The newly announced M4 iMac was previously detailed by Apple to be the first Mac in existence to support an 8K external display up to a resolution of 120Hz. Hooking up a secondary display would likely be possible through one of the Thunderbolt ports of the ‘All In One’ but Apple has altered some information about its latest hardware regarding an external monitor as it might have noticed an error. While it is still possible to attach an 8K screen, the refresh rate has been halved to 60Hz.
The new M4 iMac can still support two 6K external monitors up to a refresh rate of 60Hz
The tiny but exceptionally important detail was picked up by notable online publishing outlets, detailing that the M4 iMac could support a single 8K monitor with a refresh rate of up to 120Hz. Apple’s marketing team may have noticed the error immediately as there were screenshots scattered across the internet that mentioned these details and made the adjustments accordingly. Now, the latest M4 iMac with the 10-core CPU and 10-core GPU supports a single 8K external monitor with a refresh rate of 60Hz.
We can imagine the disappointment that some potential buyers might be voicing over this specification alteration, but we also cannot ignore the fact that driving an 8K monitor with a refresh rate of 120Hz requires an uncanny amount of bandwidth, something that the Thunderbolt protocol cannot deliver at this time. Even if you check out the specifications of the Thunderbolt 4 standard, you will notice that its maximum display and refresh rate support is 8K and 60Hz.
At this stage, mainstream 8K monitors are capped at 60Hz because of bandwidth limitations. Regardless, we are confident that content creators will still find use for the M4 iMac when it comes to multi-monitor support, because even if the 5K Retina Display belonging to the ‘All In One’ is insufficient, which will be a rarity, creative professionals now have an excuse to upgrade to an 8K monitor, but it is not going to be cheap.
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