How can my mid-2012 MacBook Pro Retina 15 run a 4K panel at 30Hz over HDMI?
Solution 1:
Ok, so I got the display and it works just fine - power it up and connect the HDMI cable and it's set to 4K @ 30Hz (the panel's limit).
Sometimes when coming out of sleep, the HDMI panel keeps cycling through a black screen, displays "snow" or digital white noise. Sometimes it goes for 5 or more minutes! It's a weird bug and I know that opening the macbook pro lid helps it get quickly out of this weird mode. I think this might be a Mac OS X bug.
On a side note, at the native 4K resolution, everything looks the right size on the screen at 3' away but the panel is a bit too big. I have to move my head quite a bit - like when talking to 2-3 people at a party and you have to move your head to make eye contact ... maybe should have ordered the 39" display...
UPDATE
So I also bought a VIZIO 50" 4K display ("P502ui-B1E") and a new Macbook Pro 15" Retina Mid 2014 (GeForce 750M)
The VIZIO has an HDMI 2.0 port so can do 4K @ 60Hz but I noticed that Mac OS X (10.10.2) can still only do 4K@30Hz over it's in-built HDMI port while the same machine, when booted into Windows 8.1 (Bootcamp) can do 4K@60Hz very easily.
Solution 2:
See the official Apple page for details, but the bottom line is:
- HDMI ports can do 30 Hz or below, on all MBPR models.
- Thunderbolt ports can do 60 Hz, but with only one monitor at a time, and only if you have a discrete GPU, and only on 2013 models and up.
Solution 3:
There is no Mid-2013 Macbook Pro. If you have an early 2013 model, you can't run the 4k display due to hardware limitations. If you have the late 2013 model, you can indeed. By default, it runs at 30 Hz. If you enable Multi-Stream Transport on the external display, you can run it at 60 Hz via the Thunderbolt 2 port (equipped with DP 1.2 technology).
Solution 4:
I purchased a Dell P2815Q 4K Monitor from the Microsoft site $299.00. My mac is MacBook Pro (Retina, Mid 2012) 2.6 Ghz Core i7, NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M 1024 MB will run at 3840 x 2160 I am running at 2560 x 1440
