Apple Thunderbolt Display For Mac Mini

Mini DisplayPort to VGA HDMI DVI Adapter,Microsoft Surface Pro 6 5 4 3 Video Display Converter,Thunderbolt to HDMI VGA DVI Adaptor for Mini DP Mac,MacBook Pro,Air,MS Surface Book to Projector,Monitor 4.6 out of 5 stars 1,009. Apple's new Pro Display XDR is the first own-brand monitor that the company has produced since it discontinued the 27in Thunderbolt Display back in 2016. Plugging a Mini-DisplayPort monitor’s jack into a Thunderbolt 2 port on a Mac or at the end of a chain of Thunderbolt 2 devices was supported through clever backwards compatibility that fails. The addition of a Thunderbolt port is also among the upgrades given to the Mac mini which also gets new dual-core Intel Core i5 or i7 processors, Mac OS X Lion and an SSD option, but loses its.

Apple Thunderbolt Display
Apple Thunderbolt Display For Mac Mini Keyboard
Mac Mini Thunderbolt To Hdmi

Apple has now begun shipping the 27' Thunderbolt Display that the company unveiled in July, and you can plug the 2560x1440 pixel display—which includes a complement of USB, FireWire, Ethernet, and Thunderbolt ports of its own—into any MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, Mac mini, or iMac released this year. Most Mac models support at least two external monitors with a few caveats—the most important being that you cannot daisy chain a Mini DisplayPort monitor to the Thunderbolt Display's Thunderbolt port.

The inclusion of the Thunderbolt port on Apple's Thunderbolt display is an important one, since all Thunderbolt-equipped Macs, save the 27' iMac, have just a single Thunderbolt port. That's not necessarily a bad thing, as a single port can daisy chain six devices. So if you plug a Thunderbolt Display into a Mac mini, for instance, you can plug a 12TB RAID into the back of the display and still have speedy access to its data.

It also makes it possible to use multiple external displays with an Apple notebook for the first time—at least without resorting to workarounds like USB video adapters. As we noted, the latest MacBook Airs use a smaller Eagle Ridge controller that only has one DisplayPort channel, so these machines are limited to just one Thunderbolt or miniDP display, period. The iMac, Mac mini, and MacBook Pro, on the other hand, use the Light Ridge controller with two DisplayPort channels. You can easily daisy chain two Thunderbolt Displays to a single Thunderbolt port on these machines.

There are a couple exceptions. The 13' MacBook Pro can only drive two displays total with its integrated Intel HD3000 graphics, so if you plug in two displays, the built-in screen will go black. On 15' and 17' MacBook Pros and iMacs, the main screen will continue to function. Despite having two Thunderbolt ports, the 27' iMac can still only use two external displays, regardless of whether they are daisy chained or plugged in to separate ports. (Though it has two ports, both are wired to a single Light Ridge controller, so there are only two DisplayPort channels total.) On the top-end Mac mini, which includes a discrete AMD Radeon GPU, you can plug in two Thunderbolt Displays and attach a third HDMI-compatible display to the HDMI port.

What is really going to rub folks the wrong way, we suspect, is that the Thunderbolt Display is not configured to work with a miniDP display plugged in to its Thunderbolt port. It wouldn't be surprising if more than one user with an existing 27' Cinema Display or other miniDP display got a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac and ordered a Thunderbolt display expecting to be able to add the miniDP display at the end of the chain.

Adding a miniDP display at the end of the chain works with other Thunderbolt peripherals that have downstream ports, so it's not a technical limitation of the spec. Why Apple added this limitation we cannot say, but it could be construed as a move designed to sell more $999 Thunderbolt displays. A more unfortunate side effect, we believe, is that not working according to the spec will add consumer confusion and hamper what is beginning to be a wider rollout of the technology in the PC industry.

UPDATE: The truth may even be stranger still. Apple's KB article unequivocally states that 'Mini DisplayPort displays will not light up if connected to the Thunderbolt port on an Apple Thunderbolt Display.' However, Macworld Labs honcho James Galbraith was able to get a 27' Cinema Display to work by connecting it to a downstream port on a Promise Pegasus R6 RAID. In other words, when the chain was configured as MacBook Air > Thunderbolt Display > Pegasus RAID > 27' Cinema Display, all four worked as expected.

Though this at least demonstrates that it is possible to drive a miniDP display connected to a Thunderbolt Display, it still looks like a needlessly confusing limitation to require another Thunderbolt device in the chain. Furthermore, why it doesn't work when directly connected is yet another mystery.

