What would be the best way for me to run 6 monitors off of my Surface Book?

#1

Hello,

I am trying to run 6 monitors off my Surface Book. I already have the Surface Dock which has 4x USB 3.0 ports and 2x Mini Displayports. I’m not doing any gaming, just financial charts and things, but I would like a reliable (set it and forget it) setup.

Here are my 3 ideas:

  1. 2 monitors using Mini Displayports on the dock, 4 monitors using individual Plugable USB 3.0 to Displayport/HDMI adapters

  2. 2 monitors using Mini Displayports on the dock, 4 monitors using 2x Plugable Dual Video Output docking stations.

  3. 6 monitors using individual Plugable adapters (or 3x Plugable docking stations)

I guess my questions are these:

  1. Should I go all Plugable or use the 2 Mini Displayports I have for best performance?

  2. Is there a performance difference between the individual Plugable adapters and the dual output docking stations.

  3. Would there be a performance difference plugging everything into a powered USB 3.0 hub vs directly into the dock and laptop?

  4. Would I see better performance with lower resolution monitors?

#2

Hi, thank for posting! For best performance I would recommend connecting two monitors to the Mini DisplayPorts on the dock and then use four UGA-4KDP/UGA-3000 adapters (we are currently out of stock of our UGA-4KHDMI adapters and expect to have units available within a couple of weeks) depending on the available inputs for your monitors. However, please be aware that we have heard from customers and seen in browsing support forums, some customers with the Surface Dock have seen issues when trying to use the two Mini DisplayPorts at the same time in that only one display will work at a time. One common workaround has been to use the Mini DisplayPort that is directly on the Surface Book in lieu of the 2nd mDP port on the Surface dock.

I also would not recommend attaching more that 4 DisplayLink enabled graphics adapters onto one system as each adapter requires resources from the CPU, GPU and USB 3.0 host controller within the system. Based on these requirements, there can certainly be a performance difference between the Mini DisplayPort attached displays as our adapters require a software and hardware variable in order to work which adds potential failure points in the connection chain. This also includes using a powered USB 3.0 hub as it would add an extra “hop” in the connection chain.

Lower resolution monitors (1080p displays) can certainly help in terms of performance as they won’t require as much data to be sent through our adapter from the GPU and CPU.

If you decide to proceed with a purchase, we offer a 30-day no hassle return policy on Amazon.com/returns if you find that our products do not meet your needs.

Thank you,

David W.
Plugable Technologies
www.plugable.com/support

#3