Is it possible to have MBP and Thunderbolt display + Dell U2412M (DP) dual monitor?

[sarah.kho]

I am looking for some information to know whether it is possible to setup two external display using a MacBook pro (2012, non retina) and an apple Thunderbolt display + a Dell DELL U2412M (has DisplayPort)? If you have any insight or experience into this please let me know whether such a thing is possible or not.

Thanks.

 

[B...]

Yes: Thunderbolt through Thunderbolt and other one through maybe a USB to MiniDP? Won't be the best frequency for the USB one, but it will work.

 

[pgiguere1]

Yes, the Thunderbolt display has a Thunderbolt port on it for daisy chaining. Just plug the Dell in the Thunderbolt display and you'll only have to plug the Thunderbolt display in your Mac for both to work through a single cable.

EDIT: Whoops, nevermind. You can only do that if both displays are Thunderbolt displays.

source: http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5219?viewlocale=en_US#minimul

Sadly I don't think you have any perfect solution. Those USB adapters are known to have some latency/framerate/compression issues. The bandwith of an external monitor at this kind of resolution and frequency is simply too high for a USB port to handle without sacrifices.

 

[thundersteele]

I remember there being a problem with plugging a second display directly into the thunderbolt outlet of the thunderbolt display. Not sure if that still persists.

 

[Stetrain]

To do Thunderbolt daisy chaining to a non-Thunderbolt monitor, you need another device between the Thunderbolt display and the monitor.

For example a Thunderbolt hard drive that supports daisy chaining.

Then you would have this setup:

Macbook -> Thunderbolt Display -> Thunderbolt hard drive -> Mini-Displayport to (Displayport, DVI, HDMI, VGA)

Another possible configuration would be two of the Dell monitors and a Matrox Dual Head 2 Go adapter, which combines two monitors of the same resolution into a single monitor as far as the computer is concerned.

As someone else said above you could also get a USB video adapter. This would basically act as its own low-power video card, rather than using the system's video card for that display. They generally work fine for basic tasks but may not be great for things like high res video playback or games.