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coder543

> on my m1 just a few days ago

M1 != M1 Pro/Max/Ultra.

If you have an M1 Pro or M1 Max or M1 Ultra, that is not "[your] m1".

Each chip has significantly different capabilities in a number of aspects. As far as display support goes,

M1 = 1 external display[0]

M1 Pro = 2 external displays

M1 Max = 4 external displays (3 USB-C + 1 HDMI)[1]

[0]: the exception is the M1 Mac Mini, which doesn't have an internal display, so it can use two external displays.

[1]: once again, the desktop version without a built-in monitor can support one additional monitor, so the Mac Studio with M1 Max can support 5 displays.

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Is there a technical reason that the M1 only supports a single external monitor (optimized intended experience), or is just market segmentation?

Every GPU on the market supports a limited number of monitors. There are fixed-function (not programmable in a traditional sense) blocks of silicon that are used to support each monitor.

M1’s GPU came equipped to only support the internal monitor and one external monitor… a very slim configuration, but that’s likely influenced by its smartphone processor ancestry. Smartphones don’t need to power a bunch of displays.

The larger M1 chips have bigger GPUs with more of those fixed function blocks.

It isn’t artificial market segmentation at a software level, but it is certainly market segmentation at a hardware level, and something they knew would happen when they designed these chips.

In the end, they were pretty spot on about the market segments. Most people want/need external display support… but one external display is plenty for most people. People who need more are likely to also want more in general, and the higher end options satisfy that.

It still would have been nice for them to upgrade things for M2.

Thank you for the thoughtful response.

I agree that they were pretty spot on with the market segmentation. I’m one of the folks who doesn’t need more than a single external monitor, and I consider myself a power user when it comes to resource consumption. I just wish the cost of ram would come down, holy moly.

> People who need more are likely to also want more in general, and the higher end options satisfy that.

I disagree. The topic comes up repeatedly whenever Apple Silicon is discussed. It’s my impression that for quite a lot of us the base M1 or M2 would be everything we wish for from a pure performance perspective. Yet the limited display output options are the only thing that force us towards the Pro and higher tiers.

It seems like a deliberate limitation and I don’t like this form of product segmentation.

Got it, I thought they were saying it was a limitation of the chip not the specific laptop they had. Thanks for the clarification!

It is a limitation of the chip. The M1 chip and the M1 Pro chip are not the same chip.

The laptop itself has nothing to do with it. If they decided to put an M1 Pro chip into the MacBook Air, it would be able to have 2 external displays.

alright thanks

M1 Ultra = Every display known to man.

Apple probably could support 10 displays off of M1 Ultra, but I guess they decided to leave some displays for the rest of us.

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