Which Cable Do You Need To Connect a Mac To an External Display?

Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's talk about which cable you should get to connect your Mac to an external display. 

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So I'm often asked what cable should you get when you want to attach your Mac to an external display. Maybe it's a MacMini or a MacStudio so you need to attach a display to use it at all. Or maybe you want to attach a second display to a MacBook or iMac. Now it should be pretty straight forward which cable you need to do this. But you're faced with several options. A lot of times people choose the wrong one. In particular, a lot of times people get a HDMI cable or adapter when what they should be getting is a Display Port Cable. Of course what it really comes down to is to two devices. You've got ports on your Mac and ports on your display. You've got to get a cable that goes from one to the other. So let's start by looking at the Macs. 

So on any recent Mac you're going to see really one type of port. That's a USBC port. So whenever you see a letter after USB, like USBC, it is describing the shape of the port not necessarily the type of data that comes out of that port. So, for instance, here on an iMac there are four ports. But the first two can only be used as USB3.1 data ports. The second two have the little Thunderbolt symbol above it and they can be used for a variety of different things. As a matter of fact if you go to the technical specifications for that same iMac you'll see it chose two Thunderbolt/USB4 ports with support for and it shows you all the different things these ports can do. For instance these Thunderbolt ports while they are USBC shaped can be used as display ports. Thunderbolt 3 ports, USB 4, USB 3.1Gen 2, and they also can carry Thunderbolt 2 and a variety of other things using adapters. 

Now the key thing I want you to see here is DisplayPort. This is the type of connection we're going to use to go to an external display. But also you notice down here HDMI and you can also use that to go to a display. But I'll explain why you should probably be getting a DisplayPort cable, not a HDMI adapter. 

If we go to a MacMini we actually see there are four USBC ports here. They are all Thunderbolt 4 and they can all be used for all of those different things. So everyone of these could be used as a display port. MacBook Airs and MacBook Pros have between 2 and 3 USBC ports which are all Thunderbolt 4 ports and they could be used for DisplayPort.. 

So next let's take a look at the screens. So there are hundreds of different screens you can get for your Mac. I'm going to show you some examples and how to look to see what kinds of connections you've got. Let's take the Samsung here. If we go to this particular model and then we look here at the back we can see it lists some ports here at the bottom. There's HDMI, HDMI2, DP which stands for DisplayPort. So you've got the options to connect both HDMI sources and DisplayPort sources to this screen. 

Here's a nice LG 32 inch 4K screen and they've got a nice view here of the ports on the back. You can see the top one there is DP in. DisplayPort in. Now I want you to take a careful look at the shape of a DisplayPort connector so you can identify it very quickly. Notice how it is basically a rectangle but with kind of corner chopped out like that. 

Now one thing you may want to keep a lookout for, although it is rare, is sometimes the DisplayPort port on the back of a screen doesn't look like that. It instead looks like this. The cable you want then is USBC to Mini-DisplayPort. So Mini-DisplayPort is kind of an alternative type of connector. It still DisplayPort, it is just two different shapes that the port can be. So check on the back of your display carefully to see if you've got the DisplayPort, probably, or the Mini-DisplayPort in some cases. 

Also keep in mind a lot of times your display already comes with the right cable. So you may already have a USBC to DisplayPort for your display in the box. But I know a lot of cheaper displays may come with no cable at all or they may give you a HDMI cable instead. 

So to connect from your Mac to a screen using DisplayPort you simply need a DisplayPort cable that has USBC on one end and DisplayPort on the other. If we look on Amazon we can easily find one of these. Here's one that Amazon makes itself, an Amazon Basics one for $13.00. You can see here on the one end, where it says source, you've got USBC and on the other end you've got DisplayPort to go into the back of the screen. Now the one thing I want you to pay careful attention to is if it mentions something like 4K right here. So you can see this one is 4K@60Hz. A lot of them will say that. 4K@60Hz. This is known as a DisplayPort 1.2 cable. It's an older spec and it only supports up to 4K screens. If you've got a 4K screen or less then this will work perfectly fine as well as any other cable. 

But if you actually do have a more advanced screen, like one that is 5K or one that supports a faster refresh rate, maybe for gaming or something, you're going to want to look for one that has higher specs than that. So if you search for DisplayPort 1.4 USBC on Amazon, for instance, you'll come up with slightly more expensive cables that show as 8K@60Hz. The is DisplayPort 1.4. A lot of times they even actually say it there. You can see here the cable ends are the same. You've got USBC on one side and DisplayPort on the other. That's basically it. The general answer is you need a USBC to DisplayPort cable to connect most Macs to most screens. 

But I know a lot of you are asking why not a HDMI. It's just as easy to pickup a USBC to HDMI adapter as it is a USBC to DisplayPort cable. All of the displays I just showed you support HDMI. So why not use HDMI instead of DisplayPort? Well in a lot of cases you can. But do note a few things. First that an adapter is different than a cable. A cable will just carry the data across. An adapter is actually doing something to the data. So that means adapters are going to vary. Some are better than others. In the best case scenario if you connect your Mac using a HDMI adapter to a screen you're going to get the same options, the same picture quality as you do with DisplayPort. That's the best case. The worst case you're going to get fewer options, like you'll find that you can't actually set the screen to some resolutions that you could if you are using DisplayPort. In some cases the quality may suffer. The image may appear to be blurry. Now I know there are going to be plenty of people that say I'm using HDMI and it looks great. Like I said the best case scenario it is the same as DisplayPort. But worst case scenario is it's not and it's lower quality and fewer options. That's why it is always better just to keep it simple and go with the DisplayPort cable. That's exactly what DisplayPort is for. To connect a computer to a computer screen. Whereas HDMI is a more general solution used to connect all sorts of different video sources to all sorts of different screen types including TVs. 

Now some of you will note, of course, that some Macs, like for instance the MacBook Pros, come with a HDMI connector. So you don't need an adapter. All you need is a simple HDMI cable to go from your Mac to the screen. Again, the best case scenario is you've got the same options as if you used DisplayPort. But worst case maybe the screen doesn't support as many options or doesn't show as good of a quality image when you're using HDMI. So it is always better to just get DisplayPort because you always know you're getting the best quality there. 

So I know another question I'm going to get is if DisplayPort is the better option then why is there an HDMI port on my MacBook Pro or why can't I get these adapters. The answer to that is basically because of projectors. There are tons of projectors out there in classrooms at school, in meeting rooms at work that only have HDMI input. The reason the HDMI adapter is there on the MacBook Pro is because they're commonly carried to classrooms and meeting rooms, plugged into projectors and it is nice to have the HDMI out from your Mac to do so. But if you're connecting it to a computer display then the DisplayPort is the better option. Like I said before in the best case scenario they are the same but worst case scenario DisplayPort is always going to give you the best and HDMI may not. 

I don't have a testing lab here with a whole bunch of different displays. I haven't tested like all the different Macs with a tons of different displays using HDMI and DisplayPort. I've learned this by people actually asking me about problems they are having with their displays. When I suggest that they should switch from HDMI to DisplayPort those problems are solved. I noted that in some cases HDMI and DisplayPort give the same options and I've noted in other cases DisplayPort is always the better choice. That's why I recommend just going to the DisplayPort cable. If you really want to test this out on your own get both, try hooking it up both ways. Maybe it won't make a difference for you or maybe you'll find that DisplayPort works better. But if you just want to buy one cable and get it over with just get the simple solution, a DisplayPort cable from your Mac to the screen. 

I hope you found this useful. Thanks for watching.