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May 14th, 2018 10:00

XPS 13 9343, four daisy chained monitors from mDP out port?

Hi,

I'm wondering would it be possible to run multiple (four) screens with my XPS 13 9343? On my laptop, I would use mDP out and monitors would be daisy chained. Please note that I don't have monitors yet and I'm just planning to buy them based on the fact whether I can use four screens with my laptop or not. 

Thank you!

4 Operator

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14K Posts

May 14th, 2018 17:00

The Intel GPU in that system, and in fact all Intel GPUs even today, only support three total independent displays, counting your built-in display if you were planning to use it while you had external displays attached.  So you can either run 3x external displays with the built-in panel disabled, or 2x external displays plus the built-in panel.  There's also a bandwidth limitation.  If you want to run 3x displays off a single DisplayPort 1.2 output, the max resolution you could have per display is 1080p.  If you wanted to run 2560x1600, you could only run 2 displays, and if you wanted 4K, you could only run 1.  All of those figures assume the standard 60 Hz refresh rate.  Lastly, note that using DisplayPort daisy chaining (or DisplayPort MST hubs if your displays won't have daisy-chaining connections) can still be a somewhat finicky process, so be prepared to jump through some hoops to get things set up and maybe put up with the occasional aggravation going forward, such as some displays not waking up when you return to your system, etc.

4 Operator

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14K Posts

May 15th, 2018 05:00

A DisplayPort MST hub simply allows you to take advantage of DisplayPort MST when your displays don’t have daisy-chaining connectors. It will not change the limitations around the max displays allowed by the GPU or the DisplayPort bandwidth being provided by the system. Using USB adapters would allow you to add extra displays since they would be considered “indirect” displays not driven directly by the GPU. The most common technology for this type of adapter is called DisplayLink. However, DisplayLink has several disadvantages compared to having a display directly driven by the GPU. If that’s your only option for getting a fourth display (and it is), then those drawbacks might not outweigh the extra display benefit, but for example you should not plan to watch full screen video on a DisplayLink display, since its compression technology may introduce blocky image areas and/or judder-y motion in that case. It would be fine to use as a general productivity display though.

2 Posts

May 14th, 2018 22:00

Thank you for your reply. Would I achieve anything different with Displayport (or USB) MST hub?
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