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Only the M2 & M3 Max chips support more than two external monitors[1]. Those start at $3200, and are overkill for the vast majority of use-cases. There's no ex

Only the M2 & M3 Max chips support more than two external monitors[1]. Those start at $3200, and are overkill for the vast majority of use-cases. There's no excuse for a $2000+ machine to not support more than two external monitors. DisplayLink on MacOS is far from ideal, either: it works alright, but it has to use the screen recording functionality in the OS, which causes anything with protected content to freak out. [1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/101571 https://support.apple.com/en-us/101571

dangus 3y ago
Sure, but most people don’t use more than two external monitors. Most people don’t use more than one. The people who complain about specs per dollar were never Apple’s customers. “Why buy an Audi when a Dodge Neon SRT4 costs half as much and goes faster?” It has been this way for 40 years now. This just isn’t how they operate. When they design a product they don’t start from the specs, they start from how people use the product. There are much cheaper ways to own a Max system if that specific spec is something you’re desperate for. For one thing, Apple themselves is selling the current model for $2700 refurbished. $500 off and it’s the exact same system with a brand new battery and full warranty. Also, you should never buy a Mac without the student discount at the very least. Anyone can get it. Finally, a used M1 Max system will cost you under $2000 and is barely 3 years old. Keep in mind that if you were buying a MacBook Air in 2010 you were paying over $1800 in today’s money.
- wubrr 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - dangus 3y ago
    Well, what PC people do is they hyper-focus on one specific spec like number of displays supported or price per GB of RAM but can’t see the forest for the trees beyond that. If I just do the same thing with Macs I can win arguments just as easily. Find me a laptop with the kind of performance per watt specs as the M3 systems. Find another laptop of the same size/weight/power draw that can match the M3 Max’s performance at anything close to the same battery life. Find me a completely fanless Intel/AMD PC that performs as well as the MacBook Air and gets the same or better battery life. Find me a PC laptop where you can feed a RTX 40X0 mobile GPU with over 100GB of RAM. Find me another laptop that uses TSMC’s most advanced chip lithography. PC spec monkeys will basically say it’s not a real laptop because it can’t support 800 external monitors and there’s no print screen key and it doesn’t have a parallel port etc etc. These are all specs that don’t matter to 99% of users. Hell, if you’re the kind of person who has a triple or quad external monitor setup, that means you’ve spent around $1000 on just displays. That probably means you can afford $3,000 for a MacBook Pro with a Max chip or maybe pay $2,000 for a used one. And if you didn’t spend $1000+ on those displays, that means those four displays are probably so bad that you’re better off looking at one 4K display or two decent quality ultrawide displays.
    - wubrr 3y ago
      > Well, what PC people do is they hyper-focus on one specific spec like number of displays supported or price per GB of RAM but can’t see the forest for the trees beyond that. Not at all, there are many examples of various types of specs in this thread, where apple fanboys suddenly go mute :) > If I just do the same thing I can win arguments just as easily. Find me a laptop with the kind of performance per watt specs as the M3 systems. Find another laptop of the same size/weight/power draw that can match the M3 Max’s performance at anything close to the same battery life. So the only example you can come up with is performance per watt? (Your second question is basically the same as your first). M3 very good in that category, I don't disagree, it's apple's latest/best processor, and it does slightly outperform AMD Ryzens in that category[0]. Of course, when you take price into account, apple M processors are not even close to best :). > Find me a PC laptop where you can feed an RTX 4080 mobile with over 100GB of RAM Hilarious that you bring this up when macs don't even support CUDA and basically useless when it comes to the the most important aspects of having a GPU today... gaming and deep learning... > Those laptops don’t exist, unless it’s a Mac. Yeah, nothing but apple exists in an apple fanboy's mind. [0]https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cpu_performance_per_watt https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cpu_performance_...
      - dangus 3y ago
