I've recently got a 32" 6K (6144x3456) display for my M4 Mac mini. Turns out 10-bit RGB at 60Hz requires about 38Gbps bandwidth, which is just slightly below the theoretical limit of Thunderbolt 4 and USB 4 (40Gbps), but the actual video signal inside TB4/USB4 is DisplayPort 1.4 which can only offers a little bit less than 26Gbps after coding overhead. So it has to be compressed using DSC to work.
Luckily the M4 Mac mini comes with an HDMI 2.1 port allowing 42Gbps data rate after deducting overhead, and that's the one I'm currently using to attach the 6K display. Only the M4 Pro/Max-equipped Macs offer Thunderbolt 5 with DisplayPort 2.0/2.1 (~77Gbps data rate).
And people are asking if the 6K display can do high refresh rate like ProMotion at 120Hz…
I just wish the TV and monitor industries could just stop fighting and get a unified ultra high bandwidth standard to work. I'm so fed up with the hard choice we're forced to make regarding DP vs HDMI.
throw0101c · 2h ago
> I've recently got a 32" 6K (6144x3456) display for my M4 Mac mini.
How are you finding the scaling on that?
I currently have an aging 27" 5K iMac and want/need to upgrade. I'm not really interest in going >27" because of desk space issues, but there are a limited (though finally growing) number of 27" 5K monitors—besides the more-than-I-want-to-spend Apple Studio Display.
32" may be sufficiently not-large for my wants/tastes, so does 32" 6K work with macOS 'properly'?
riobard · 2h ago
At ~220PPI and 2x HiDPI mode it works as properly as Apple's Pro XDR 6K display: everything is crisply clear and the working area is vast. You basically get two and a half 4K screens seamlessly in one rectangle.
Actually it has 4% more pixels than 6K Pro Display XDR (6144x3456 vs 6016x3384) and 44% more pixels than 5K Studio Display (5120x2880). It is the highest resolution computer monitor I can get at the moment. (8K and higher resolutions are mostly TV sets or cinema equipment, not optimized for computer use.)
I was even trying to attach two of these 6K babies to the M4 Mac mini. According to Apple spec it should work, but no matter how I tried, the second attached display only gets max 4K signal. Maybe it needs M4 Pro.
patrakov · 1h ago
Honest question:
> 8K and higher resolutions are mostly TV sets or cinema equipment, not optimized for computer use.
Does this mean "not offering true RGB 8K processing even internally, only compressed YCbCr 4:2:0"?
riobard · 1h ago
That's only one of the reasons. 8K 10-bit RGB requires ~60Gbps while HDMI 2.1 can carry at most 42Gbps. So video has to be compressed somehow and it's mostly likely YCbCr with subsampling (coz that's how most video is encoded anyway). HDMI 2.1 also supports DSC so it's an option but I doubt any non-computer-monitor-oriented TV will support that.
Another reason is PPI. macOS works best ~220PPI for 2x HiDPI mode so 8K would be about 40". But current batch of 8K TV comes in sizes over 60", which is too big for most desks.
There're also convenience factors like DDC control (where you can control brightness and volume using software on your computer) which most modern computer monitors support but I've never seen any TV supporting that. Without HDMI CEC on the computer side, you can't even auto wakeup the TV when you wake up the computer.
throw0101c · 1h ago
What's the exact make/model?
riobard · 1h ago
That's the tricky question. It doesn't have one (or it has many???)
It's the same LG panel (LM315STA-SSA1) used by Dell's ugly-as-hell U3224KB, but in an all-aluminum case and stand weighing about 9KG. Assembled in China at half the cost of U3224KB and various Chinese brands are selling it with their logos etched on the back.
snarfy · 4h ago
I'm still salty about the lack of DisplayPort adoption by manufacturers. I have a new video card with DP 2.1 and new monitor (2025) with only DP 1.4. I'm forced to use hdmi if I want full bandwidth without dsc.
A 2025 monitor with DP 1.4 from 2016. Shame.
craftkiller · 2h ago
I have been waiting for displayport 2.0 for 5 years. It was supposed to be in products 2020 [0]. Then it got pushed back. Then it got renamed to displayport 2.1, but they split it out into uhbr10, uhbr13.5, and ubhr20. So now they're selling "displayport 2.1" monitors with barely more bandwidth than displayport 1.4. It has been 5 years and I'm still waiting for 80gbps displayport under whatever name.
