Will Thunderbolt allow multiple external displays?

Very interesting discussion. Does anyone know, please, of a current or forthcoming option to run two external displays (21-30") at full resolution on a 2011 Mac Air, with or without Thunderbolt? Thanks! (My 13" Air was bought just before Air added Thunderbolt. I could upgrade to the new Thunderbolt Air if necessary but would prefer not to.)

According to a report on appleinsider yesterday, macbook airs are limited to one external monitor.

appleinsider.com/articles/11/07/28/new_macbook_air_using_smaller_cheaper_thunder bolt_chip.html

Does anyone have experience, please, of running two external monitors (allegedly 2 x 1920 x 1200) with a Matrox DualHead2Go DP adapter using a 13" late-2010 Mac Air (pre-Thunderbolt)? The Matrox comments I see in this thread seem to be about MacBook Pros.

Alternatively, it does appear that if I upgraded to a Thunderbolt-equipped 13" Air (with some other advantages) and the new Thunderbolt Display, I could get 2560x1440, but its hub connectivity wouldn't enable me to daisychain an additional monitor because the in-GPU graphics processing couldn't drive more pixels—correct?

Thanks!

I found this on you tube, it is a macbook air running 2 24 inch monitors at 1920x1200 same setup I use with the macbook pro http://youtu.be/AkgkDggiAp0

Mac Rumors says 2 displays on thunderbolt is possible. Just on 13 MBP the internal display won't be enabled.

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/09/16/apple-thunderbolt-display-with-multiple-moni tors/

Here is a picture of the MBP with two Tunderbolt Monitors overview_hero2.jpg

And here is a real picture:

http://is.gd/zSfzZm

I realize this thread is old, but out of the curiousity for TB and it only being able to run a single (non-Thunderbolt display), it led me to discover this:

http://www.villageinstruments.com/tiki-index.php?page=ViDock

Then, I noticed that it supposedly only supported non-unibody revision 1, 2, and 4 MBP but I decided to dig further and found that you can run a display over Thunderbolt and utilize the extra displays from the ViDock:

http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1103417

For every MacBook Pro (aside from the 17") on 2011 units you will need this: http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/827757-REG/Sonnet_ECHO_E34_Echo_ExpressCar d_34_Thunderbolt_Adapter.html

Just another option to throw out there...

Curiously, only MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt or MacBook Pros that are pre-unibody and revision 1, 2, and 4 will work due to memory restrictions on PCIe. The funny thing is that it appears with Thunderbolt, Apple has lifted the memory restriction on PCIe to meet Intel's compliance for Thunderbolt. This is a big score for 2011 MacBook Pros!

In addition, there have been some developments on external Thunderbolt graphics card enclosures. There will be more limitations with Thunderbolt since the maximum power delivered over Thunderbolt is lower than what some of the highest powered graphics cards require, making the ViDock a more attractive option with it's built in power supply (in the case of the ViDock 4 Plus you get 225 W of total power). Impressive indeed!

just got my Retina 15" MBP w 768gb flash drive 16GB mem. I am running it with 2 Thunderbolt Apple displays and it is working flawlessly, best system EVER. retina display is amazing!!!

I noticed this info: http://compositecode.com/2012/01/02/macbook-air-multiple-monitor-support/

It seem there are adapters that some claim can go from USB to a display.

Officially,

About the new 2012 Airs, Apple says: "

Dual display and video mirroring: Simultaneously supports full native resolution on the built-in display and up to 2560 by 1600 pixels on an external display, both at millions of colors."

Since the new rMBP have two (2) Thunderbolt ports...that it can run two monitors would be a no-brainer. And Apple makes clear "Thunderbolt-capable Macs can support up to two connected Apple Thunderbolt Displays"

I recently replaced a monitor with a new Thunderbolt display - tried conencting a Thunderbolt to DVI connector to a third monitor - but that did not work - I can still use a DisplayLink DVI converter to run the 2nd external monitor on my desk http://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-External-Video-Card-GUC2020DW6/dp/B0016B6722/ref=sr _1_7?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1346794509&sr=1-7&keywords=displaylink+dvi

might be a while before I would ahve a reason to connect a second Thundrbolt display to either of my main systems.

captfred wrote:

Looks like you can only hook one display at this time.

"The bi-directional nature of Thunderbolt enables you to daisy-chain to a single jack up to six high-speed data devices or five data devices and a display without the need for a hub. Apple’s wording is quite specific, though: you cannot daisy-chain multiple displays. As a proponent of multiple-display Macs, that’s too bad, but perhaps a future version of Thunderbolt will support multiple displays, or Apple will have two Thunderbolt ports to allow this option."

From here:

http://www.tidbits.com/article/11989

Regards,
Captfred

The MBP Retina has 2 TBolt ports, so 10 devices and 2 displays?

Apple commnuity,

I recently purcahsed a Dual Head 2 Go VGA analog for use with my 2012 13 inch MacBook Pro. When I first plugged it in, it worked. Now, however, I cannot get the Matrox box to recieve compatible information from the MacBook. How can I fix this? It did work at one point. And no, I did not change any setting to alter this.