        So what you’re saying is you can’t find a better performance per watt, AMD “comes close.” You are doing the spec monkey thing again. You changed the spec. I chose performance per watt and now you’ve changed it to performance per dollar. Under a performance per dollar logic AMD makes the best PC graphics card on the market, which they obviously don’t in terms of total performance. Nvidia charges a huge price/performance premium on the RTX4090 because you can’t buy that performance elsewhere. Sound familiar? > So the only example you can come up with is performance per watt I’ve got another one: media encoding. Apple’s systems obliterate the rest. If your argument is that CUDA is important I hate to say it but you’re actually reverting to that whole “product ecosystem and experience” angle that you were deriding in the same breath. Nvidia users have to buy Nvidia because it’s the only way to use Nvidia software. Kind of like how iOS developers and Final Cut Pro users must buy a Mac? “Yeah, nothing but apple exists in an apple fanboy's mind.” You could replace that statement with “Nvidia” under your own preferences. Under the spec monkey argument someone buying a graphics card should ignore Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem and buy an AMD graphics card that offers better performance per dollar. But you’re saying that the lack of CUDA on a Mac is a major downside. Which is it? Performance per dollar or user experience and ecosystem? This is why doing the spec monkey thing turns us around and around in circles. I’m not being an Apple fanboy I’m just pointing out how it’s completely reasonable for an expensive computer to not prioritize supporting a zillion monitors.
- hollandheese 3y ago
  >Sure, but most people don’t use more than two external monitors. Most people don’t use more than one. Most people don't buy Macs. So why even sell them then? They literally took away a feature that their cheapest Intel Macs could do, and restricted it to their most expensive Apple Silicon Macs. They should be lambasted for this. >Finally, a used M1 Max system will cost you under $2000 and is barely 3 years old. A Raspberry Pi can do this for under $100. Come on.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
- ffgjgf1 3y ago
  If we’re talking about support for external displays this all seems entirely tangential. > When they design a product they don’t start from the specs, they start from how people use the product. So they impose arbitrary limitations that have basically nothing to do with the specs just so that people who are supposed to use more expensive machines wouldn’t buy the cheaper models? Sounds about right. Apple is trying to maximize their revenue because they can. There is nothing wrong about a for profit company doing that. Trying to find any other explanation is a bit silly though..
fragmede 3y ago
The excuse is that this is Apple, and the solution to problems with them is to buy more things. In this case, get a $1,500 ultra wide curved monitor which is better than dual head.
- semi-extrinsic 3y ago
  For $1500 it's better to get one of the 43" 4K displays. I've used one for over half a decade now, and the ability to comfortably tile a browser plus four terminals side-by-side is unmatched. Or if you will, display 10 A4 pages of a document simultaneously.
  - nerdbert 3y ago
    I have a €500 43" 4K and it's great. But anything else feels so small now.
  - fragmede 3y ago
    4k? I'm talking 5k. regardless of which monitor you get, point is $1,500 gets you a lot of monitor that is far better than dual head.
- oblio 3y ago
  No, it's not. I've used ultra wides and I don't like them :-)
  - fragmede 3y ago
    get a better window manager. but to each their own. :) side steps the problem of single monitor output
    - oblio 3y ago
      Would a better window manager fix the fact that I don't like the way the image looks?
      - 3y ago
wubrr 3y ago
Also note that 'support multiple external monitors' here actually means 'kinda support some monitors sometimes'. Just google and read the hundreds of threads about external monitor issues on M2 pros.
- sgarland 3y ago
  The only issue I have with external monitors on my M2 Pro – and it’s admittedly annoying – is that unless I turn everything on in a specific sequence, the primary monitor’s energy saving kicks in and turns off the screen before the Mac has synced video. It essentially bootloops. This only happens on my Acer Predator, and only if I’m using DP —> USB-C. The secondary LG doesn’t care, nor does the Acer if it’s over HDMI. The fix I’ve found is to wake up the Mac first with the external keyboard, then turn the Acer on and wait for sync, login, then turn the LG on. While I’d obviously rather not have to deal with this, I feel like it’s at least partially on the incredibly aggressive power saving of the Acer, which I can’t find any way to disable or extend the timeout of.
mthoms 3y ago
M1 Max also supports two external monitors (plus built-in monitor).

