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Apple Thunderbolt Display with Multiple Monitors: No Daisy Chaining Mini DisplayPort Monitors
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To be fair, while the Sandy Bridge chips used in the MacBook Air are nice, they are still among the slowest mainstream chips that Intel currently makes available, particularly when compared to desktop chips. I don't really see it as "ludicrous" that it supports only one external display. It isn't for no discernible reason, either. The MacBook Air is intended to be as small as possible. The Eagle Ridge chip takes up less room, and thus allows the Air to maintain its form factor without having to reduce the battery size.
Remember that the MacBook Air started out life as an executive class ultraportable. While it is now somewhat mainstream, the fact is that it is still a sub-3lb notebook that makes compromises that desktop machines or even larger notebooks don't. For instance, it lacks Firewire and USB 3.0, it has only 2 USB ports, no optical drive, and has less storage than just about any desktop or typical notebook out there. Apple could have skimped on the battery, keyboard, or some other component, but in the end decided that making a compromise with the Thunderbolt port was the most rational. I agree with that assessment.
Apple sells the MacBook Pro line to be desktop replacements (particularly the 15" and 17" versions). The Airs are still primarily for road warriors or basic home users, most of whom won't connect them to even 1 external monitor. I grant that it would be nice to be able to connect it to two, but I don't think it will be a deal breaker for many people.
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DisplayPort 1.1/1.2
Multiscreen is only supported by DisplayPort 1.2!
So all the "Apple decides for the customer" postings are crap. Only because a plug looks the same it's not automatically the same protocol. DisplayPort can use packet oriented data transfers, what all the simple DVI-DisplayPort adapters don't support. They only support a simple compatible mode.
What will be possible is to add a Thunderbolt graphics card which can add several displays with it's private DisplayPorts. Think of the bandwidth used for the screen refresh.
It is possible to add several graphic cards which take care of the refresh but it's not possible to refresh many displays with one transport system.
Multiscreen is only supported by DisplayPort 1.2!
So all the "Apple decides for the customer" postings are crap. Only because a plug looks the same it's not automatically the same protocol. DisplayPort can use packet oriented data transfers, what all the simple DVI-DisplayPort adapters don't support. They only support a simple compatible mode.
What will be possible is to add a Thunderbolt graphics card which can add several displays with it's private DisplayPorts. Think of the bandwidth used for the screen refresh.
It is possible to add several graphic cards which take care of the refresh but it's not possible to refresh many displays with one transport system.
An entire display? Only 1/2 could be powered? Doesn't make sense. Also why can't TBDs run off TB power? Isn't that the whole point of TB? Buy a MacMini and connect two 27" TBDs running of TB only. No power cables. Sounds sweet to me.
This is what I'm waiting for after I buy a MM server i7.
Of course, even the iMac and Mac Pro lack USB 3.0, so I'd hardly say that's a compromise of the MBA's form factor at work here.
And because the ATD provides a MagSafe connector for charging, you could run the display off of the power provided by a MacBook Air's Thunderbolt port and not totally drain the battery because it could be charging at the same time...
The Thunderbolt port only provides up to 10W of power for devices. The Apple Thunderbolt Display has a maximum power rating of 250W when charging a MacBook Pro. Not quite enough juice there, and of course the MagSafe connector can't work unless the thing is plugged into the wall.
Whats this? The MM doesn't have magsafe so you're saying I'd need to plug both 27" ATDs into the wall right. If so, that bites and I'm sort of wondering why I'd buy an ATD then. Might as well buy used 27"s.
What on earth are you talking about?
lol a Mac mini is just a laptop in a box it doesn't have the juice to run an entire 27" display off of let alone two of them. That's not what TB is for.
WTF?! Totally bogus advertising. They make a logo with a lightning bolt and it's not unlimited power?
Wait, you mean that wouldn't work? If I had a PC I could just use one of these though...
So let me get this straight, I cannot use a Thunderbolt hard drive, and a regular mini-dvi out, right? If I wanted to use dual screen and use a thunderbolt enabled device I'd need to have a thunderbolt monitor from apple, and then I'd have to plug it into the monitor.
