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Shared displaylink + thunderbolt = Dual extrenal displays

J

J273

macrumors regular
Original poster
Nov 3, 2007
249
3
One thing ive always wanted to do is use my MBP as my main machine powering my dual 30" panels.

Do you think with the now hybrid thunderbolt/DP theres a chance with a future adapter the port would be able to drive the 2, daisy-chained at there native 2560 x 1600 with it supporting PCI-Express ?

I know its asking alot from a single port but i was soo hoping for dual ports thunderbolt and display port with the option of running 2 external monitors.

heres hoping future MBP upgrades they add the option with it being a pro machine.
 
The 15-17" should be able to support 3 displays with Eyefinity this way, I would assume. I don't know about the HD 3000 though...
 
Hmm thats interesting ....Just trying to figure out how it would work (if even possible) with my dual dell 30" Panels with me needing dual link adapters which i currently have...obviously im going to need some sort of adapter in the middle to chain the 2:confused:

Edit: actually that wouldn't work a whole new adapter would be needed
 
to daisy chain multiple devices, each device needs two ports (one to the previous device and one to the next device). so the displays would need two ports as well...

i believe, the six devices are mainly storage devices... would be great to connect multiple displays, but can't see this coming.
 
Benni-chan said:
to daisy chain multiple devices, each device needs two ports (one to the previous device and one to the next device). so the displays would need two ports as well...

i believe, the six devices are mainly storage devices... would be great to connect multiple displays, but can't see this coming.
Click to expand...

Yeah thats what i was thinking...maybe theres possibly a way with a 3rd party adapter with 1-in x 2-out that connects to the single thunderbolt port but extends to two.
 
perhaps it will be possible to run two Apple 27" displays since the use mini-display port(?)
 
Did any of you guys read this:

from http://www.apple.com/au/macbookpro/features.html#thunderbolt

"Ports with possibility.

With the new Thunderbolt port, you can daisy-chain as many as six devices, up to two of which can be displays,4"
Click to expand...

and then from http://www.apple.com/au/macbookpro/performance.html

You can daisy-chain up to six Thunderbolt devices, including up to two high-resolution displays.4
Click to expand...

Both 3. and 4. then go on to read "The 15- and 17-inch MacBook Pro support two displays; the 13-inch MacBook Pro supports one display."

Whether thunderbolt in any way cripples displayport is the all important question, as displayport 1.2 supports upto 4 displays via either a hub or daisy-chaining! Why the 13" only supports one display, and the 15" and 17" two (and why not four?) I have no idea. Maybe its a restriction of mini displayport vs full size displayport?

How we get access to the second display.. well that's an even bigger question!
 
Wow Nice, that raises my Hope that i can Power 2 Displays with the pro.

Why only 15 and 17? Maybe because only those have 2 graphics cards
 
paxos said:
Wow Nice, that raises my Hope that i can Power 2 Displays with the pro.

Why only 15 and 17? Maybe because only those have 2 graphics cards
Click to expand...

more than likely because only discrete gfx have the necessary horsepower to drive 2 high res displays simultaneously. more than 2 displays and you might saturate the thunderbolt bus. in order to hookup 4 displays, you need 17gbps of bandwidth. thunderbolt only supports 10.

EDIT: on a more curious note, are there any thunderbolt enabled monitors coming out?
 
Man, i want to hook up two dvi displays to the Book. I guess theres no Way.

Need a thunderbolt Hub with dvi out which is Not existing i guess?
 
Is it possible? Yes. Is it something that will require some custom hardware? Yes. There is a limit today, as piping full frame video is quite bandwidth intensive. You certainly can't do six displays right now, two may be possible.
 
It appears it is possible for the machines shipping in "au" (whichever country that may be, Australia?), as per cbt's post. However, those of us in the U.S. don't have that wording. See the U.S. versions here, neither of which mention using two monitors. :

http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/performance.html
and
http://www.apple.com/macbookpro/features.html#thunderbolt


Another resource saying we can't thunderbolt doesn't do two monitors: http://discussions.apple.com/thread.jspa?messageID=13130143

It's looking like the U.S. folks don't get the best stuff!!

EDIT: Maybe the U.S. version just hasn't been updated yet, or I'm getting a cached version (here's hoping!)
 
Last edited:
I noticed this too, also the german version i am looking at more or less clearly talks about only one display. Thats a bit strange.

However, i have been researching this topic for a while now, also with older Macbooks and Thunderbolt will definatly make this possible in one form or another. If you can really drive 2x 30" which need Dual Link DVI might be questionable, but 2x 1920x1200 (usually found in 24inch displays) should work fine.

Even if the Thunderbolt port itself wont support 2 displays, someone will create a solution for this. Even now there are numerous USB2DVI solutions which until now have been crippled by USB2 lows bandwidth, but this is changing with USB3. Look at this for example: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBBDHH-8-yc

I am very sure someone will come around with USB3 hubs for thunderbolt, so you will be able to plug in your monitors there, or use one native DisplayPort Monitor and then connect the other monitor to USB 3.0 via thunderbolt.

I just hope there will be some kind of splitter to make 2 thunderbolt ports out of one, so you can connect one monitor to the displayport as you have been in the past and the other one over some thunderbolt -> usb3 -> dvi connect (while maybe they even do something directly without the need for USB inbetween). That way you atleast wont need to buy new displays ;)
 
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