.
I'd like that from an eWaste perspective if nothing else. i.e. just add a new iMac to your existing set up.
For myself I've been using the same external 27" Dell 1440 monitor for about 7 years. It's not like it's worn out in anyway.
The number of times I've wanted to use, say a console when the TVs taken, or use my mini-itx desktop away from home. Being able to plug into a laptop that im carrying anyway would be great.
The magnetic mount of the iPad Pro magic keyboard means you can just grab the iPad and pop it back, making it super convenient to use either way.
100% speculating but I could see it being something that Intel's TB3 chips weren't set up to handle and that's why they dropped.
When I was still using a dual screen setup I had one in the center as primary and one at the side in portrait mode.
Having dual screens next to each other with the space between the screens in front of you sounds like an ergonomic disaster. Some people seem not to mind though.
Is that a limitation of the driver board?
Additional speculation: all 5k displays on the market so far (LG, Dell, Iiyama, ...?) were made as Apple accessories, probably with Thunderbolt ports in mind. Because the market is not that large they might share some components. TB3 only requires DP 1.2, but can carry multiple streams. The expensive LG display includes a TB3 hub that demultiplexes the DisplayPort streams and sends them off to a dual-link DP controller. Less expensive displays leave out the Thunderbolt part and require dual DisplayPort inputs for full resolution.
8bit 4k at 120Hz:
>>> (3840 * 2160 * 24 * 120) / (1000*1000*1000)
23.887872
>>> (5120 * 2880 * 30 * 60) / (1000*1000*1000)
26.54208The UP2715K, only support dual link DP 1.2/HBR2, which was a bit of a PITA on my machine because nvidia's board partners don't always do a good job of describing which ports on the back of the card can be used for dual link.
https://downloads.dell.com/manuals/all-products/esuprt_displ...
Is there any possibility of accessing the needed display connectors via the RAM door or via a surgical cut in the back case? Removing the screen is what I don't want to do.
Have you found a driver board that uses a single DP1.4? Two 1.2 would limit me to a single one and wanna run 2.
There is perhaps some hope since we do have SideCar on the iPad.
He just wired a panel, off-the shelf driver board, ac-dc brick, and put it into body.
Even if DP panels all have their real drivers, and tcons internally, there is still a lot left for a designer to do.
Glue cannot provide stiffness as such. Hard adhesives, soft adhesives, filler, no filler, all inferior to any mechanical connection. Adhesive is usually the worst of possible compromises.
Hard adhesive is stiff, but dies from most minuscule repeated stresses.
Soft adhesive does not die to repeated stresses, but isn't stiff.
High fill adhesive layers absorb loads, but can't stiffen anything.
Low fill adhesive layers are stiff, but put all stress into the surface-adhesive interface.
Even if you have it in a recessed niche, and use high fill soft adhesive over primed metal surface, you already made enough operations to warrant a proper joining method.