Right?
Right?
The MBA provides excellent performance with the Sandy Bridge chips and SSD. And great battery life too. Hopefully Apple will include USB 3 with the Ivy Bridge upgrade since it will have native support from Intel. Firewire isn't and never was popular, only those who currently use it will miss it. New users won't even give it a glance. I can't think of another notebook that is better at what it was designed for than the MBA. The new Lenovo Ultrabook etc, may offer some legitimate competition. Time will tell.
Everything has been said: this is typical Apple ********. No in fact this is way more, and it's getting worse.
So I was really interested by thunderbolt, because of it's small plug, speed and the daisy chaining. But Apple is limiting the daisy chaining part which was the most interesting.
Competition, hurry up!
So I was really interested by thunderbolt, because of it's small plug, speed and the daisy chaining. But Apple is limiting the daisy chaining part which was the most interesting.
Competition, hurry up!
I hope your joking.
Thunderbolt has always been specced as providing 10W.
If you thought it was more than that, then that is your fault for not reading up.
That might have something to do with such a tiny enclosure running a massive monitor.
It's a feat of engineering that it even runs such a huge number of pixels.
Defining a speck is pretty different than implementing it to a working physical device.DP 1.2 is a 2009 specification.
Specs are made for "where the puck will be". Otherwise (or if Apple made them) they would have to be upgraded for each model and therefore there wouldn't be specs that enable any kind of interoperability between models.
eSATAp is great innovation, nevermind what USB consortium says.
I just haven't noticed any positive gain Apple could get by obeing USB consrtium. It is much more probable that Apple just wanted to differentiate by defining an own TB port from its own mDP port.
Once again, new computer should have the specs "where the puck will be", not where we are now. Unless you want to waste your money to unecological "I'll buy new model and every peripheral to it every year" way.
Btw,
I went to dp.org's page, clicked the first link in GPU cards and there you have MST:
http://www.amd.com/US/PRODUCTS/DESK...6990/Pages/amd-radeon-hd-6990-overview.aspx#3
Now, what's wrong with TB:
1)
Apple can't support dp1.2, because TB does not support it.
If Apple & Intel would have used another year for r&d, they wouldn't have to cripple the Light Peak so much, that it can't even handle dp1.2 from 2009.
2)
If Apple would have implemented TB in usb port like Sony, Apple could offer dp1.2 with standard mDP socket.
3) Apple's kludge chaining 2 external monitors through TB failed and you need to buy useless box in between.
Anyway, you don't have to use spec's maximum to use the speck, so there's no point asking about 20Gb/s.
And I don't have time to repeat myself all the time, so here's the link:
https://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?p=13292068&#post13292068
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Hello - I've done my best to follow along reading the replies but I think I'm too much of a computer noob.
I have a 27 inch iMac from March 2010... I think the answer is 'no' but would I be able to hook up two of these monitors to that computer by daisy chaining the monitors (or some other method?)
Thanks
I have a 27 inch iMac from March 2010... I think the answer is 'no' but would I be able to hook up two of these monitors to that computer by daisy chaining the monitors (or some other method?)
Thanks
I'm thinking of buying a 2.5 GHz Mac Mini with the 6630M GPU (which theoretically supports up to 5 monitors via Eyefinity). I have 3 monitors I would like to use - 2 Dell U2410 (1920 x 1200) and a I-Inc iF281D (1920 x 1200). The 2 Dell monitors have displayport inputs.
What I was thinking of doing is connecting the I-Inc monitor using HDMI, and then getting the Altona Displayport Splitter and using this to connect the 2 Dell monitors to the thunderbolt connection.
Does anyone see why this would not work?
What I was thinking of doing is connecting the I-Inc monitor using HDMI, and then getting the Altona Displayport Splitter and using this to connect the 2 Dell monitors to the thunderbolt connection.
Does anyone see why this would not work?
Isn't that what Apple does ? "Skating where the puck will be" ?
And you ignore that specifications are available before being fully ratified so devices can be made to "Draft" versions of specs.
How many Wifi 802.11n routers did we have before the standard was released ? Even Apple made devices for the "Draft" specification.