As far as I'm concerned HDMI is for (mainstream) TVs, DisplayPort is for computers and higher end uses. I will use DP rather than HDMI every chance I get, and make product selection decisions based on it.
simoncion · 3h ago
> A 2025 monitor with DP 1.4 from 2016. Shame.
Sure, that's fuckin stupid... if HBR3 can't handle the monitor's native resolution, refresh rate, and bit depth.
But, on the gripping hand (and with the greatest of respect) why the hell did you buy the crappy thing? There are many DP 2 monitors out there. This is a little glib... but if someone's selling something that's bad, don't buy it. The dire video card and monitor situation has kicked me off of my regular upgrade cycle for at least five years. I'm not happy about it, but it's better than getting something that's not fit for purpose (and signaling to the manufacturers that it's okay to manufacture unfit products).
nfriedly · 3h ago
> There are many DP 2 monitors out there.
That feels like a bit of a stretch. There are a handful of options now, but most were released within the past year[1] and have only recently become available for purchase, and most of these are ~$1k or higher[2]. The cheapest one I could find right now is $714, but it's only 1440p (and 480hz - Sony INZONE M10S[3]). If snarfy needed something before then, and/or didn't have a huge budget to devote to a monitor, you can't really blame them.
You can get a perfectly serviceable 4k 160hz monitor with DP 1.4 for ~$300 right now[4], and that makes a lot more sense for most people.
Monitor manufacturers are generally stingy with DP ports, often including more HDMI ports, even when they can't support the full resolution and refresh rate of the monitor. It is frustrating.
16K@60 must be some DSC enabled mode, because the math isn't mathing for me otherwise: 96 gigabits/sec should be capping out at 16K@30 (and that's at SDR, so 8 bits per channel).
At least we can get some decent speed at FHD now (1920 Hz). I doubt any manufacturer will bite though sadly, even though OLEDs should be capable of maintaining refresh rate compliance. 4K@480 is still a nice improvement at least, even if a fairly incremental one. I do expect those to appear on the market.
throw0101c · 4h ago
Any further word on the recently announced GPMI out of China?
Interesting. In german I'd simply call that Allzweckanschluss.
Or maybe UniPipe?
(One connection for all things(electrical(since it does power besides media)))
skeuomorphism · 4h ago
Took them long enough
Besides, why bother using that, when you can use an open source alternative, like DP
I know the answer is that users have used hdmi longer
jekwoooooe · 4h ago
No the real answer is TV manufacturers are not allowed to use DP per their licensing. I’m not sure DP supports the media features hdmi does like CEC
simoncion · 4h ago
Last I checked, DisplayPort has an auxiliary communications channel that's at least as capable as HDMI's.
As you mention, the HDMI Consortium prohibits TV manufacturers from using DisplayPort. Many of the things that CEC and friends does aren't really needed in PC land. And if the Consortium is going to prohibit TV land from using DisplayPort, why go to the trouble to implement and standardize the parts of CEC & etc. that are only really useful for TVs, home entertainment centers, and the like?
throw0101c · 3h ago
> As you mention, the HDMI Consortium prohibits TV manufacturers from using DisplayPort.
IANAL, but this seems anti-trust-ish.
simoncion · 3h ago
> IANAL, but this seems anti-trust-ish.
nic-cage-you-don't-say.gif
US antitrust/consumer-protection people have been asleep at the wheel for decades now. I'm doing my (tiny, tiny) part by avoiding HDMI wherever it's at all reasonably possible and recommending to folks I know that they consider doing the same.
jekwoooooe · 3h ago
“Only” is doing a lot of heavy lifting here. The pc market is a tiny minority of customers. Most of the real volume is sadly just a soundbar plus a tv plus some device like Apple TV. The majority of the market by dollar is ultra high end setups which absolutely depend on hdmi. Not for cec which fails miserably with more than one device in the chain but because the AV devices only support hdmi. I wish they had DP but the anti consumer licensing does not allow it.
illamint · 3h ago
Finally. All I want for Christmas is a 5K, HDR, 120Hz display. I'm managing with 4K, 120Hz, and scaling to 2560x1440 in Mac OS, but with the latter option I lose HDR. I can't give up 120Hz after getting used to it on all my devices.
seanalltogether · 3h ago
I'm right there with you. A 27" 5K 120Hz is my endgame monitor. I would be perfectly happy spending my working hours in 5K, and then switching to my gaming pc to play in 1440p mode.
nyarlathotep_ · 1h ago
What are you using for displays in this range? I've been using 4K displays at home exclusively for ~5 years and it's rare to even see 4K display over 60hz. I assume they're quite pricy still?
masklinn · 3h ago
Technically you could already do that on DisplayPort (since DP2, the standard of which was released 6 years ago), manufacturers don't want to do anything other than high refresh rates.
