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> makes the MBA an entirely viable dev machine for many workloads. So this, like the M1 supports only ONE external display.. so as long as you live the lopside

> makes the MBA an entirely viable dev machine for many workloads. So this, like the M1 supports only ONE external display.. so as long as you live the lopsided big-small life, sure.

zekrioca 4y ago
I really do not understand this. The 14" Macbook Pro (M1 Max) does support up to three external displays. What was the problem with these new Macbooks to not support at least two displays..
- ZetaZero 4y ago
  The M1 Pro/Max have multiple GPUs, one in each CPU cluster.
  - bombcar 4y ago
    Whatever wizard at Apple came up with "the number of monitors" as a distinguishing difference between price levels should get a pretty big raise. It's perfect segmentation, most people don't care, and those that do will pay.
    - yardie 4y ago
      The Touchbar in the 13" MBP counts as a display. So the Pro already runs 2 displays and can add a third. The same GPU+CPU is in the MBA which only runs 1 + 1 external display. It't not a limitation of GPU or whatever they want you to believe. This is pure market segmentation.
      - egypturnash 4y ago
        Does it? The touch bar is something like 2170x60px. That's a tiny fraction of the processing power and data bandwidth compared to an actual screen. In terms of raw pixel count, it's only about 2x as many pixels as my old Commodore 64 would push every frame. Each of those pixels is a lot deeper but it's still probably pretty much a rounding error compared to how much is being dealt with for the internal screen, never mind an external one. (Hell, is the central GPU even running the touchbar, or is there a specialized display circuit just for it?) That said, my reaction to this whole thread is pretty much "I guess multiple external monitors is a reason to upsell you to a Pro machine" so we agree on that point :)
        bombcar 4y ago
        If the Touch Bar could refresh at 60 hz or something, maybe it's a display. But if it (as it actually is I suspect) a USB connected thing that refreshes very slowly, it's not a display at all. And the MacBook Air can take a USB "monitor" for whatever that's worth.
        egypturnash 4y ago
        It seems to refresh fast enough to run Doom on it. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/11/21/13697058/macbook-touchbar-doom-hack-sure-why-not https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/11/21/13697058/... Framerate's hard to determine from a youtube video of someone pointing a camera at it, single-stepping has some things seeming to move at the same framerate as the camera but redrawing the whole screen as the player moves around looks more like 1/3 of the camera's framerate to me.
        bombcar 4y ago
        True, but the "can run Doom" framerate could be 1 per minute. It obviously can update decently fast, but whether it's a "display" is arguable.
        egypturnash 4y ago
        It looks to be at worst 10fps to my eyes. Which is also where animation really starts to shift from “moving drawings” to “fast slideshow” in my experience. So right on the border.
  - 0xcoffee 4y ago
    Isn't it just based on amount of pixels needing to be pushed through? So if it can support a 6K external, it should be able to support multiple monitors as long as combined resolution doesn't exceed 6k?
  - zekrioca 4y ago
    M1 Mac Mini does natively support up to two external monitors – one via the HDMI port and a second via USB-C.
- criddell 4y ago
  Maybe multi-monitor is considered a pro feature?
  - zekrioca 4y ago
    M1 Mac Mini does natively support up to two external monitors – one via the HDMI port and a second via USB-C.
    - deleted 4y ago
      [deleted]
    - criddell 4y ago
      Yeah, they seem to treat their desktop machine differently.
      - vetinari 4y ago
        Nope, just as the sibling wrote: with that chip, they have two outputs total to play with, and on laptops one of them is wired to the internal display.
    - nicoburns 4y ago
      That because it doesn’t have an internal display… this has to displays in total as well.
      - therealmarv 4y ago
        I'm pretty sure Apple has the technical expertise to "turn off" internal display on clamshell mode and allow two external displays (that's my usual setup) but somehow they don't want to do that.
KVFinn 4y ago
>So this, like the M1 supports only ONE external display.. so as long as you live the lopsided big-small life, sure. Oh no, you're breaking my heart. Is there no adapter you can buy that splits that 6k thunderbolt bandwidth into two smaller external displays? Okay I just googled, and it looks like there are third party DisplayLink which sort of maybe work, but are not officially supported? But people SEEM to have dual 4k monitors working?
- WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
  DisplayLink is an actual USB graphics card. You also won't get any acceleration as far as I know, all you have is a dumb framebuffer there.
- shinycode 4y ago
  I’m using a Dell D6000 hub with two 4K screens using display link and one iMac 5K with a luna dongle. So 4 screens in total with the MacBook Pro M1 with 8gb and all screens at 60hz. Everything is fluid with a web stack (node, angular and tools like Vscode, DB, slack etc). The only thing that puts it on its knees is when I share a screen with some apps. The buffers might not be done the right way. Otherwise it works surprisingly well !
parkingrift 4y ago
This is true, but that one display can be a 49" 5120x1440 ultra wide and it will drive that with no problems.

