There isn’t some software limitation here. It’s more that they only put two display controllers in the base level M-series chips. The vast, vast majority of users will have at most two displays. Putting more display controllers would add (minimal, but real) cost and complexity that most people won’t benefit from at all.
On the current gen base level chips, you can have one external display plus the onboard one, or close the laptop and have two externals. Seems like plenty to me for the cheapest option.
At work, my work PC laptop drives two 1080p monitors. I don’t keep it open to use the onboard one because Windows is so terrible at handling displays of different sizes, and the fans run so much when driving three displays that I think it could take off my desk. So I know what you’re talking about.
But. Have you ever used a Mac with two displays? A current-gen MacBook Air will drive a 6K@60Hz and a 5K@60Hz display when closed, and it’ll do it silently. Or both displays at “only” 4K if you want to crank the refrsh rate to over 100Hz. You think that’s not enough for the least expensive laptop they sell?
I’m really tired of people who don’t know what they’re capable of telling me why I shouldn’t enjoy using my computer.
Not really. There is a compromise between output resolution, refresh rate, bit depth (think HDR), number of displays, and the overall system performance. Another computer might technically have more monitor output, but they probably sacrificed something to get there like resolution, HDR, power consumption or cost. Apple is doing 5K output with HDR on their lowest end chips. Think about that for a minute.
A lot of people like to blame AMD for high ideal power usage when they are running multi-monitor setups with different refresh rates and resolutions. Likewise I have seen Intel systems struggle to run a single 4K monitor because they were in single channel mode. Apple probably wanted to avoid those issues on their lower end chips which have much less bandwidth to play with.
Well yeah, no shit Sherlock. They could have done that in the first generation. It takes four 1080p monitors to equal the resolution of one 4K monitor. Apple though doesn’t have a good enough reason to support many low res monitors. That’s not their typical consumer base, who mostly use retina displays or other high res displays. Apple only sells high res displays. The display in the actual laptops is way above 1080p. In other words they chose quality over quantity as a design decision.
I have a Mac with multiple monitors. It handles them a hell of a lot better than my PC at work.
deleted by creator
That is only the case on the base model chips. The Pro, Max, and Ultra chips all support multiple monitors.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
There isn’t some software limitation here. It’s more that they only put two display controllers in the base level M-series chips. The vast, vast majority of users will have at most two displays. Putting more display controllers would add (minimal, but real) cost and complexity that most people won’t benefit from at all.
On the current gen base level chips, you can have one external display plus the onboard one, or close the laptop and have two externals. Seems like plenty to me for the cheapest option.
deleted by creator
At work, my work PC laptop drives two 1080p monitors. I don’t keep it open to use the onboard one because Windows is so terrible at handling displays of different sizes, and the fans run so much when driving three displays that I think it could take off my desk. So I know what you’re talking about.
But. Have you ever used a Mac with two displays? A current-gen MacBook Air will drive a 6K@60Hz and a 5K@60Hz display when closed, and it’ll do it silently. Or both displays at “only” 4K if you want to crank the refrsh rate to over 100Hz. You think that’s not enough for the least expensive laptop they sell?
I’m really tired of people who don’t know what they’re capable of telling me why I shouldn’t enjoy using my computer.
Not really. There is a compromise between output resolution, refresh rate, bit depth (think HDR), number of displays, and the overall system performance. Another computer might technically have more monitor output, but they probably sacrificed something to get there like resolution, HDR, power consumption or cost. Apple is doing 5K output with HDR on their lowest end chips. Think about that for a minute.
A lot of people like to blame AMD for high ideal power usage when they are running multi-monitor setups with different refresh rates and resolutions. Likewise I have seen Intel systems struggle to run a single 4K monitor because they were in single channel mode. Apple probably wanted to avoid those issues on their lower end chips which have much less bandwidth to play with.
deleted by creator
Well yeah, no shit Sherlock. They could have done that in the first generation. It takes four 1080p monitors to equal the resolution of one 4K monitor. Apple though doesn’t have a good enough reason to support many low res monitors. That’s not their typical consumer base, who mostly use retina displays or other high res displays. Apple only sells high res displays. The display in the actual laptops is way above 1080p. In other words they chose quality over quantity as a design decision.
LOL