I just want a damn widescreen hidpi display (I don't care about HDR or HRR), but I've yet to see one, let alone one that seems any good.
voidUpdate · 3h ago
Does that mean I can use the same 1080p screens I always have, but at 960Hz?
perching_aix · 2h ago
No. Your display, graphics card / video source, and the display cable connecting these all need to support the new standard, and the first two specifically also need to support outputting at that video mode. The video source side is usually more forgiving, but if your display doesn't support 960 Hz outright, it's unlikely to work properly (though you can get lucky if the new standard is at least officially supported by it).
maxlin · 3h ago
At those bandwidths, resolutions seems rather silly to invest in to. Having used high-hz screens for a long time, 60 hz is starting to seem quite broken for me.
120hz+ at lower resolutions first seems a lot more useful, unless one is doing some 360 degree video thing that has relatively very low amount of pixels per degree of angle. Doubling framerate is only double the cost, while doubling width&height is quadruple the cost.
jekwoooooe · 3h ago
The resolution is now a marketing tactic. People don’t understand how high fidelity 4k is because they get 10mbps Faux K streams on Netflix. They cannot conceptualize watching a 4k UHD rip on a 160” screen.
jekwoooooe · 4h ago
I look forward to seeing this in consumer devices in 2040 plus the usual fiasco of defective AVR chips for the first generation.
Are 90% of features still optional? You can be hdmi 2.1 compliant without VRR, QMS, etc.
CollinEMac · 3h ago
I've never actually looked into this so maybe this is a dumb question but how hard would it be to make a symmetrical HDMI cable with no "up" or "down"? USB-C was rightfully lauded for this but I personally have a much more frustrating history reaching around the back of tvs with an upside down HDMI cable.
83 · 3h ago
Iirc hdmi has 19 wires. USB c is around 10 (but mirrored so ~20 on the connector). Making hdmi symetrical would require a 38 wire connector which would be large and prohibitively expensive.
Kirby64 · 3h ago
USB-C uses 24 pins if you use the same criteria you're using for HDMI. Making HDMI symmetrical would be simple, albeit a connector redesign. USB-C already has the same high speed pins that HDMI does in a method that allows for symmetry.
timbit42 · 3h ago
The easiest to connect is the RCA connector. You can insert it at any rotation. With concentric rings it could provide more connections but it couldn't be as thin as USB-C.
sebazzz · 1h ago
It would probably also be a noisy connector.
nemomarx · 3h ago
How do you do the locking mechanism? I'm guessing that's why they're oriented
Kirby64 · 3h ago
Where have you seen an HDMI locking mechanism? DisplayPort cables have the tabs, but I've never seen one on HDMI.
nemomarx · 2h ago
Oh that's on me for mostly using DP, I assumed they both had it
intsunny · 1h ago
Just as a reminder, the HDMI Forum is forbidding AMD from releasing an open source HDMI 2.1 driver for Linux:
Luckily the M4 Mac mini comes with an HDMI 2.1 port allowing 42Gbps data rate after deducting overhead, and that's the one I'm currently using to attach the 6K display. Only the M4 Pro/Max-equipped Macs offer Thunderbolt 5 with DisplayPort 2.0/2.1 (~77Gbps data rate).
And people are asking if the 6K display can do high refresh rate like ProMotion at 120Hz…
I just wish the TV and monitor industries could just stop fighting and get a unified ultra high bandwidth standard to work. I'm so fed up with the hard choice we're forced to make regarding DP vs HDMI.
How are you finding the scaling on that?
I currently have an aging 27" 5K iMac and want/need to upgrade. I'm not really interest in going >27" because of desk space issues, but there are a limited (though finally growing) number of 27" 5K monitors—besides the more-than-I-want-to-spend Apple Studio Display.
32" may be sufficiently not-large for my wants/tastes, so does 32" 6K work with macOS 'properly'?
Actually it has 4% more pixels than 6K Pro Display XDR (6144x3456 vs 6016x3384) and 44% more pixels than 5K Studio Display (5120x2880). It is the highest resolution computer monitor I can get at the moment. (8K and higher resolutions are mostly TV sets or cinema equipment, not optimized for computer use.)
