Driving a 30" display at 2560 x 1600 from a (non-Apple) laptop...

[cascas]

Hey guys,

After spending 4-5 hours on the net I am still confused as to the current situation with regards to driving the high end 30" monitors such as Dell 3008WFP / Dell U3011.

As I understand it, 2560 x 1600 can only be achieved through the Dual Link-DVI or Displayport interfaces. HDMI, VGA, and all other interfaces will not achieve 2560 x 1600, correct?

What about HDMI 1.4, which I am seeing on new laptops? I heard it support resolutions far greater than 2560 x 1600... are there 30" monitors that support this?

In my searches for a laptop, I have not yet come across any that have Dual-Link DVI. I hear it is a very rare interface for a laptop to have. I have found a number with "mini-Displayport" but I have read of people having a ton of issues trying to use adapters to get this to work with the high end 30's at 2560 x 1600.

What are my options? Who is actually using a laptop with a 30" at 2560 x 1600 who can advise me? What should I do?

Many thanks in advance

 

[MauveCloud]

HDMI 1.4 is supposed to support higher resolutions, but there have only been 4 monitors that have native resolution of 2560x1600 and HDMI ports: BenQ FP301W, Dell 3008WFP, Gateway XHD3000, and Dell U3011. I don't find an online manual for the BenQ, but the Dells only support up to 1920x1080 over HDMI, and the Gateway only supports up to 1920x1200 over HDMI. It's possible somebody makes a converter to take the HDMI 1.4 output from a laptop and feed it to the dual-link dvi or displayport input of a 2560x1600 monitor, but I didn't find one. If you could find a laptop bundled with such a monitor, that would probably work, but even the Falcon Northwest DRX (which is a desktop-replacement level laptop) only offers 1920x1080 monitors to go with it. Is there a reason you need a laptop instead of a small desktop?

 

[cascas]

Only the obvious reason that I need the mobility

I am a professional poker player and the 30" 2560 x 1600 is so that I can fit a higher number of poker tables on one monitor during heavy online sessions... but I also travel around etc so need to be able to take the laptop with me when I'm away from home.

I am now being told that any laptop with a mini-Displayport will power monitors that have a Displayport interface (which the 3008WFP and U3011 do afaik) via a mDP to DP adapter cable, for example: http://www.amazon.co.uk/StarTech-com-Mini-DisplayPort-Adapter-Cable/dp/B002XVYZ82

Can anyone confirm they have successfully achieved this on a WINDOWS laptop??

Thanks