Daisy chaining 3 x M4 iMacs together to use all 3 screens and all 3 CPU/GPU

[steveebeatz]

Does anyone know if it is possible to get 3 x M4 iMacs and use all 3 of them together so all 3 monitors can be used just by one of the iMacs and then also use the cpu/gpu processing power from the other 2?

So you basically get a triple monitor / triple computer

thanks in advance

Stevee

 

[Bigwaff]

iMacs can't be used as attached displays. However, you can use AirPlay on one to extend the desktop to the two others... but it won't be 4K quality on the extended desktops. In Settings > Displays, click the "+" button to see a menu of AirPlay target devices on your local network.

 

[gilby101]

then also use the cpu/gpu processing power from the other 2?

That is not part of macOS. But there is nothing to stop an application to be designed to run on multiple Macs and for them to communicate to distribute processing load. I am not aware of any.

iMacs

I would not expect iMacs to be a target for multi-computer processing.

So you basically get a triple monitor / triple computer

What application are you considering for such a multi-computer?

An Ultra Mac Studio in high performance scenarios would be more powerful than two or three iMacs - and without special application design. Focus on the Ultra Studio (or Mac Pro) with multiple monitors for your high performance needs.

So triple monitor, single computer. (Unless you have very specialised need).

 

[FreakinEurekan]

AirPlay is limited to one external, so you wouldn't be able to do three iMacs with two of them as displays for the third.

 

[theorist9]

Sounds like it woud be a kludge, plus it would be difficult to configure 3 iMacs to run a single multi-core program (if that's even possible).

The top M4 iMac has 4 P-cores and 10 GPU cores.

Even if you could somehow link the 3 iMacs together to run a single MC app, there would likely be losses from whatever network connection you used, so you'd probably get significantly better performance from a top M4 Pro Mini (10 P-cores and 20 GPU cores) or entry-level M4 Max Studio (10 P-cores and 32 GPU cores).

The only downside is that if your budget is for 3 x M4 iMacs (≈$5k), you won't be able to afford 3 Retina-class external displays.

Your best bet would be to buy an entry-level M4 Max Studio ($2,000), add an Apple Studio Display ($1,600) as your central monitor, and add two 27" 4k's as your side monitors (2 x $500 = $1000), for a total of ≈$4,600. That would be a far better setup than 3 x M4 iMacs, and cost the same or less.

I find the resolution on the side monitors isn't as critical, since you spend most of your time looking at the middle display.

 

[macnavarra]

Rent DeepBlue "Super Computer" for next weekend.... lol

 

[Sydde]

A Studio Max at US$3200 has more power than 3 iMacs (that is specing it for top-end Max with 64GB RAM and 2TB storage). 3 Studio Displays would run the price up quite a bit, but you might be able to buy one and add a couple 3rd-party monitors that are not quite as good. A top-spec Max has 3 times the P cores as a top-spec base M4 and 4 times the GPU cores, so going with 3 iMacs does not really put you ahead at all, in almost any scenario (if you want one of the iMacs to handle secure data and the others to be less secure, it might make sense).

 

[cupcakes2000]

Here is an article :

M4 Mac minis in a cluster is cool, but not massively effective

There is a way to use a collection of M4 Mac minis in a cluster, but the benefits only really exist when you use high-end Macs.

appleinsider.com

 

[steveebeatz]

Thank you for the replys - I've decided to get the base model M3 Ultra and two x 2015 5K iMacs (150 quid each), gut both of them and stick in a couple of 5k display cards (180 quid each) and then a dual monitor arm system - I can sell the internals of both iMacs and get some money back at least

 

[theorist9]

Since you're interested in the possibility of doing distributed computing, I should add this piece of info. Note that he's referring to TB5 Macs (e.g., M3/M4 Studios), while the M4 iMacs you were initially thinking about buying are TB4; obviously this will work much better with the former than the latter:


"You can actually connect multiple Mac Studios using Thunderbolt 5 (and Apple has dedicated bandwidth for each port as well, so no bottlenecks) for distributed compute using 1TB+ of memory, but we’ll save that for another day."

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