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Apple LED Cinema Display (non-Thunderbolt)

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Jun 18, 2011
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Motherboard
Gigabyte Z370N Wifi
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i5-8600K
Graphics
RX 560
Mac
  1. MacBook Pro
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I am almost stopping to fight against the will of having an Apple Cinema Display for my Hackintosh. But, Apple never makes it easier.

It seems Thunderbolt for Hackintoshes (using discrete GPUs) is stil far far away in the future (would like your views on that).

So I may resort to an regulad LED Apple Cinema Display (which are still listed in my country's Apple Web site).

Questions:

1. My Hackintosh stays on a cupboard a bit far from the monitor. Normally I use 5 meter cables. Right now I have a 23in Samsung connected via HDMI. How could I connect a ACD? Would it be possible to keep usingn the HDMI cable and have a converter? Searching the web I did not find any quality female-MiniDP-to-Male-HDMI. I though also on using Apple's HDMI-MiniDP adapter plus a Mini-DP female-female coupler, but the only coupler I found was a cheap chinese knockoff with two 1-star reviews on Amazon.

2. Should I expect any troubles by using MiniDisplay Port (for example if I find a mDP cable extender) instead of the current HDMI?

3. Tell me how are you connecting your ACDs. Specially if you are using an externder.
 
One other group of similar displays you might want to check out are the Korean IPS monitors available through dealers on eBay. Achieva, Catleap, Crossover, etc are all similar to the ACD, but cost about 1/3 the price. Several members on the forums seem to have had good experiences with them. There is even a front page article on the home page that talks about a company coming in at half the cost of an ACD.
 
Not easy to get those over here in Brazil. Only alternative here would be something like the Dell U2711, which is not LED. For personal taste (design, etc) I would go for the ACD than U2711.

Understood. In that case, you can get both mini displayport and dual link dvi cables up to 5 meters without using an active extender (expensive things), so that is a reasonable way to go.
 
Any online dealer to suggest for 5m cables? Amazon has 10ft cables (USB + mDP for ACD) maximum. Would it work with my current HDMI plus a female-female coupler and the regular HDMI-MDP Apple adapter? Are there any quality Couplers?

Cables-2-Go has a good assortment of high quality cables, but they aren't cheap. I'm not sure about the adapter.
 
Cables-2-Go has a good assortment of high quality cables, but they aren't cheap. I'm not sure about the adapter.

Sorry for the newbiness on ACD/Cables, etc. Shouldn't it be *Mini* DisplayPort, or Mini DisplayPort = DisplayPort? Also, I supose the connection from ACD is a male Mini DisplayPort. In that case I would need one female-male Mini DisplayPort Cable, and that I cannot find easily.

Appreciate the help you are giving me on this.

Regards
 
Haven't disappeared - just searching out a few other options. Long mini display port extension cables can be found, such as these. However, this is only 4m -it looks like the 5m is out of stock.

At the graphics output side of your hack, what outputs do you have besides hdmi? Do you have any form of display port or dvi? Just trying to figure out optimal adapter.
 
Thanks a lot xtwombly.

I have a MSI 6850 Cyclone like <a href=http://www.guru3d.com/imageview.php?image=28110>this</a>. I have all ports on the card, incl Display Port. Seems I would be needing a cable with Display Port Male in one side and Mini Display Port female on the other. Does that exist? 4m would be OK.

On the other hand, adapter, if they exist, would maybe do the job. I have a HDMI already in place. That leaves me with the task to connect a male HDMI to a male mini display porft coming from the ACD :/
 
Long mini display port extension cables can be found, such as these.
This will most likely do the job. Should I be worried about loss of signal due to extended length of the cable? Is DisplayPort connection fancy when it comes to drivers/etc or, like HDMI, it just works?
 
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