I was even trying to attach two of these 6K babies to the M4 Mac mini. According to Apple spec it should work, but no matter how I tried, the second attached display only gets max 4K signal. Maybe it needs M4 Pro.
> 8K and higher resolutions are mostly TV sets or cinema equipment, not optimized for computer use.
Does this mean "not offering true RGB 8K processing even internally, only compressed YCbCr 4:2:0"?
Another reason is PPI. macOS works best ~220PPI for 2x HiDPI mode so 8K would be about 40". But current batch of 8K TV comes in sizes over 60", which is too big for most desks.
There're also convenience factors like DDC control (where you can control brightness and volume using software on your computer) which most modern computer monitors support but I've never seen any TV supporting that. Without HDMI CEC on the computer side, you can't even auto wakeup the TV when you wake up the computer.
It's the same LG panel (LM315STA-SSA1) used by Dell's ugly-as-hell U3224KB, but in an all-aluminum case and stand weighing about 9KG. Assembled in China at half the cost of U3224KB and various Chinese brands are selling it with their logos etched on the back.
A 2025 monitor with DP 1.4 from 2016. Shame.
[0] https://www.unigraf.fi/resource/introducing-displayport-2-0/
Sure, that's fuckin stupid... if HBR3 can't handle the monitor's native resolution, refresh rate, and bit depth.
But, on the gripping hand (and with the greatest of respect) why the hell did you buy the crappy thing? There are many DP 2 monitors out there. This is a little glib... but if someone's selling something that's bad, don't buy it. The dire video card and monitor situation has kicked me off of my regular upgrade cycle for at least five years. I'm not happy about it, but it's better than getting something that's not fit for purpose (and signaling to the manufacturers that it's okay to manufacture unfit products).
That feels like a bit of a stretch. There are a handful of options now, but most were released within the past year[1] and have only recently become available for purchase, and most of these are ~$1k or higher[2]. The cheapest one I could find right now is $714, but it's only 1440p (and 480hz - Sony INZONE M10S[3]). If snarfy needed something before then, and/or didn't have a huge budget to devote to a monitor, you can't really blame them.
You can get a perfectly serviceable 4k 160hz monitor with DP 1.4 for ~$300 right now[4], and that makes a lot more sense for most people.
Monitor manufacturers are generally stingy with DP ports, often including more HDMI ports, even when they can't support the full resolution and refresh rate of the monitor. It is frustrating.
[1]: https://www.rtings.com/monitor/tools/table/171238
[2]: https://www.newegg.com/p/pl?N=601469993%20601420164%20601438...
[3]: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0D9R7HCVG
[4]: https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-Monitor-3840x2160-160Hz-Free...
For the curious - https://rog.asus.com/us/monitors/27-to-31-5-inches/rog-swift...
At least we can get some decent speed at FHD now (1920 Hz). I doubt any manufacturer will bite though sadly, even though OLEDs should be capable of maintaining refresh rate compliance. 4K@480 is still a nice improvement at least, even if a fairly incremental one. I do expect those to appear on the market.
* "GPMI set to deliver up to 192Gbps and 480W through a single USB cable": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43607155
* "China launches HDMI and DisplayPort alternative – GPMI up to 192 Gbps, 480W": https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43602154
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GPMI
Or maybe UniPipe?
(One connection for all things(electrical(since it does power besides media)))
I know the answer is that users have used hdmi longer
As you mention, the HDMI Consortium prohibits TV manufacturers from using DisplayPort. Many of the things that CEC and friends does aren't really needed in PC land. And if the Consortium is going to prohibit TV land from using DisplayPort, why go to the trouble to implement and standardize the parts of CEC & etc. that are only really useful for TVs, home entertainment centers, and the like?
IANAL, but this seems anti-trust-ish.
nic-cage-you-don't-say.gif
US antitrust/consumer-protection people have been asleep at the wheel for decades now. I'm doing my (tiny, tiny) part by avoiding HDMI wherever it's at all reasonably possible and recommending to folks I know that they consider doing the same.
I just want a damn widescreen hidpi display (I don't care about HDR or HRR), but I've yet to see one, let alone one that seems any good.
120hz+ at lower resolutions first seems a lot more useful, unless one is doing some 360 degree video thing that has relatively very low amount of pixels per degree of angle. Doubling framerate is only double the cost, while doubling width&height is quadruple the cost.
Are 90% of features still optional? You can be hdmi 2.1 compliant without VRR, QMS, etc.
https://www.phoronix.com/news/HDMI-2.1-OSS-Rejected
Displayport is the better technology in every way possible.