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Any Ideas For Connecting Two 5K iMac's So They Run Simultaneously Together?

Inframan

Inframan

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Jan 18, 2013
342
129
Los Angeles, California
I pretty much know the answer to this question but i was hoping some of the more advanced Mac users could answer my question.

My Current Mac Pro
(Mid 2010)
(2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon)
(32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC)

Its life is coming to an end. It's getting slower and slower and harder and harder to keep up with the newer software updates.

My Two Cinema Displays are outdated and one display is failing.

So its time to upgrade.

Im not sold on the New Mac Pro...Im not a fan of the Trash Can style design and overall if I'm going to Drop 10 Grand on a new Desktop its not going to be the Mac Pro, just not worth the money to me.

I would however love to figure out a way to run two iMac 5K's side by side. Somehow utilize all the processors together if at all possible (I know this sounds dumb, but its worth a shot asking)

For around 10 Grand Ill get two 5K displays and a super powerful setup which I need for work.

Any ideas, Suggestions or recommendations? I highly doubt Apple is going to release a 5K stand alone display anytime soon so this might be my only option.
 
ErikGrim said:
You can definitely run two iMacs side by side, but as for having them operate as one, not a chance. Although that would be a cool hack :)
Click to expand...

I know i could use one as a display, that would be easy but the question is, do i want to spend $2500 bucks on second display? The New iMac configured the way i want it is $4400,00 plus tax. I could get two for about 10 Grand but if i could somehow utilize both by running one single OS, that would be amazing and super powerful.
 
Inframan said:
I know i could use one as a display, that would be easy but the question is, do i want to spend $2500 bucks on second display? The New iMac configured the way i want it is $4400,00 plus tax. I could get two for about 10 Grand but if i could somehow utilize both by running one single OS, that would be amazing and super powerful.
Click to expand...

No you can’t. See above.
 
No secondary display support?

Michaelgtrusa said:
From what I hear you cannot run in target display mode.
Click to expand...

The iMac Retina does not support target display mode but is that just for a 4K display from something like a Mac Pro? I presently have an iMac that also serves as my PC monitor; I love the convenience of one display for two machines. I don't understand why the iMac Retina can't support lower resolution Display Port displays like from a PC at 2560 x 1440.

Can anyone confirm if this is supported on the iMac Retina or is displaying any other source totally not supported? If not does anyone have any thoughts as to if this will be supported in the future for the last 2014 iMac Retina?
 
DCLocal said:
The iMac Retina does not support target display mode but is that just for a 4K display from something like a Mac Pro? I presently have an iMac that also serves as my PC monitor; I love the convenience of one display for two machines. I don't understand why the iMac Retina can't support lower resolution Display Port displays like from a PC at 2560 x 1440.

Can anyone confirm if this is supported on the iMac Retina or is displaying any other source totally not supported? If not does anyone have any thoughts as to if this will be supported in the future for the last 2014 iMac Retina?
Click to expand...
Target Display Mode on the new 5K iMac is not supported in any way, shape or form. Even at lower resolutions. Nada. Zilch. Bubkis.
 
I love the philosophy/pioneering behind this post :)

would be awesome to harness the power or 2x riMacs
 
hmm, long shot, but what about screen sharing. hmm problems.
There was a utility for using an iPad as another monitor. Why not the same with a iMac ...
 
Inframan said:
I pretty much know the answer to this question but i was hoping some of the more advanced Mac users could answer my question.

My Current Mac Pro
(Mid 2010)
(2 x 2.4 GHz Quad-Core Intel Xeon)
(32 GB 1066 MHz DDR3 ECC)

Its life is coming to an end. It's getting slower and slower and harder and harder to keep up with the newer software updates.

My Two Cinema Displays are outdated and one display is failing.

So its time to upgrade.

Im not sold on the New Mac Pro...Im not a fan of the Trash Can style design and overall if I'm going to Drop 10 Grand on a new Desktop its not going to be the Mac Pro, just not worth the money to me.

I would however love to figure out a way to run two iMac 5K's side by side. Somehow utilize all the processors together if at all possible (I know this sounds dumb, but its worth a shot asking)

For around 10 Grand Ill get two 5K displays and a super powerful setup which I need for work.

