New Rumor Corroborates Next-Gen Thunderbolt Display With Built-In GPU

Apple just yesterday announced that it was to discontinue the aging Thunderbolt Display, which has inevitably led to questions as to what will replace it in Apple’s product lineup. It is still possible that nothing will fill the void left by the display, although conventional wisdom would suggest otherwise, as would BuzzFeed‘s John Paczkowski.

Tweeting this morning, Paczkowski said that he had received information from unspecified sources that claimed Apple is not just working on a new display that would replace the now-defunct Thunderbolt Display, but also that said display would actually ship with its own integrated GPU to enable less powerful devices such as MacBook notebooks to drive the screen.

Apple-Thunderbolt-display

This would be one way of getting around the issue of having machines with less capable GPUs still be able to move a huge number of pixels around on a large Apple display.

Rumors of a display being in the works with its own integrated chip have circulated for a short time now, as have claims that a 5K display has not yet been announced because driving something with such a huge number of pixels is no mean feat. If Apple could handle all the heavy lifting within the display itself, however, it’s possible that even the lowest-end MacBook could be capable of plugging into a 5K display and reaping the benefits of having so many pixels with which to work.

Tweet-thunderbolt-display

If Apple does announce a new display in the coming weeks or months, it stands to reason that new MacBook Pros and perhaps even a new Mac Pro will also be announced, with both of the company’s computers now starting to become due for a design refresh. What money would you bet on all three being announced at the same event?

Knowing Apple as we do, it might be worth keeping hold of your money.

(Source: John Paczkowski [Twitter])

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