New Air's can only support 1 external monitor? According to Anand's review

[lokiju]

I was reading through Anand's review this morning and this of all things really caught my attention.

The Thunderbolt chip used in the Air's is different than every other Thunderbolt device to date in that it can only push a single external monitor.

That seems like a pretty terrible option by today's standards. It seems more people have dual LCD's than do not in the work and home environments that I've seen.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/4528/the-2011-macbook-air-11-13inch-review/4

Not going to make me go and return my 13" 2011 Air but had no clue that was the case prior to buying it.

My last Macbook was a 13" 2009 Pro and I used to use it with dual external displays every day. This would be a deal breaker for me if I were still working at that job with that need.

Note that the Air can only drive a single external display. Not only does the Eagle Ridge Thunderbolt controller only support one DisplayPort output but Intel's HD 3000 GPU only supports two display outputs and one is already occupied by the Air's panel.

EDIT: I stand fully corrected and shamed by my own stupidity.

I was so sure I was using dual display's before with my 13" MBP and that DVI adapter but alas I verified I was not remembering things correctly and was actually using one external monitor on the MBP and one external monitor on my Mac Pro and using Teleport to seamlessly move from one screen to the other using my MBP as the "master".

My bad.

 

[TheStu]

How were you using 2 external displays on your 13" Pro? It only has the one mDP.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

I honestly couldn't see the Intel HD 3000 running more than 1 Thunderbolt display. The resolution is just way too high for it.

 

[mmntech]

I honestly couldn't see the Intel HD 3000 running more than 1 Thunderbolt display. The resolution is just way too high for it.

Ugh, why does Apple insist on using Intel's crappy GPUs. I know it's integrated with the CPU, but seriously, they suck. :\

 

[TheStu]

Ugh, why does Apple insist on using Intel's crappy GPUs. I know it's integrated with the CPU, but seriously, they suck. :\

For the same reason why everyone else does. It is cheap, and works well enough.

 

[ChAoTiCpInOy]

For the same reason why everyone else does. It is cheap, and works well enough.

It's also because it provides a lower TDP and you really wouldn't be able to put a discrete GPU in the Air. Also, the GPU is separate from the Thunderbolt controller which is the reason why it can only drive 1 display.

 

[Kaido]

I think it's a 2-part system:

1. Thunderbolt ability (max 6 displays off a single port)
2. Video Card ability (integrated can usually only do 2 displays)

It's sort of like the transportation system...the road (Thunderbolt) lets you drive as fast as you want, but if your Geo Metro only lets you get up to 90 MPH, that's as fast as you can go. Some of the new Eyefinity cards from AMD support up to 6 monitors on the card itself:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16814121431

So really what I think they're doing is simply daisy-chaining a PCI Express bus connection - so as with other cards on the market, you can run up to 6 monitors IF the onboard GPU supports them.

What I think we're going to see is the advent of PCI Express card enclosures that will let you rock a mega-GPU from your tiny little laptop. Magma and at least one other vendor have already announced upcoming product lines for that very purpose - GPU cards, Sound Cards, etc. I suspect this is why Apple put Sandy Bridge in even the lowly Mac Mini, which has traditionally lagged behind in the chip releases a revision - so you can get a box with a decent chip and still tack on a GPU later for rendering. If Apple ever goes anywhere with OpenCL & Grand Central, that will be a pretty sweet deal with all of the available cores on the GPU's these days.

 

[Ka0t1x]

Oh you mean.. Like this? Easily possible with the bandwidth that Thunderbolt provides.

http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock

 

[Emulex]

just because it's intel hd doesn't mean its running at full potential. didn't they share system memory at one point? two 27" monitors might eat up a ton of ram if doing light 3D work. if you start out with 2GB and subtract from there.. how much vram you going ato allocate?

 

[Ns1]

"That seems like a pretty terrible option by today's standards. It seems more people have dual LCD's than do not in the work and home environments that I've seen."

