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How to run 3 Displays without breaking the bank WITHOUT a 27" iMac?

G

Grubster

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jun 25, 2010
185
33
Hi, I currently have a 27" 2015 iMac with 2 external 1080p displays. In thinking about upgrading, lot's of people on here seem to think going to the 2020 27" iMac is a bad idea. So I started to think, maybe they are correct and I can just get something else. Well, I looked up and down the Apple product lineup, and the only option I found that could run 1- 5k Display AND 2 additional displays either 1080p or 4k is the Mac Studio. That means I have to drop $1999, plus find an LG 5k display for over a grand to get integrated web cam and speakers, or buy the new Apple Display for $1599.

Looks like M1 Mac mini can only run 2 displays, AND old intel Mac Mini cannot run 3 displays if one display is 5k, meaning, I can run 3 1080p or 3 4k displays, but zero 5k displays.

I'm struggling, why should I not upgrade to a 2020 27" iMac? I have found some base models I can get for under $1k and keep my 3 monitor setup without breaking the bank.

FYI only reason I would upgrade my 2015 is I'm frustrated with the fusion drives, getting some image retention on the edges, and can still find some 2020's with Warranty in tack, new\open box items. I figure I could sell my 2015 for $500 or so as it's in mint condition with 32gb of RAM.
 
Grubster said:
Hi, I currently have a 27" 2015 iMac with 2 external 1080p displays. In thinking about upgrading, lot's of people on here seem to think going to the 2020 27" iMac is a bad idea. So I started to think, maybe they are correct and I can just get something else. Well, I looked up and down the Apple product lineup, and the only option I found that could run 1- 5k Display AND 2 additional displays either 1080p or 4k is the Mac Studio. That means I have to drop $1999, plus find an LG 5k display for over a grand to get integrated web cam and speakers, or buy the new Apple Display for $1599.

Looks like M1 Mac mini can only run 2 displays, AND old intel Mac Mini cannot run 3 displays if one display is 5k, meaning, I can run 3 1080p or 3 4k displays, but zero 5k displays.

I'm struggling, why should I not upgrade to a 2020 27" iMac? I have found some base models I can get for under $1k and keep my 3 monitor setup without breaking the bank.

FYI only reason I would upgrade my 2015 is I'm frustrated with the fusion drives, getting some image retention on the edges, and can still find some 2020's with Warranty in tack, new\open box items. I figure I could sell my 2015 for $500 or so as it's in mint condition with 32gb of RAM.
Click to expand...

It's important not to minimize how much data must be transferred for 4K and higher displays. In the Windows world, there aren't very many people hooking up multiple, high-DPI displays. It's mostly our little Mac world that does this, and your video card needs A LOT of bandwidth to make it happen. If you just wanted to hook up three 1080p displays, you could do it with just about any Mac nowadays, even if there isn't native support. You can use DisplayLink technology, which runs display data over USB, and it's "good enough" for 1080p, and with some newer chipsets, even 4K, especially if you're not using the DisplayLink monitors for video editing/gaming (save those for the native displays). I think Sonnet's M1/M2 Dual DisplayPort DisplayLink adapter is the best, offering two displays at 4K/60 (though you might only need to use one display on the adapter). That's like $150. You can pair that with a 5K display on any Apple Silicon Mac, and you've got what you want, although at least one display isn't "native" since it's running over USB.

If you want to natively, and at full speed, run a single 5K display and two 4K or less displays, you have two simple choices for new Macs:
(1) Any M1 Max Mac
(2) A current Mac Pro with at least a Radeon Pro W5700X card (may be possible with W6600X card).

You've got used Mac choices:
(1) Any 27" iMac from the Late 2015 model on
(2) iMac Pro

You've got a weird, third choice:
(1) An M1 Pro laptop, which can give you a native external 5K + native external 4K + native ~3K internal display

You can natively get a 5K + one 4K screen on:
(1) An M1 Mac mini
(2) An M1 iMac (including built-in 4.5K display)

Finally, should you get the iMac 27" (2020)? You're right that it can handle your three-display scenario. Personally, I think it's a mistake for anyone to buy an Intel Mac today. There's little time left for new operating system support. You'd be buying a used computer that runs notoriously hot and loud. You need the i7 or i9 models just to eke out slightly faster performance than the base M1 mini in multicore benchmarks, and the iMac is about 25% slower in single-core performance. Plus, the Apple Silicon Macs just feel so much faster than the Intel Macs ever did. I'd be really sad to go back. Yes, your solution is economical. And, your current iMac is half the speed of an M1 and therefore about half the speed of the 2020 iMac, so if you've been able to keep using a computer for seven years, maybe the 2020 model can last you until 2027. Fundamentally, you're faced with the reality that you can get a used 5K display for under $1,000 (and have an entire computer inside of it). There are just no 5K displays out there to compete, price-wise, so you have to decide whether the old computer is worth it to you.

