That seemed highly unlikely given Mojave’s support for external GPUs via a dedicated Thunderbolt enclosure. John Paczkowski claimed in a June 2016 report for BuzzFeed News that Apple was working on an external display with an integrated graphics card. With the size and proposed native resolution in mind, the PPI of such a panel would rate slightly higher than Apple’s 5K iMac-226 vs 218 PPI. Essentially, the display size has been scaled up to compensate for increased resolution. The larger size display means larger pixels, which results in a display that packs in extra resolution, yet won’t cause needless eyestrain due to on-screen assets being so small. That means that the display panel alone for Apple’s upcoming 6K monitor will be larger than the 5K iMac display, including its bezels. In fact, the entire front surface area of the 27-inch 5K iMac is less than 31.6-inches diagonal. The 5K iMac and iMac Pro sport 27-inch display panels, but both machines feature substantial bezels and a large bottom chin. Doing some math, 9to5Mac’s Jeff Benjamin thinks that it might actually rock a 16:9 aspect ratio and a resolution of 6,400×3,600 pixels. Kuo describes the monitor as a “6K3K” display, suggesting about 6,000 pixels horizontally and 3,000 pixels vertically. Apple’s first 6K displayĪside from featuring crisp 6K resolution, the display should adopt a Mini LED-like backlight design, resulting in “outstanding picture quality”, per Kuo’s research note via MacRumors. By comparison, the discontinued Thunderbolt Display featured a 27-inch LED-backlit LCD panel. The monitor’s LCD panel will reportedly measure 31.6 inches diagonally.

This note and Kuo’s reporting in general are based on supply chain chatter so take the prediction with a grain of salt, even if Kuo is by far the most accurate Apple analyst out there. A research note from trusted Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, issued to clients last Sunday, claims that Apple’s external monitor featuring 6K resolution is slated to arrive this year.

Aspect ratio apple computer monitors