> makes the MBA an entirely viable dev machine for many workloads. So this, like the M1 supports only ONE external display.. so as long as you live the lopsided big-small life, sure.

zekrioca 4y ago

I really do not understand this. The 14" Macbook Pro (M1 Max) does support up to three external displays. What was the problem with these new Macbooks to not support at least two displays..

ZetaZero 4y ago
The M1 Pro/Max have multiple GPUs, one in each CPU cluster.
- bombcar 4y ago
  Whatever wizard at Apple came up with "the number of monitors" as a distinguishing difference between price levels should get a pretty big raise. It's perfect segmentation, most people don't care, and those that do will pay.
  - yardie 4y ago
    The Touchbar in the 13" MBP counts as a display. So the Pro already runs 2 displays and can add a third. The same GPU+CPU is in the MBA which only runs 1 + 1 external display. It't not a limitation of GPU or whatever they want you to believe. This is pure market segmentation.
    - egypturnash 4y ago
      Does it? The touch bar is something like 2170x60px. That's a tiny fraction of the processing power and data bandwidth compared to an actual screen. In terms of raw pixel count, it's only about 2x as many pixels as my old Commodore 64 would push every frame. Each of those pixels is a lot deeper but it's still probably pretty much a rounding error compared to how much is being dealt with for the internal screen, never mind an external one. (Hell, is the central GPU even running the touchbar, or is there a specialized display circuit just for it?) That said, my reaction to this whole thread is pretty much "I guess multiple external monitors is a reason to upsell you to a Pro machine" so we agree on that point :)
      - bombcar 4y ago
        If the Touch Bar could refresh at 60 hz or something, maybe it's a display. But if it (as it actually is I suspect) a USB connected thing that refreshes very slowly, it's not a display at all. And the MacBook Air can take a USB "monitor" for whatever that's worth.
        egypturnash 4y ago
        It seems to refresh fast enough to run Doom on it. https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/11/21/13697058/macbook-touchbar-doom-hack-sure-why-not https://www.theverge.com/circuitbreaker/2016/11/21/13697058/... Framerate's hard to determine from a youtube video of someone pointing a camera at it, single-stepping has some things seeming to move at the same framerate as the camera but redrawing the whole screen as the player moves around looks more like 1/3 of the camera's framerate to me.
        bombcar 4y ago
        True, but the "can run Doom" framerate could be 1 per minute. It obviously can update decently fast, but whether it's a "display" is arguable.
        egypturnash 4y ago
        It looks to be at worst 10fps to my eyes. Which is also where animation really starts to shift from “moving drawings” to “fast slideshow” in my experience. So right on the border.
- 0xcoffee 4y ago
  Isn't it just based on amount of pixels needing to be pushed through? So if it can support a 6K external, it should be able to support multiple monitors as long as combined resolution doesn't exceed 6k?
- zekrioca 4y ago
  M1 Mac Mini does natively support up to two external monitors – one via the HDMI port and a second via USB-C.
criddell 4y ago
Maybe multi-monitor is considered a pro feature?
- zekrioca 4y ago
  M1 Mac Mini does natively support up to two external monitors – one via the HDMI port and a second via USB-C.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - criddell 4y ago
    Yeah, they seem to treat their desktop machine differently.
    - vetinari 4y ago
      Nope, just as the sibling wrote: with that chip, they have two outputs total to play with, and on laptops one of them is wired to the internal display.
  - nicoburns 4y ago
    That because it doesn’t have an internal display… this has to displays in total as well.
    - therealmarv 4y ago
      I'm pretty sure Apple has the technical expertise to "turn off" internal display on clamshell mode and allow two external displays (that's my usual setup) but somehow they don't want to do that.

KVFinn 4y ago

>So this, like the M1 supports only ONE external display.. so as long as you live the lopsided big-small life, sure. Oh no, you're breaking my heart. Is there no adapter you can buy that splits that 6k thunderbolt bandwidth into two smaller external displays? Okay I just googled, and it looks like there are third party DisplayLink which sort of maybe work, but are not officially supported? But people SEEM to have dual 4k monitors working?

WesolyKubeczek 4y ago
DisplayLink is an actual USB graphics card. You also won't get any acceleration as far as I know, all you have is a dumb framebuffer there.
shinycode 4y ago
I’m using a Dell D6000 hub with two 4K screens using display link and one iMac 5K with a luna dongle. So 4 screens in total with the MacBook Pro M1 with 8gb and all screens at 60hz. Everything is fluid with a web stack (node, angular and tools like Vscode, DB, slack etc). The only thing that puts it on its knees is when I share a screen with some apps. The buffers might not be done the right way. Otherwise it works surprisingly well !

parkingrift 4y ago

This is true, but that one display can be a 49" 5120x1440 ultra wide and it will drive that with no problems.