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December 18th, 2020 00:00

Precision 5750, power two U4919DW monitors?

Subject says it all. I'd like to stack two of these on top of each other.

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December 18th, 2020 05:00

@DevinHolloway  That's completely doable.  In terms of how you'd do it, you can connect each display directly to the system if you want, although you'd still want to connect the system's power adapter separately because the U4919DW doesn't supply up to 130W of power, which is what the 5750 is designed to have available.  If you want to reduce your cabling, you could get a Thunderbolt 3 dock like the WD19TB and connect both displays to that.  In that case the single cable from the WD19TB to the system would handle both displays, enough power to run the 5750 optimally, and anything else connected to the dock.

Note that when using these two displays with the WD19TB, you'd only be able to use certain combinations of WD19TB display output ports, because a "dual QHD" display like the U4919DW is very nearly a 4K display in terms of total pixel area and the WD19TB can only allocate video bandwidth from the system across its ports in certain ways.  But the specific port combinations you can use on the WD19TB depend on the capabilities of the attached system, and if the 5750 is like its sister system the XPS 17 9700, then that might even vary based on your BIOS settings.  I haven't personally used a 5750, but on the XPS 17 9700, by default it's a DP 1.2/HBR2 system.  But if you have a system with an NVIDIA RTX GPU, you have a BIOS option that allows the discrete GPU to take direct control of all display outputs.  If you enable that, it becomes a DP 1.4/HBR3 system.  With the WD19TB, if your system is in DP 1.2/HBR2 mode, one of the displays will need to be connected to the downstream TB3 port at the edge of the dock, not to be confused with the USB-C port near the HDMI output.  The other can be attached to any other display output.  If you're in DP 1.4/HBR3 mode, you have to AVOID using the downstream TB3 port and instead use any other combination of display outputs EXCEPT HDMI+USB-C, which can never be used together on that dock.

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December 18th, 2020 06:00

@DevinHolloway  Happy to help!  Yes that's the BIOS option I was referring to.  But be aware that if you enable it, then the NVIDIA GPU will take direct control of even the built-in display, which means it will therefore always have to be running, whereas in the default mode the NVIDIA GPU can be turned off when its additional performance isn't needed.  Keeping the NVIDIA GPU running full-time will impose a battery life penalty, as well as likely a fan noise and heat penalty, so I'd only enable that if you have a specific reason for doing so, such as using VR, G-Sync, HDR displays, "true 5K" displays (5120x2880), or more total displays than the Intel GPU will run.  Good luck!

December 18th, 2020 06:00

I happen to have the WD19TB already, along with the RTX I looked through the BIOS and found the option I believe you were talking about "Direct Graphics Direct Output Mode". Your answer was very informative, thank you.

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