P.S. Since you're willing to get a used 2020 iMac, I assume you're equally willing to just get used 5K displays. You can pretty easily get an Ultrafine 5K on eBay for $500. I saw one seller offering a set of two for $750. Just food for thought.
 
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I dont know the prices in your region, but if you can buy a new 2020 for 1000, I doubt you will get 500 for your ghosted 2015.
 
This is a solution that I have with the M1 Mac mini with three monitors. But one of them is an iMac. It also doesn't cost anything (no subscription fees or additional hardware or drivers required). It works well with QHD and this is my work setup. I also have a 2014 iMac 27 that I run standalone though I have done some testing setting it up as a third monitor. It doesn't work with one software program that I'm using because it's not setup for the 27 inch iMac scaled resolutions - I have to modify the program to add those.

There's another program that I haven't gotten around to testing yet.


I worked with someone who bought a Mac Studio. He wanted to use a program that doesn't run native on Apple Silicon and it takes a 66% performance hit. I have a native port as a workaround which I offered but he didn't want the port. So I suggested that he buy a 2020 iMac 27 i7. He went out and bought it and later returned the Mac Studio. That's a special case, though, where he needed x86.

I actually do think that the 2017, 2019 and 2020 iMacs are quite nice, particularly if you want a nice screen.

My 2014 iMac has an i7, 32 GB RAM and a 500 GB SSD. I bought it for $500 in 2021 and I love the screen. These are selling for $400-$500 in my area these days, as people migrate to the Mac Studio and Studio Display.
 
- What is the program called? (It is not clear for me, is that a program you downloaded somewhere or you wrot it yourself?)
- Does it run on intel Macs also?
- What charting program do you use?
 
Eugen Mezei said:
- What is the program called? (It is not clear for me, is that a program you downloaded somewhere or you wrot it yourself?)
- Does it run on intel Macs also?
- What charting program do you use?
Click to expand...

There are two programs, BetterDisplay (formerly BetterDummy) and FloppyDisplay. Both are open source projects. FloppyDisplay does not support a lot of scaled resolutions and I wanted to add them to see if I could use it with Retina 5k programs. BetterDisplay has a lot more functionality and it looks like it supports more resolutions but I haven't tested it on 5k.

BetterDisplay is free with a Pro version. You don't need the Pro version to run multiple monitors.

I think that both programs run on Intel Macs but I haven't tested it. You only need one of the programs on one of the machines. The other machine can be anything that supports macOS screen sharing. There's a video on my channel showing it in use with a 2007 MacBook Pro running El Capitan.

The charting program is Think or Swim by TD Ameritrade.
 
Just watched that video. You dont mention how to create the virtual monitor. Do Monterey have that integrated or is it there were you use Better Display?

BetterDisplay needs at least BigSur and I only have HighSierra at the moment.
I can not find FloppyDisplay.
 
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Eugen Mezei said:
Just watched that video. You dont mention how to create the virtual monitor. Do Monterey have that integrated or is it there were you use Better Display?
Click to expand...

I'm going to do videos with directions on BetterDisplay and FloppyDisplay. Those earlier videos were proof of concept. Basically you can use any program that can create virtual monitors.

I'm using this approach because I have old Macs that don't run Monterey.
 
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Eugen Mezei said:
I dont know the prices in your region, but if you can buy a new 2020 for 1000, I doubt you will get 500 for your ghosted 2015.
Click to expand...
There are some deals on e-bay for 2020's, I've seen open box items still under warranty. Those are base models though. The i7 3.8 seems like a good one to get as they all have at least 512 GB SSD.

I've found local people buying on Facebook pay well, but it takes some time and a bit of hassle. I have a mint 2011 27" iMac that I replaced in late 2020 and sold it for $450. It took a bit, but the people buying on Facebook, a lot of them would never buy online or from e-bay. Some people just want to pay each and pickup.

I've sold about 7 laptops in the past few months like this. Apple stuff just sells in a couple days, sometimes same day I post it.