dangus 3y ago

Sure, but most people don’t use more than two external monitors. Most people don’t use more than one. The people who complain about specs per dollar were never Apple’s customers. “Why buy an Audi when a Dodge Neon SRT4 costs half as much and goes faster?” It has been this way for 40 years now. This just isn’t how they operate. When they design a product they don’t start from the specs, they start from how people use the product. There are much cheaper ways to own a Max system if that specific spec is something you’re desperate for. For one thing, Apple themselves is selling the current model for $2700 refurbished. $500 off and it’s the exact same system with a brand new battery and full warranty. Also, you should never buy a Mac without the student discount at the very least. Anyone can get it. Finally, a used M1 Max system will cost you under $2000 and is barely 3 years old. Keep in mind that if you were buying a MacBook Air in 2010 you were paying over $1800 in today’s money.

wubrr 3y ago
[flagged]
- dangus 3y ago
  Well, what PC people do is they hyper-focus on one specific spec like number of displays supported or price per GB of RAM but can’t see the forest for the trees beyond that. If I just do the same thing with Macs I can win arguments just as easily. Find me a laptop with the kind of performance per watt specs as the M3 systems. Find another laptop of the same size/weight/power draw that can match the M3 Max’s performance at anything close to the same battery life. Find me a completely fanless Intel/AMD PC that performs as well as the MacBook Air and gets the same or better battery life. Find me a PC laptop where you can feed a RTX 40X0 mobile GPU with over 100GB of RAM. Find me another laptop that uses TSMC’s most advanced chip lithography. PC spec monkeys will basically say it’s not a real laptop because it can’t support 800 external monitors and there’s no print screen key and it doesn’t have a parallel port etc etc. These are all specs that don’t matter to 99% of users. Hell, if you’re the kind of person who has a triple or quad external monitor setup, that means you’ve spent around $1000 on just displays. That probably means you can afford $3,000 for a MacBook Pro with a Max chip or maybe pay $2,000 for a used one. And if you didn’t spend $1000+ on those displays, that means those four displays are probably so bad that you’re better off looking at one 4K display or two decent quality ultrawide displays.
  - wubrr 3y ago
    > Well, what PC people do is they hyper-focus on one specific spec like number of displays supported or price per GB of RAM but can’t see the forest for the trees beyond that. Not at all, there are many examples of various types of specs in this thread, where apple fanboys suddenly go mute :) > If I just do the same thing I can win arguments just as easily. Find me a laptop with the kind of performance per watt specs as the M3 systems. Find another laptop of the same size/weight/power draw that can match the M3 Max’s performance at anything close to the same battery life. So the only example you can come up with is performance per watt? (Your second question is basically the same as your first). M3 very good in that category, I don't disagree, it's apple's latest/best processor, and it does slightly outperform AMD Ryzens in that category[0]. Of course, when you take price into account, apple M processors are not even close to best :). > Find me a PC laptop where you can feed an RTX 4080 mobile with over 100GB of RAM Hilarious that you bring this up when macs don't even support CUDA and basically useless when it comes to the the most important aspects of having a GPU today... gaming and deep learning... > Those laptops don’t exist, unless it’s a Mac. Yeah, nothing but apple exists in an apple fanboy's mind. [0]https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cpu_performance_per_watt https://www.cpu-monkey.com/en/cpu_benchmark-cpu_performance_...
    - dangus 3y ago
      So what you’re saying is you can’t find a better performance per watt, AMD “comes close.” You are doing the spec monkey thing again. You changed the spec. I chose performance per watt and now you’ve changed it to performance per dollar. Under a performance per dollar logic AMD makes the best PC graphics card on the market, which they obviously don’t in terms of total performance. Nvidia charges a huge price/performance premium on the RTX4090 because you can’t buy that performance elsewhere. Sound familiar? > So the only example you can come up with is performance per watt I’ve got another one: media encoding. Apple’s systems obliterate the rest. If your argument is that CUDA is important I hate to say it but you’re actually reverting to that whole “product ecosystem and experience” angle that you were deriding in the same breath. Nvidia users have to buy Nvidia because it’s the only way to use Nvidia software. Kind of like how iOS developers and Final Cut Pro users must buy a Mac? “Yeah, nothing but apple exists in an apple fanboy's mind.” You could replace that statement with “Nvidia” under your own preferences. Under the spec monkey argument someone buying a graphics card should ignore Nvidia’s CUDA ecosystem and buy an AMD graphics card that offers better performance per dollar. But you’re saying that the lack of CUDA on a Mac is a major downside. Which is it? Performance per dollar or user experience and ecosystem? This is why doing the spec monkey thing turns us around and around in circles. I’m not being an Apple fanboy I’m just pointing out how it’s completely reasonable for an expensive computer to not prioritize supporting a zillion monitors.
hollandheese 3y ago
>Sure, but most people don’t use more than two external monitors. Most people don’t use more than one. Most people don't buy Macs. So why even sell them then? They literally took away a feature that their cheapest Intel Macs could do, and restricted it to their most expensive Apple Silicon Macs. They should be lambasted for this. >Finally, a used M1 Max system will cost you under $2000 and is barely 3 years old. A Raspberry Pi can do this for under $100. Come on.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
ffgjgf1 3y ago
If we’re talking about support for external displays this all seems entirely tangential. > When they design a product they don’t start from the specs, they start from how people use the product. So they impose arbitrary limitations that have basically nothing to do with the specs just so that people who are supposed to use more expensive machines wouldn’t buy the cheaper models? Sounds about right. Apple is trying to maximize their revenue because they can. There is nothing wrong about a for profit company doing that. Trying to find any other explanation is a bit silly though..

