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Ivy Bridge to Bring Triple Display Support to MacBook Air

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MacRumors

macrumors bot
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Apr 12, 2001
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Earlier today, we highlighted a leaked roadmap from VR-Zone detailing Intel's plans for its mobile Ivy Bridge processors set to debut in April and May of next year.

macbook_air_thunderbolt_display.jpg



One detail of the report that bears special attention is the fact that the Ivy Bridge platform, both mobile and desktop, will support up to three independent displays, with one of those displays being an internal one.
While we're talking about graphics, as with the desktop Ivy Bridge processors, the mobile processors also support up to three independent displays, although one of these will be the built in display in the notebook, but hopefully we'll see notebooks with a DisplayPort connector as standard come next year.
Click to expand...
The current Sandy Bridge platform is only capable of supporting two independent displays, limiting the MacBook Air to one external display. Similarly, the 13-inch MacBook Pro can only drive two external displays by turning off its internal display.

More powerful machines such as the larger MacBook Pro models can currently drive two external displays in addition to the internal one due to their inclusion of discrete graphics chips paired with the Sandy Bridge platform. But with Ivy Bridge opening the door to direct support for up to three displays via the Intel HD 4000 integrated graphics, even owners of smaller machines like the MacBook Air will have the option of significantly expanding their screen real estate by connecting to two external displays.

Article Link: Ivy Bridge to Bring Triple Display Support to MacBook Air
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2011/12/06/ivy-bridge-to-bring-triple-display-support-to-macbook-air/
ThunderSkunk

ThunderSkunk

macrumors 68040
Dec 31, 2007
3,814
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Milwaukee Area
Curious to see if Ivy Bridge & the 3D transistor will be capable of driving a big external display and rendering out 3D models, or if it's increased performance just enough to give a slight bump, while focusing on reducing load everywhere else...
 
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T

Torrijos

macrumors 6502
Jan 10, 2006
384
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Honestly the air barely manages to drive a TB display, I don't even want to imagine two of them... What a torture.
 
B

buckers

macrumors 6502
Aug 18, 2010
293
0
Anglesey, UK
My MacBook Air happily runs two displays (internal + external). Would love to have it running two external displays and shut the lid, but it doesn't seem to have the ports.
 
C

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
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The current AMD graphics chips in Macs already support at least 4 displays, but it's Thunderbolt that is crippling.
 
T

Torrijos

macrumors 6502
Jan 10, 2006
384
24
cube said:
The current AMD graphics chips in Macs already support at least 4 displays, but it's Thunderbolt that is crippling.
Click to expand...

Actually it has more to do with the number of PCIe channels given by the Sandy bridge platform.
 
C

cube

Suspended
May 10, 2004
17,011
4,972
Torrijos said:
Actually it has more to do with the number of PCIe channels given by the Sandy bridge platform.
Click to expand...

No, Thunderbolt has half the video bandwidth as DisplayPort 1.2, over which these chips support upto 6 displays.
 
blue22

blue22

macrumors 6502a
Oct 15, 2010
505
18
If it proves to be feasible on the overall system constraints, then this sounds awesome!!!
 
$

$MacUser$

macrumors 6502
Mar 27, 2005
330
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Los Angeles
Interesting. I know a lot of folks were returning computers and canceling orders over rumors of Ivy Bridge, but I knew from past experience it wasn't going to come until the May/June timeframe (if not later).

As far as the Air goes, for the average user I don't see any great benefits when you compare the current specs to Ivy Bridge. Greater graphics performance, sure...but I'd wager most using an Air aren't gamers, and serious pro users would be on the pro line by default. The 17w power rating is identical to the current model, so I imagine the battery life between the two will be quite similar.

Definitely correct me if I'm off-base on any of this.
 
A

akulbe

macrumors newbie
Jan 12, 2009
5
16
Torrijos said:
Honestly the air barely manages to drive a TB display, I don't even want to imagine two of them... What a torture.
Click to expand...

What do you mean it barely drives a TB display? No issues here, and the video quality is excellent? You got a lemon, maybe?
 
W

wizard

macrumors 68040
May 29, 2003
3,854
571
The forums need to realize that Ivy Bridge is a GPU upgrade.

In fact I'm not sure why it isn't stressed more. The CPU isn't benefiting from the process shrink all that much other than the clock gets turned up. The GPU however has been heavily rework with Ivy Bridge. It will be very interesting to see what the actual performance encumbers are under Mac OS, but I suspect more will be pleased than disappointed.
 
ciociosan

ciociosan

macrumors member
Apr 10, 2009
91
21
Lund, Sweden
finally! i've been waiting for something to do with the stack of thunderbolt enabled displays i've got laying about the flat!
 
Y

Yamcha

macrumors 68000
Mar 6, 2008
1,825
158
Great for a laptop I guess, but a Desktop PC can support up to 24 displays at once using 4 graphics card running in Crossfire mode..

I hope we also see Crossfire & SLI support, I'm not talking only about being able to use multi-displays but being able to get scalable performance with more then one graphics cards.. On the PC side Crossfire & SLI have been around for ages..
 
S

sennekuyl

macrumors regular
Jul 28, 2010
216
0
@$MacUser$: Two identical posts in two threads. What are you pushing?

You don't seem to be wrong, but can't see a reason for posting the same thing twice?
 
G

gmon750

macrumors newbie
Mar 6, 2008
10
0
Torrijos said:
Honestly the air barely manages to drive a TB display, I don't even want to imagine two of them... What a torture.
Click to expand...

"Torture"?? Really? By what basis have you concluded this? Personal experience?

My MBA is works great with my 27" Thunderbolt display. On top of that, It's running Windows7 via VMware on a second MissionControl desktop.

It's running great on my machine. Please, enlighten all of us on the EXACT setup you are using to come to such a conclusion. I suspect you have none of it.
 
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