Many sellers on e-bay purchased lots of open box items, just not sure I want those, I do feel the upgraded one would be better. I'm not sure I can stomach 256 ssd on my main machine. For a laptop, I don't care.
 
pdxrevolution said:
It's important not to minimize how much data must be transferred for 4K and higher displays. In the Windows world, there aren't very many people hooking up multiple, high-DPI displays. It's mostly our little Mac world that does this, and your video card needs A LOT of bandwidth to make it happen. If you just wanted to hook up three 1080p displays, you could do it with just about any Mac nowadays, even if there isn't native support. You can use DisplayLink technology, which runs display data over USB, and it's "good enough" for 1080p, and with some newer chipsets, even 4K, especially if you're not using the DisplayLink monitors for video editing/gaming (save those for the native displays). I think Sonnet's M1/M2 Dual DisplayPort DisplayLink adapter is the best, offering two displays at 4K/60 (though you might only need to use one display on the adapter). That's like $150. You can pair that with a 5K display on any Apple Silicon Mac, and you've got what you want, although at least one display isn't "native" since it's running over USB.

If you want to natively, and at full speed, run a single 5K display and two 4K or less displays, you have two simple choices for new Macs:
(1) Any M1 Max Mac
(2) A current Mac Pro with at least a Radeon Pro W5700X card (may be possible with W6600X card).

You've got used Mac choices:
(1) Any 27" iMac from the Late 2015 model on
(2) iMac Pro

You've got a weird, third choice:
(1) An M1 Pro laptop, which can give you a native external 5K + native external 4K + native ~3K internal display

You can natively get a 5K + one 4K screen on:
(1) An M1 Mac mini
(2) An M1 iMac (including built-in 4.5K display)

Finally, should you get the iMac 27" (2020)? You're right that it can handle your three-display scenario. Personally, I think it's a mistake for anyone to buy an Intel Mac today. There's little time left for new operating system support. You'd be buying a used computer that runs notoriously hot and loud. You need the i7 or i9 models just to eke out slightly faster performance than the base M1 mini in multicore benchmarks, and the iMac is about 25% slower in single-core performance. Plus, the Apple Silicon Macs just feel so much faster than the Intel Macs ever did. I'd be really sad to go back. Yes, your solution is economical. And, your current iMac is half the speed of an M1 and therefore about half the speed of the 2020 iMac, so if you've been able to keep using a computer for seven years, maybe the 2020 model can last you until 2027. Fundamentally, you're faced with the reality that you can get a used 5K display for under $1,000 (and have an entire computer inside of it). There are just no 5K displays out there to compete, price-wise, so you have to decide whether the old computer is worth it to you.

P.S. Since you're willing to get a used 2020 iMac, I assume you're equally willing to just get used 5K displays. You can pretty easily get an Ultrafine 5K on eBay for $500. I saw one seller offering a set of two for $750. Just food for thought.
Click to expand...
This was really helpful! I'll take a look. One of the things I like with the iMac is the quality of the video conferencing I do without cluttering my desk with Web Cam, Speakers, Microphone etc. I don' have any issues with feedback etc.. It just works. Not sure if the LG display handles video calls as well. I never thought of a used MacPro, I assumed those were more than I want to spend. The M1 Mac mini seems right if I can get the displays I want... Again, this is helpful, I"m going to book mark this! With my job, I probably use the center 5k display 70-80% of the time and have other things up on the other displays that I keep an eye on. So I'm not as concerned about the quality of the side displays. It's a noticeable difference, but not enough that it bothers me as if I was doing serious work on it, I'd bring that window over to the center display.
 
Grubster said:
I've found local people buying on Facebook pay well, but it takes some time and a bit of hassle. I have a mint 2011 27" iMac that I replaced in late 2020 and sold it for $450. It took a bit, but the people buying on Facebook, a lot of them would never buy online or from e-bay. Some people just want to pay each and pickup.
Click to expand...

There are 3 2013s for sale in my area. One is $225, one is $250 and one is $275. They are all the same base computer. The $225 has keyboard, trackpad and mouse and 16 GB RAM. The $250 has 8 GB RAM, no keyboard or mouse. The $275 has 16 GB and I don't recall if it has a keyboard. I suspect that one of these guys goes down to $200 in the next month. I'm not fully sure that I would want it. There is a 2017 for $500 including keyboard and mouse but it's 70 miles away. I'm a bit amazed that you get $450 for a 2011. I bought my 2014 i7, 500 GB SSD for $500.
 
pshufd said:
There are 3 2013s for sale in my area. One is $225, one is $250 and one is $275. They are all the same base computer. The $225 has keyboard, trackpad and mouse and 16 GB RAM. The $250 has 8 GB RAM, no keyboard or mouse. The $275 has 16 GB and I don't recall if it has a keyboard. I suspect that one of these guys goes down to $200 in the next month. I'm not fully sure that I would want it. There is a 2017 for $500 including keyboard and mouse but it's 70 miles away. I'm a bit amazed that you get $450 for a 2011. I bought my 2014 i7, 500 GB SSD for $500.
Click to expand...
This was at least a year and half ago or maybe more. Keep in mind I live near chicago and this person drove from I believe Hammond Indiana and he was extremely happy with it. I guess the area matters. For example, by me, people listing 2015's I see are 450-700, 2017's are 700-1000.
 