I don't think this is true.

 

[ViRGE]

So really what I think they're doing is simply daisy-chaining a PCI Express bus connection - so as with other cards on the market, you can run up to 6 monitors IF the onboard GPU supports them.

From what I understand you need a DP multiplexer for each DP signal you introduce into the Thunderbolt connector. That's what Anand is getting at in his article: Eagle Peak only has a single multiplexer. So even if the Air's GPU could drive additional displays, the TB controller Apple is using doesn't have the ability to multiplex the additional DP streams. And this is DP1.1, so multi-stream transport is right out.

 

[runawayprisoner]

Wait, so is the 2010 Air's able to output to dual displays, or not?

I'm under the impression that it can from responses around the world, though I haven't actually tried that with mine.

 

[Emulex]

http://www.appleinsider.com/article...r_using_smaller_cheaper_thunderbolt_chip.html

 

[scootermaster]

How were you using 2 external displays on your 13" Pro? It only has the one mDP.

Did anyone ever answer this?

 

[MotionMan]

Picked up by OSXDaily:

http://osxdaily.com/2011/07/29/dual-external-displays-no-go-macbook-air-2011-thunderbolt/

MotionMan

 

[lokiju]

How were you using 2 external displays on your 13" Pro? It only has the one mDP.

Yes with this http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB...co=MTA4MzU1ODY

Which is exactly what I used for a few years with my old 13" MBP at my last job.

 

[TheStu]

Yes with this http://store.apple.com/us/product/MB...co=MTA4MzU1ODY

Which is exactly what I used for a few years with my old 13" MBP at my last job.

Ok, that is step one, how do you then turn that into 2 monitors? And doesn't the new one support the same thing? Can anyone verify that the new one cannot drive dual link?

 

[lokiju]

Ok, that is step one, how do you then turn that into 2 monitors? And doesn't the new one support the same thing? Can anyone verify that the new one cannot drive dual link?

I'll try and test it later on today to confirm either way.

Think I still have that adapter stuffed away around here.

 

[RichieZ]

I'll try and test it later on today to confirm either way.

Think I still have that adapter stuffed away around here.

um i had that adapter at my last job to drive a dell 30" 3007WFP, it doesn't allow you to connect two monitors in any way.

 

[dclive]

Dual-link DVI doesn't mean 2 DVI outputs; it means it can do a DVI output to a device > 1920x1280. In this case, it means it can drive the Dual-Link DVI-based Apple 30" Cinema display.

 

[TheStu]

Dual-link DVI doesn't mean 2 DVI outputs; it means it can do a DVI output to a device > 1920x1280. In this case, it means it can drive the Dual-Link DVI-based Apple 30" Cinema display.

I have actually seen pictures and screenshots of someone using a special Dell adapter with an older MacBook Pro (pre-unibody with an actual dual link DVI port). The guy had 2 monitors hooked up and was using the laptop's screen too. He had a screenshot of System Preferences showing all 3 displays, and a picture of his setup

I'll try and test it later on today to confirm either way.

Think I still have that adapter stuffed away around here.

And if you could explain how you were using it to connect to 2 displays, that would be handy too.

 

[dclive]

I have actually seen pictures and screenshots of someone using a special Dell adapter with an older MacBook Pro (pre-unibody with an actual dual link DVI port). The guy had 2 monitors hooked up and was using the laptop's screen too. He had a screenshot of System Preferences showing all 3 displays, and a picture of his setup

There are plenty of USB devices to add a monitor (output), but I have yet to see or hear of a way to do it via this method.

 

[Lifted]

I'd love to know how to do this on my 2011 MBP w/ the single DP.

 

[dclive]

http://www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/mac/choice/

 

[TheStu]

http://www.engadget.com/2011/08/03/zotac-adapter-turns-your-displayport-into-two-hdmi-jacks/

That plus this;
http://www.monoprice.com/products/p...=10428&cs_id=1042803&p_id=5714&seq=1&format=2