M3 Air connected to two 6K Pro Display XDR?

[shurcooL]

So the MacBook Air with M3 specs say it supports two external displays when its lid is closed: one up to 6K resolution and another up to 5K.

Has anyone here had a chance to find out what exactly happens if you plug in two 6K Pro Display XDR to it?

 

[BeatCrazy]

It will connect to 2 Pro Displays, but one will be at 5K.

 

[shurcooL]

Thanks, that seems like the most plausible behavior. But is this based on some source or trying it first-hand, or a guess?

What would it look like for an XDR to display "at 5K"? Does it mean the max effective resolution would be 2560x1440 (at 2x scaling; 5120x2880 physical) instead of the native 3008x1692 (at 2x scaling; 6016x3384 physical)? Would the XDR stretch the image slightly so it's still fullscreen or would it be centered with black borders all around?

It would be great to see a photo of what it looks like in practice, maybe along with a screenshot of the Display tab of System Settings, if someone has actually tried it.

 

[MrGunny94]

You should also take in consideration that driving these displays with base model RAM wouldn’t be enough. I have two 5K displays at home and when connected my WindowServer goes all the way to 2GB.

Do have that in mind

 

[BeatCrazy]

Thanks, that seems like the most plausible behavior. But is this based on some source or trying it first-hand, or a guess?

What would it look like for an XDR to display "at 5K"? Does it mean the max effective resolution would be 2560x1440 (at 2x scaling; 5120x2880 physical) instead of the native 3008x1692 (at 2x scaling; 6016x3384 physical)? Would the XDR stretch the image slightly so it's still fullscreen or would it be centered with black borders all around?

It would be great to see a photo of what it looks like in practice, maybe along with a screenshot of the Display tab of System Settings, if someone has actually tried it.

It doesn't stretch, nor does it have black borders.

If you feed the Pro XDR a 5K source, the default scaling will be 2560x1440. Looks fine, except text and UI are a little bigger than 3008x1692.

You should also take in consideration that driving these displays with base model RAM wouldn’t be enough. I have two 5K displays at home and when connected my WindowServer goes all the way to 2GB.

Do have that in mind

This is true. Although I'm not a "moar RAM" type of guy, you can feel the Pro Display XDR start to struggle a bit with a 8GB model. I ran a M1 base mini w/Pro Display XDR for a while. It was mostly OK, but adding a second would certainly challenge it.