This blog post by Jeff Atwood about the amazingly cheap and sketchy, but awesome 27" 2560×1440 Dual-link DVI Korean monitors got me wanting one.
I have a 11" 2011 MacBook Air and a 13" 2012 MacBook Pro. These monitors are typically no-frills no-thrills Dual-link DVI only, so I would be purchasing an Apple-branded Dual-Link mini-DisplayPort to dual-link DVI adapter and connecting it via the Thunderbolt port on each laptop. The specs for both of these say that it should be able to drive a display with this many pixels without issue.
Is there anything else that I should be taking into consideration other than poor 3D performance at that high of a resolution, or should this setup be fine given the proper adapter?
Best Answer
It should be fine. Apple themselves offer to sell you a 27" display along with the laptop so it clearly is capable of driving that many pixels.
I myself use a 15" 2012 MBP Retina with one of those mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapters (hooked up to a Hazro 27" monitor, so cheap no-frills much like you're considering) and its been pretty good. This is in addition to also driving a cinema display of the same size, so I have two external monitors.
I read a lot of reviews around the Internet before buying it, and there's a few horror stories (most of them say make sure you get one with firmware 1.03, but there's no way to tell what firmware you have, till you plug it in! - fortunately mine was 1.03 from the off).
The only issue I have with mine is occasionally (maybe once or twice a day) the Hazro monitor goes blank for a second, then comes back on. I have no idea whats causing this, the MBP doesn't even notice (doesn't try to rearrange windows or anything) and its infrequent enough that I just live with it. It may be a slight incompatibility between some of the equipment.
I do suffer from some occasional oddities if I unplug the external monitors while the MBP is asleep, then wake it up (the internal screen won't come on, I think its the graphics card drivers crashing at the unexpected situation) but I don't believe thats related to the Dual-Link DVI.