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LG UltraFine 5K Build

writevli said:
The GPU takes a 2nd DP into the MB, correct?
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No. Replace the Ex 3 with a Thunderbolt add-in card that has two DisplayPort inputs:
  • ASRock Thunderbolt 3 AIC
  • MSI THUNDERBOLT M3
  • GIGABYTE GC-ALPINE RIDGE
  • GIGABYTE GC-TITAN RIDGE

flav0ur said:
Hey all! I'm interested in making a LG UltraFine 5K build as well as I have yet to find a display that wow's me that much. That said, it seems like the success stories revolve around the GC-Alpine Ridge for now which is the only device that has two display port input signals.
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There's four listed above that have two DisplayPort inputs.

flav0ur said:
With the new Z390 motherboards, Gigabyte just confirmed to me that none will have the required Thunderbolt headers for the Alpine Ridge.
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Instead of the Alpine Ridge, try the GC-TITAN RIDGE which is supposed to be compatible with Z390 motherboards.

flav0ur said:
But I'm also looking at the Z390 DESIGNARE (rev. 1.0) motherboard. It comes with built-in Thunderbolt support and apparently supports driving a 5K display at 60Hz. Compared to the Alpine Ridge, it only has one Display Port input but that seems to be DP1.4 vs the DP1.2 inputs on the Alpine. Do you think a setup with the Z390 DESIGNARE would work?
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The Thunderbolt controller of the Z390 DESIGNARE will not be able to provide 5K 60Hz to the LG UltraFine 5K because that requires two DisplayPort 1.2 inputs. As an alternative, the LG 34WK95U-W requires a DisplayPort 1.4 input to achieve 5120x2160 60 Hz (fewer pixels than the LG UltraFine 5K). Maybe there are 5120x2880 60 Hz displays that also use DisplayPort 1.4. I haven't tried DisplayPort 1.4 in macOS so I don't know if it will work.
 
Here's what I recently learned. It appears the Alpine Ridge will not allow the higher resolutions you need for this screen (max. is 4096 x 2304 @ 60Hz) EDIT: per channel/connection. You will need Titan Ridge controller for Thunderbolt 3 at those resolutions EDIT: on a single channel/connection. Titan Ridge appears to only work with H370 and new boards So you'll want to find a compatible board that has a Thunderbolt 3 port and is H370 or Z390 (there's a B series, but I don't know much about those). If you're going to look for a motherboard that also has a HMDI 2.0 port onboard (say to connect to a second 4K monitor or TV), you'll be limited to the Asus WS Z390 Pro at $400 (but I believe the Asus Thunderbolt 3 add-on board is Alpine Ridge, I'm not sure if the Gigabyte Titan Ridge add-on card will work with this Asus motherboard). Here's 2 H370 boards that have HDMI 2.0 but no Thunderbolt 3 header if there's anyone looking, but it won't help those here needing Titan Ridge. EVGA H370 Stinger or the Gigabyte H370N WiFi. Of course you don't need this if you use almost any AMD or Nvidia graphics card that's within a couple years old. They all have DisplayPort 1.4 that will allow this resolution. If you want to feed it through a Titan Ridge board, then you can look for the Gigabyte Z390 Designare ($270) with Thunderbolt 3 onboard, with DisplayPort 1.4 on the graphics card (so odd that Gigabyte made the onboard HDMI port 1.4), then that should work with an add on graphics card.
 
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IITravel01 said:
Here's what I recently learned. It appears the Alpine Ridge will not allow the higher resolutions you need for this screen (max. is 4096 x 2304 @ 60Hz).
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You learned wrong. This thread is 41 pages of people using Alpine Ridge for the LG UltraFine 5K. Alpine Ridge is the name of the first Thunderbolt 3 controller. The LG UltraFine 5K has an Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controller inside it. The Alpine Ridge on the computer side takes two DisplayPort 1.2 inputs and transmits them over Thunderbolt to the LG UltraFine 5K. The Thunderbolt 3 controller in the LG UltraFine 5K takes the two streams and converts them back to DisplayPort to use for the display. Resolution is limited to 4096 x 2304 @ 60Hz if only one DisplayPort 1.2 stream is used.

