Wait, what?
My M1 Mac mini regularly runs two. And wasn't there a dude running up to 6 screens with an M1?
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
M1 iPad Pro Over 50% Faster Than Previous Generation in Early Benchmarks
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
My M1 Mac mini regularly runs two. And wasn't there a dude running up to 6 screens with an M1?
M1 only supports two monitors. So two with a Mac mini, or built-in plus one external with iPad or MacBook.
People who are running more than two are doing so with software based display adapters. They work as well as "software based" sounds.
The MacMini does, not the MBA.
The guy running 6 was using DisplayLink software and adapters.
Am I keen in only waiting 20 minutes rather than 30 minutes for a video export on the iPad M1 versus my 2020 iPad? Yup.
Better than waiting 2 hours on the ol’ Intel MacBook Pro.
Displaylink runs fine. I have no issues with it. Just have to make sure the software is in the startup items and you get the correct adapters. After that - I see no issues compared to native displays
Other than the fact that the ways around this are more complex, one or two monitors with the “fadtes/best” resolution doesn’t seem that different. Back when you needed a separate graphics card, the cards only supported one or two monitors, and there was only one “super fast” slit to put it in (e.g. only one 16x PCIe slot on quad G5; only one AGP slot for other configuration. True, you could add more PCI(e) cards, but they still didn’t match (at least in theory)mother ‘native’ card.
I don’t know enough yet about DisplayLink to comment on how much of a performance hit it is, relative to the above old days.
Curious if a thunderbolt-PCIe chassis with an old-style PCIe card would work, and if do, if it would be better.
eGPUs are not supported on M1, I have heard that ARM addresses GPUs entirely differently than x86.
I haven't tried DisplayLink on M1 yet - the last time I tried it, it was basically only good for productivity apps. Even YouTube was choppy. I assume it's improved then.
I use a portable DL screen that's powered over the USB-C connector and never noticed any difference between that an the HDMI screen I sometimes use. Certainly nothing that would make me think it was sluggish or tearing.
Are you a $1k keen on avoiding waiting for 30 vs 20 minutes, thus paying an extra 1k just for a marginal improvement? Are you cutting hour-long documentaries in 4K that need to be uploaded asap? I am not, and i suspect neither is the 99% of the new buyers. I went to an Apple store and saw one in person, outside of the following feature of the selfie cam I personally saw no noticeable improvements whatsoever, more so, it seemed to me that the screen on the new iPads instead of looking brighter and sharper looked bloomier.
I don't think the main audience for the 2021 iPad Pro is people who have the 2018 or 2020 iPad Pro. The upgrade cycle is a bit longer than that.
As much as i can see how for new buyers it makes sense to get those new ipads, i can opine its just a minor improvement over the last one, and one that is very hard to pinpoint outside of the new tracing on the selfie cam. For the majority of users, even advanced ones a slew of older generations of ipads will do just fine, for quite a few years to come at that.
I definitely agree that right now, the hardware is a fair bit overpowered for the intended use cases. The 2018 is still a great iPad Pro.
The LOWEST level iPad is overpowered, though. I’d even take a wild guess that the lowest i3 is overpowered for what the majority of them are being used for. It somehow seems that the iPad Pro being “yet another thing” that’s overpowered is a bridge too far for some?
When’s the last time anyone read a review of a PC that included “this is way too much power for most folks that will buy it!”
The LOWEST level iPad is overpowered, though. I’d even take a wild guess that the lowest i3 is overpowered for what the majority of them are being used for. It somehow seems that the iPad Pro being “yet another thing” that’s overpowered is a bridge too far for some?
When’s the last time anyone read a review of a PC that included “this is way too much power for most folks that will buy it!”
True.
To be honest, my computing needs on the PC side has stayed stagnant at around quad-core desktop i5 Haswell level. I’ve just upgraded for lower power consumption/efficiency and features (USB-C, NVMe, HEVC hardware decoding, etc).
It’s not that I dislike iPad Pros being so powerful. It’s that it’s frustrating how the software hasn’t caught up. In terms of age, it’s now equivalent to Mac OS 7.5, but it feels more like a System 6.The LOWEST level iPad is overpowered, though. I’d even take a wild guess that the lowest i3 is overpowered for what the majority of them are being used for. It somehow seems that the iPad Pro being “yet another thing” that’s overpowered is a bridge too far for some?
When’s the last time anyone read a review of a PC that included “this is way too much power for most folks that will buy it!”
Regardless of a need for the speed you refer to, buying a new one also ensures you won’t need to for a few years. Especially with the 16GB models.