[electrichead]

I did exactly this a year ago but one caveat to note is that if you're using an external monitor, the video card in this one doesn't support a good resolution. I'm stuck with 1080p.

[tga]

"With OS X Yosemite 10.10.3 and later, most SST 4K (3840 x 2160) displays are supported at 60Hz on these Mac computers:

    MacBook Air (Early 2015) and later
    MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) and later
    MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2014) and later"

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT206587

Earlier years will only do 30Hz, which is fully usable for development/office work.

[irq]

Anecdote: I find 30 Hz to be totally unusable for development/office work. The jerky movement of the mouse cursor, jerky scrolling, etc, is all painful to my eyes. So, I think very much, YMMV, but 60 Hz is safe.

[girvo]

Agreed, so much so that I gave up on 4K, scaled it to 1440p just to get 60hz on my (now-dead) 2013 rMBP with my external monitor.

Recently bought a second-hand perfect condition 2016 MBP with function-keys, and it's been brilliant so far, and I get proper 4K :)

[pier25]

Yeah me too. It feels like the mouse is lagging.

[photojosh]

Note the "SST 4K" criteria. I have a late 2013 15" MBP that drives 4K at 60 Hz, but it is an MST "multi-screen transport" display (which requires enabling on the monitor menu). Don't know if they're made anymore. Mine is a Dell UP2414Q.

[shrimpx]

I have a 13" 2015 MacBook Pro and it drives a 4k monitor at 60hz over displayport.

[vishwajeetv]

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

[Ductapemaster]

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.

[jordanthoms]

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

[notvplez]

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. :)

[jordanthoms]

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).

[notvplez]

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.

[alanfranz]

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

[shrimpx]

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

[chjdev]

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

[gurkendoktor]

Even very old Macs can handle 1440p, which is a great non-Retina resolution at 27".

[alanfranz]

I have got the 2015 15" model with Radeon R9 M370X and it supports 4k@60Hz over DP.

[gurkendoktor]

It even supports 5K if you can find one of the dual-DisplayPort screens. (I'm not sure if there's an adapter for the TB3 screens.)

[dmos62]

1080p is not fine enough? How much information are you used to having on screen at a time? How much text, for example?

[TheCoreh]

It's not about real estate, but rather about sharpness. At 3820x2160 ("4K") you can double every pixel, when compared to 1080p. That means that text at the exact same "size" is twice as sharp, producing less visual strain and improving readability (especially for fonts with complex strokes)

The difference is absolutely striking: I will never go back to a non "retina" display if given the choice.

[jen729w]

It’s also real estate. I have the LG 5K 27” monitor—which I like, by the way, I don’t know why people give it crap—and routinely wish it was just a touch larger.

My screen is filled with Excel and some sort of online database, usually. I’m also using my 13” MBP screen below this one for chat windows, email etc.

I would hate to go back to the lo-res 1080 days.

[dasKrokodil]

You quadruple each pixel...

[photojosh]

When doing photography work, you can look at image thumbnails and actually judge sharpness and colour directly off them. And when filling the screen, you can have a much better idea of how they will look in print.

As for text, I've been able to use tiny font sizes and increase the information density since hi-DPI screens— my eyes are good for it. Ahh, iPhone 4 and retina MBP... they were astounding tech at that time.

[shrimpx]

I cant deal with 1080p anymore, and large (27"+) 1080p monitors make no sense to me. Maybe they're good for people who need to have physically large text etc. but I find it useless for fitting information densely on the screen. I for one would rather use my 13" MacBook pro laptop screen than a large 1080p display. (I use a 24 inch 4k monitor and it's pretty great.)

[wildrhythms]

I have a 4K display. Mac OS scales things to look nice. 1080p looks like garbage in comparison.