IITravel01 said:
You will need Titan Ridge controller for Thunderbolt 3 at those resolutions.
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Titan Ridge will work with the LG UltraFine 5K if the Titan Ridge has two DisplayPort inputs. Titan Ridge is also capable of DisplayPort 1.4 for displays that are newer than the LG UltraFine 5K that use DisplayPort 1.4 to support resolutions greater than 4K.

If a motherboard doesn't explicitly support Titan Ridge, it may still work with some limited functionality - like in my GA-Z170-Gaming 7 motherboard or my classic Mac Pro 2008.
 
joevt said:
If a motherboard doesn't explicitly support Titan Ridge, it may still work with some limited functionality - like in my GA-Z170-Gaming 7 motherboard or my classic Mac Pro 2008.
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What sort of limitations do you have? I'm considering buying a GC-Titan Ridge card for my AsRock Z170-Extreme7+ board since my next upgrade (after a bit of saving up) will be a Z390 Gigabyte motherboard, so I'll be able to re-use the TB3 card anyway.
 
Here's some new info. for you. I have a Asus Z170 Premium motherboard with i5. Although it's beyond the specs. listed, I hooked up the new LG 34WK95U 34" 5K2K monitor to it via the onboard DisplayPort 1.2 port and the resolution it plays at is 5120 x 2160 @ 30Hz. I then hooked up a 31" 4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz monitor via the HDMI port, which worked, but the resolution for the 5K2K dropped to 3440 x 1440 @ 60Hz. So this is giving us new information. On the driver specs for the new driver for the Intel HD 630, it actually states the highest possible resolution as 5120 x 2160 @ 60Hz, but won't let me select 60Hz, only 29Hz and 30Hz.
 
IITravel01 said:
I have a Asus Z170 Premium motherboard with i5. Although it's beyond the specs. listed, I hooked up the new LG 34WK95U 34" 5K2K monitor to it via the onboard DisplayPort 1.2 port and the resolution it plays at is 5120 x 2160 @ 30Hz. I then hooked up a 31" 4096 x 2160 @ 60Hz monitor via the HDMI port, which worked, but the resolution for the 5K2K dropped to 3440 x 1440 @ 60Hz. So this is giving us new information. On the driver specs for the new driver for the Intel HD 630, it actually states the highest possible resolution as 5120 x 2160 @ 60Hz, but won't let me select 60Hz, only 29Hz and 30Hz.
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You cannot get 5K2K 60Hz because the Intel HD 630 does not support DisplayPort 1.4.

Maybe the resolution for the 5K2K dropped because the reserved memory is too low for both displays? Check the DVMT setting in BIOS. Maybe you need a frame buffer patch to increase this for macOS. What does "About this Mac" say in "Displays"? Can you lower the resolution of the 4K display (make sure it's not a HiDPI resolution), then connect the 5K2K display?

Please post a link to the driver specs for the Intel HD 630 where it says the highest possible resolution is 5120 x 2160 @ 60Hz.

To get 5K60Hz on Intel graphics, you need a display like the LG UltraFine 5K or the Dell UP2715K that uses two DisplayPort 1.2 signals (either via Thunderbolt 3 or two DisplayPort cables).
 
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Bgusto said:
I'm still unclear if it will be possible for me to achieve 5k resolution if I purchase a card such as the MSI Thunderbolt M3? My specs are listed below.
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The specs and manual do not mention Thunderbolt anywhere. The manual says there's a JTBT1 connector which "is used to connect a specific card", like they're not allowed to say Thunderbolt?

I looked inside the firmware update file at the IFR and it seems to have Thunderbolt settings. I'm not sure if they're hidden or not. Can you find Thunderbolt settings in your BIOS? The IFR seems to indicate that "Thunderbolt(TM) Support" is defaulted to "Fully Disabled".

You should be able to achieve 5K resolution on the LG UltraFine 5K with any Thunderbolt add-in card that has two DisplayPort inputs, like the MSI Thunderbolt 3. If there's no Thunderbolt settings in the BIOS, you may be able to change them manually using the EFI Shell but that might be dangerous. If the MSI add-in card doesn't work for you, then you might consider a GC-TITAN RIDGE add-in card instead, which has different bahavior.
 
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