I bought my first two iMacs locally (that means not really locally but I drove couple hundred km) out of fear that sending the iMacs for sure would brake their screens. Than I realised when packed with care the risc is not really high, so I am buying now online and it comes a lot cheaper. (My area is expensive.)
By dumb luck I bought the 2020, basic model (but with 500 gb NVRAM) and nano screen (not happy with it) for 260€.
 
Grubster said:
This was at least a year and half ago or maybe more. Keep in mind I live near chicago and this person drove from I believe Hammond Indiana and he was extremely happy with it. I guess the area matters. For example, by me, people listing 2015's I see are 450-700, 2017's are 700-1000.
Click to expand...

I live outside Boston so there is a healthy market here but people that list Macs above market don't sell their systems. There are many that just leave systems for sale for 6-12 months though. Apple Silicon has definitely killed the price of old Mac, even if they still have a lot of utility left. I'm sure that this will continue with M2 and M3.
 
Eugen Mezei said:
I bought my first two iMacs locally (that means not really locally but I drove couple hundred km) out of fear that sending the iMacs for sure would brake their screens. Than I realised when packed with care the risc is not really high, so I am buying now online and it comes a lot cheaper. (My area is expensive.)
By dumb luck I bought the 2020, basic model (but with 500 gb NVRAM) and nano screen (not happy with it) for 260€.
Click to expand...

That's a fantastic deal. I guess someone really needed the cash or they just really wanted to get rid of it.

When I see something like that, my first thought is that it's a scam but I ask a lot of questions to see if it's real or not.
 
Eugen Mezei said:
It had a bad description: https://www.ebay.de/itm/Apple-Monitor-A2115-/284826965788?nma=true&si=7kpYK5ooYBEpy8Ef3RoiU6N8dAs%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

I risked it.
Guy also had a 2010 27" that is also here at me. But he had a Thunderbolt monitor, I thought that will go cheaper than the 2010 iMac. To my suprise it scored way higher. Than I looked prices up and now I know Apple Thunderbolt monitors score higher than a fat iMac. I am still wondering why.
Click to expand...

I got my 2010 for $100 and that was with an i7. So I agree, 2010 iMacs are pretty cheap compared to monitors. I think that the reason is the HDDs can go bad and there's not much you can do about it without taking them apart. A lot of them that I see have base RAM as well and they run like absolute dogs with minimum RAM. I generally won't touch a used iMac unless it has an i7 unless it's after 2013.

I would not mind a second 2014 - it's a very nice model with 5k and it doesn't have the known tinge problem that the 2015s have. The Late 2015s also have the issue where they use oddball RAM so it's very expensive to max it out. The 2017s and later are all fine and they are starting to get very attractive.
 
Grubster said:
Hi, I currently have a 27" 2015 iMac with 2 external 1080p displays. In thinking about upgrading, lot's of people on here seem to think going to the 2020 27" iMac is a bad idea. So I started to think, maybe they are correct and I can just get something else. Well, I looked up and down the Apple product lineup, and the only option I found that could run 1- 5k Display AND 2 additional displays either 1080p or 4k is the Mac Studio. That means I have to drop $1999, plus find an LG 5k display for over a grand to get integrated web cam and speakers, or buy the new Apple Display for $1599.

Looks like M1 Mac mini can only run 2 displays, AND old intel Mac Mini cannot run 3 displays if one display is 5k, meaning, I can run 3 1080p or 3 4k displays, but zero 5k displays.

I'm struggling, why should I not upgrade to a 2020 27" iMac? I have found some base models I can get for under $1k and keep my 3 monitor setup without breaking the bank.

FYI only reason I would upgrade my 2015 is I'm frustrated with the fusion drives, getting some image retention on the edges, and can still find some 2020's with Warranty in tack, new\open box items. I figure I could sell my 2015 for $500 or so as it's in mint condition with 32gb of RAM.
Click to expand...
Last year I got $1500AUD for my 2015 27” 2tb fusion with 24gb ram, it had the screen replaced twice by apple for pink tinge with AC. Been using a 24”.
They seem to be still popular here.
 
Dealmans said:
Last year I got $1500AUD for my 2015 27” 2tb fusion with 24gb ram, it had the screen replaced twice by apple for pink tinge with AC. Been using a 24”.
They seem to be still popular here.
Click to expand...

Must be a supply and demand thing. They run about $500 - $700 here. Less for the mid-2015 models.
 
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