Apple External Display Out Of Stock, Replacement Tipped For 5k Resolution

Apple has been peddling the current external Thunderbolt display for a good long time now and many find the aging product to be lacking compared to other offerings on the market today. Word is that stock of the current external display is getting very low in most locations and there is no sign that stock will be replenished. Often when product stock gets low, it's a very good indication that Apple has a replacement planned.

With WWDC 2016 coming up June 16, word is that we might see a new external display debut from Apple. There are some rumors about the new screen floating around right now and those rumors indicate that the new Thunderbolt Display could have 5k resolution of 5120 x 2880. Another rumor that is a bit harder to swallow is that Apple will integrate an external GPU into the display itself.

If your average Apple notebook is to push resolutions that high, the integrated GPU in the screen would certainly be welcome. It takes graphics muscle to push such high resolutions. With the push to keep MacBooks very thin and to have long battery life, cramming a GPU powerful enough inside the notebook itself would be difficult to do without affecting thickness and runtime.

The rumor suggests that an update to OS X will land with the software needed to enable the MacBook to determine on the fly if the content on the new external display needs the graphics muscle of the screen's integrated GPU or if the MacBook GPU has the oomph to run the screen. It seems unlikely that older MacBooks will be able to run 5k resolution on the new display, odds are you will need to upgrade to a new MacBook to support the resolution. A launch at WWDC isn't out of the question, and we only have a handful of days to wait.

SOURCE: 9to5mac