Any ideas, Suggestions or recommendations? I highly doubt Apple is going to release a 5K stand alone display anytime soon so this might be my only option.
Click to expand...

I guess XGrid is what you're looking for, but you will need to install OSX Server to utilize it.
 
DCLocal said:
The iMac Retina does not support target display mode but is that just for a 4K display from something like a Mac Pro? I presently have an iMac that also serves as my PC monitor; I love the convenience of one display for two machines. I don't understand why the iMac Retina can't support lower resolution Display Port displays like from a PC at 2560 x 1440.

Can anyone confirm if this is supported on the iMac Retina or is displaying any other source totally not supported? If not does anyone have any thoughts as to if this will be supported in the future for the last 2014 iMac Retina?
Click to expand...

I said in the other thread on this, that would be a very kludgy edge case solution. Apple tends not to support those because they look terrible (literally, in this case). I would regard the probability of official support as near nil, although it's not impossible that someone could write a hack to make it work.
 
Inframan said:
Unless they changed something according to this guy its possible.
Click to expand...

With a non-Retina iMac, you can use a second non-Retina iMac as a display. However, the Retina iMac cannot be utilized as a second display because an interface has not been released yet that can push the amount of data necessary to run a 5K display. It will eventually come, but not until Skylake and Thunderbolt 3 are both released, and Apple includes both in a future version of the iMac 5K. My best guess is that we won't see this until two iMac revisions from now.

As for combining two OSs and associated hardware to operate as one, that does not exist. And if someone could successfully engineer that feat, they would be much better off designing and inventing their own operating systems and computers....or being hired as a Senior Engineer by Apple for their immense skills and talent.

If you need a lot of power, I would strongly suggest buying a maxed-out version of the current MacPro and adding two 4K displays. If you spent your money carefully, you could probably do this for around $12,000.

Bryan
 
There are some apps that can link two OSx systems to run a specific program - they split between systems. However, these are not typical apps.

Linking two physical systems so that all apps work would need some serious work on the OS itself. It is easy enough for an OS to split work between processors on a single system, but if you add a 2nd physical system it becomes a lot more difficult. For example, If system A is running app A, but app A has all of its' files on system B it would slow things down terribly since all apps would be choking the inter-system links.

I used to work in operating system software, and adding a 2nd physical system requires rethinking a lot of things. Mostly one system has to become the master and the other the secondary.

I wouldn't expect Apple to come up with this kind of change in OSx.
 
old-wiz said:
There are some apps that can link two OSx systems to run a specific program - they split between systems. However, these are not typical apps.

Linking two physical systems so that all apps work would need some serious work on the OS itself. It is easy enough for an OS to split work between processors on a single system, but if you add a 2nd physical system it becomes a lot more difficult. For example, If system A is running app A, but app A has all of its' files on system B it would slow things down terribly since all apps would be choking the inter-system links.

I used to work in operating system software, and adding a 2nd physical system requires rethinking a lot of things. Mostly one system has to become the master and the other the secondary.

I wouldn't expect Apple to come up with this kind of change in OSx.
Click to expand...

I could see someone doing a halfway decent software implementation using Thunderbolt networking. It might not be perfect, but it should be possible to make it work using compression and only updating pixels that change. You could get a usable TDM simulator this way.

...and about five people would actually use it.
 
Inframan said:
Interesting, This might actually work. Ill have to research it more.
Click to expand...

Xgrid works for specific jobs sent out to an array/grid, but it's not an operating mode for two computers to share the load continously, as if it were a dual-processor Mac Pro (for example).

While the base idea is there, you'd likely need to build something custom on top of Xgrid to get this working the way you describe it..

EDIT: While Xgrid is apparently dead/unsupported, there are some alternatives listed in this thread: https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1412900/
 
what are you needs that are driving the quest to have 2 computers work together to solve your problem?

Not clear at all, just a subjective "
I would however love to figure out a way to run two iMac 5K's side by side. Somehow utilize all the processors together if at all possible (I know this sounds dumb, but its worth a shot asking)
Click to expand...
"

again, state you business needs clearly then a solution can be outlined for you.
 
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