fragmede 3y ago

The excuse is that this is Apple, and the solution to problems with them is to buy more things. In this case, get a $1,500 ultra wide curved monitor which is better than dual head.

semi-extrinsic 3y ago
For $1500 it's better to get one of the 43" 4K displays. I've used one for over half a decade now, and the ability to comfortably tile a browser plus four terminals side-by-side is unmatched. Or if you will, display 10 A4 pages of a document simultaneously.
- nerdbert 3y ago
  I have a €500 43" 4K and it's great. But anything else feels so small now.
- fragmede 3y ago
  4k? I'm talking 5k. regardless of which monitor you get, point is $1,500 gets you a lot of monitor that is far better than dual head.
oblio 3y ago
No, it's not. I've used ultra wides and I don't like them :-)
- fragmede 3y ago
  get a better window manager. but to each their own. :) side steps the problem of single monitor output
  - oblio 3y ago
    Would a better window manager fix the fact that I don't like the way the image looks?
    - 3y ago

wubrr 3y ago

Also note that 'support multiple external monitors' here actually means 'kinda support some monitors sometimes'. Just google and read the hundreds of threads about external monitor issues on M2 pros.

sgarland 3y ago
The only issue I have with external monitors on my M2 Pro – and it’s admittedly annoying – is that unless I turn everything on in a specific sequence, the primary monitor’s energy saving kicks in and turns off the screen before the Mac has synced video. It essentially bootloops. This only happens on my Acer Predator, and only if I’m using DP —> USB-C. The secondary LG doesn’t care, nor does the Acer if it’s over HDMI. The fix I’ve found is to wake up the Mac first with the external keyboard, then turn the Acer on and wait for sync, login, then turn the LG on. While I’d obviously rather not have to deal with this, I feel like it’s at least partially on the incredibly aggressive power saving of the Acer, which I can’t find any way to disable or extend the timeout of.

mthoms 3y ago

M1 Max also supports two external monitors (plus built-in monitor).