5 ms·

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.

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.