Although unexpected, Apple’s newly released Studio Display monitor doesn’t work well with Windows PCs, which still baffles many people. In a new article published over the weekend, programmer and Test Double co-founder Justin Searls outline the various awkwardnesses he encountered when trying to hook up a Windows gaming PC with Apple’s latest 5K monitor.
In fact, Apple has been vaccinating consumers very early, making it clear that some of the features of Studio Display will not carry over to the PC. But Justin Searls, who refused to admit defeat, actively carried out different attempts, including making the six speakers built into the monitor work.
At first, Justin Searls was looking forward to getting the console to work with the Studio Display, but unfortunately encountered a setback. Although he did then let the PC light up the Apple display, he put forward soul torture at the end of the article – is it worth it to use it for such a long time?
When trying to connect an RTX 3090 graphics card with a DP to a USB-C cable, the Studio Display didn’t respond at first. After that, he started racking his brains and finally found two feasible ways.
The first method involves using a DP 1.4 (8K version) USB-C adapter and requires the latest version, higher bandwidth cable to light up the Studio Display. The downside, however, is that the built-in speakers cannot be enabled.
The second method is a bit more laborious and first requires installing a PCIe Thunderbolt expansion card on the PC. If you want to use the speakers and USB ports on the monitor, you must also enable USB on the motherboard.
In the original post, Justin Searls gave a detailed step-by-step process. However, due to the need to toss in the PC case, it is not recommended for inexperienced novice users to imitate easily. Also, you may need to install Boot Camp on your Windows PC, which is obviously another huge hassle that may not be worth the challenge.
To sum up, although Justin Searls keeps saying that it is not so difficult to connect a PC with Studio Display, it is quite uneconomical to lose related functions without Apple’s own software and hardware ecology.
Even if you’re obsessed with the look of the monitor, there are actually quite a few high-end alternatives on the market – especially the frame rate performance (usually as high as 144Hz) that Windows PC gamers value most. By contrast, while the $1,500 Studio Display is excellent in many ways, its panel is locked to a 60Hz refresh rate.