Docking stations for Dual Screen setup

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Docking stations for Dual Screen setup

Dear all,

I run a small business with 3-5 people working in our office. We are management consultants. Until recently we used PCs and everyone has a docking station at their desk and two screens. Now our consultants choose various MacBooks. I have a M3 Max, we have latest model 15inch Air and 14inch MBP and a few others.

I found the existing Dell docking station only enable 1 Monitor - even with my M3 Max. I read I could connect multiple screens with Thunderbolt - but what does that mean? Do I have to buy another dock with one Thunderbolt in and multiple HDMI/Displayport outputs or do I have to connect the screens directly with Thunderbolt (with two cables to the laptop)? Which would mean buying new screens as well..

I find this cumbersome to solve being used to PCs which are virtually interchangeable.

Posted on Jan 21, 2025 9:37 AM

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Answer 1

Jan 21, 2025 8:49 PM in response to Feab123

Feab123 wrote:

do I have to connect the screens directly with Thunderbolt (with two cables to the laptop)? Which would mean buying new screens as well..

Apple likes to call the ports Thunderbolt ports, because Thunderbolt is an optional, high-end, desirable feature. But they are actually multi-purpose USB-C ports that support

Traditional USB
USB4 (up to 40 Gb/s)
DisplayPort Alt Mode
Thunderbolt

Most displays and adapters do not need or understand Thunderbolt. They use the DisplayPort Alt Mode "blade". You can get adapters and adapter cables that go from USB-C to just about anything: DisplayPort, Mini DisplayPort, HDMI, DVI, even VGA. Apple doesn't carry many, but on sites like Amazon's, they are a dime a dozen.

Getting a Thunderbolt dock involved means that the Mac and dock speak Thunderbolt to each other – but it does not mean that everything plugged into the dock has to speak Thunderbolt.

So you don't need to buy new screens just because your Macs have Thunderbolt 3/4/5 ports and your screens only have, say, HDMI ones.

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Answer 2

Jan 21, 2025 7:37 PM in response to Feab123

Even if a Mac has the ability to support multiple USB-C or Thunderbolt displays, a Mac wants to see a Thunderbolt connection – with its wide "data highway" – before sending two signals over one link. A Mac that supports multiple displays and is using a Thunderbolt dock can typically drive two 4K displays, or one 5K/6K display, off that dock. A Mac that is using a plain USB-C dock will only drive one display off that dock.

Some new Macs support Thunderbolt 5 and DisplayPort 2.1 – and the rules might be different for them. But these are the rules that are well-established for Macs with Thunderbolt 3 and 4.

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Answer 3

Jan 21, 2025 8:08 PM in response to Feab123

As far as how you would connect two displays to a Thunderbolt dock, this depends on the dock.

Some docks bring out dedicated DisplayPort or HDMI ports. Some allow you to connect displays or adapters – including plain USB-C (DisplayPort) displays or adapters – to their Thunderbolt daisy-chaining ports, or to their downstream Thunderbolt ports (if they have the ability to split one Thunderbolt chain into several).

Three long-time vendors of Thunderbolt gear for Macs are Other World Computing (MacSales), SonnetTech, and CalDigit. Their descriptions of their docks are generally pretty clear, and if you still had questions, those vendors would probably be able to understand and give accurate answers to pre-sales questions.

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