New Mac Pro only two DVI outputs supported at a time

[Bill Lewis]

Happy New Year oh my this is disappointing indeed for the NEW Mac Pro see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5918

Now it may do Six VGA outputs (screens) perhaps someone in the group who has one can verify this but VGA not what I want to use these days for screen feeds.

My best

Bill

[Paul Gotch]

On 01/01/2014 13:30, Bill Lewis wrote:
> Happy New Year oh my this is disappointing indeed for the NEW Mac Pro see http://support.apple.com/kb/HT5918

Not ideal but I think:

http://www.kramerus.com/products/model.asp?pid=2317#1

is an active displayport to DVI converter, you would have to confirm
with Kramer.

It should therefore support 6 of these.

-p

[Bill Lewis]

Paul I wish that could work but I do not think it will, remember these are thunderbolt ports. Easy to get DVI out with just an adapter MiniDP to DVI.  I think for now VGA will be the only option for 6 display outputs.

Bill

From the Apple site

Can I connect DVI displays to a MacPro LATE 2013?

You can use two DVI displays with your Mac Pro. If you connect a third display via HDMI, it will cause one of the three displays to become inactive. To avoid this, consider using Thunderbolt, Mini DisplayPort, or VGA for connecting additional displays if you are already using two DVI displays.

[Bill Lewis]

Paul after a second reading of the Apple Suppot Pages, perhaps you may be correct. You just have to avoid the HDMI output to use up to six displays via adapters like MiniDP to DVI or VGA or HDMI. So anyone got one of these new MacPros perhaps can confirm.

Bill

On Wednesday, January 1, 2014 8:57:08 AM UTC-5, Paul Gotch wrote:

[Paul Gotch]

On 01/01/2014 15:01, Bill Lewis wrote:
> Paul I wish that could work but I do not think it will, remember these
> are thunderbolt ports. Easy to get DVI out with just an adapter MiniDP
> to DVI. I think for now VGA will be the only option for 6 display outputs.

It's incredibly confusing but there are a variety of things the
Thunderbolt port can do depending upon what is plugged in to it.

Thunderbolt is really just an Intel proprietary mechanism for exporting
a PCI-Express bus multiplexed with DisplayPort, this is why the
connector was made physically the same as mini DisplayPort connector.

Technically Thunderbolt is capable of supporting any DisplayPort monitor
as long as it is at the end of the chain, in practice only some
Thunderbolt devices support this, in particular you cannot daisy chain a
standard DisplayPort monitor to the Apple Thunderbolt Display.

The single link DVI adaptors work differently, which is why they only
work on some of the thunderbolt ports. They negotiate and repurpose some
of the pins of the port to output DVI. Which requires a DVI emitter to
exist and the special negotiation to be supported.

One thought that occurs is that it might be possible to get more DVI
outputs more cheaply than using Kramer boxes using the Apple Dual Link
DVI adaptor.

The Dual Link DVI adaptor is active and receives DisplayPort and
re-transmits dual link DVI. This is why that adaptor requires an
additional USB connection purely for power. I believe that the VGA
adaptor is also active, so if that works the dual link DVI adaptor
should also work.

However for running projectors over long distances it's advisable to use
the Kramer boxes anyway due to the EDID emulation they perform.

-p