There are probably no products on the planet that enjoy the devotion of Apple’s devices, especially the Mac. Apple brings the best in connectivity and it has a really good track record of picking the essential ones. When you’re trying to figure out where to plug in things, Apple keeps things simple by limiting the number of ports it uses, like the new Thunderbolt port. All the new Macs include a Thunderbolt port for video and high-speed data. Apple chose not to have the new and fast USB 3.0 ports on its product lineup, instead it opts the much faster and better Thunderbolt standard which represents the latest in peripheral connectivity.

The new Thunderbolt standard folds two specifications PCI Express and Mini DisplayPort into one unassuming cable connector. Thunderbolt uses the same connector as the Mini DisplayPort, but the logo is different – Thunderbolt, as the name suggests, sports a lightning bolt logo and the Mini DisplayPort is tagged with a widescreen rectangle between two vertical bars. Apple and other vendors sell converter cables that allow you to connect Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort ports to most digital and analog video displays, including large-screen televisions. Apple’s contribution to the Thunderbolt standard brought the inclusion of the DisplayPort standard and the use of the Mini DisplayPort connection.

What is Thunderbolt?

Originally developed by Intel, then later in Collaboration with Apple, Thunderbolt combines the two high-performance standards, PCI Express and Mini DisplayPort into a single connection and cable. A Thunderbolt port allows you to connect external displays or drives to your MacBook. With Thunderbolt, you can enjoy the speed and flexibility of PCI Express for expansion devices. It uses the same connector as the Mini DisplayPort. One Thunderbolt device can be linked to another, so that multiple devices can run off a single Thunderbolt port. One Thunderbolt host computer connection supports a hub or a daisy chain of up to six devices, with up to a maximum of two being high-resolution displays. Apple’s Thunderbolt Display has an extra Thunderbolt jack, so it can sit in the middle of such a chain, as well as at the end.

What is Mini DisplayPort?

The Mini DisplayPort is the new video connection standard on the new Macs. It’s a miniaturized version of the DisplayPort interface. A Mini DisplayPort cable sends images to a display in digital form, while preserving the images’ full fidelity for viewing on flat-panel computer screens and high-definition televisions. The Mini DisplayPort replaces the DVI, mini-DVI, and micro-DVI connectors that are used on older Macs. A Mini DisplayPort cable is required to connect your Mac’s Mini DisplayPort to an external display. Apple includes three options to connect Mini DisplayPort ports to other common monitor connections: Mini DisplayPort to DVI, Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI, and Mini DisplayPort to VGA. It is capable of driving resolutions up to 2560×1600.

Difference between Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort

Basic of Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort

– Thunderbolt combines the two high-performance standards, PCI Express and Mini DisplayPort into a single connection and cable. A Thunderbolt port allows you to connect external displays or drives to your MacBook. The Mini DisplayPort is the new video connection standard on the new Macs & a miniaturized version of the DisplayPort interface. The Mini DisplayPort replaces the DVI, mini-DVI, and micro-DVI connectors that are used on older Macs.

Function

– A Mini DisplayPort cable sends images to a display in digital form, while preserving the images’ full fidelity for viewing on flat-panel computer screens and high-definition televisions, whereas Thunderbolt is a specialized type of Mini DisplayPort connectivity which provides unmatched peripheral flexibility due to its mix of PCI Express and DisplayPort connectivity. A single Thunderbolt connection can provide access to any other networking, storage, peripheral, video, or audio connection.

Connectivity for Thunderbolt and Mini DisplayPort

– Mini DisplayPort is a passive technology which allows for connections from a source to a display and to do so, you need a Mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter that converts the Mini DisplayPort connection to a standard DVI connector used on most modern displays. Thunderbolt, on the other hand, enables you to connect other Thunderbolt enabled devices such as hard drive enclosures, docking stations, and RAID enclosures. The Apple Thunderbolt display, apart from high-definition digital displays, provides a built-in camera, a microphone, audio speakers, USB hub, a FireWire port, a Gigabit Ethernet port, and an additional Thunderbolt port for another display.

Performance

– Thunderbolt makes data transmission faster than its predecessors with Thunderbolt 3 offering connection speeds up to 40 Gbps, which is almost double the speed of its previous generation. In fact, Thunderbolt is the fastest external peripheral bus to date, providing two bi-directional 10 Gbps channels. Mini DisplayPort, as the name suggests, is a digital display interface capable of sending high-definition video and audio from a source to a display.

Thunderbolt vs. Mini DisplayPort: Comparison Chart

Summary of Thunderbolt verses Mini DisplayPort