What the first docks and hubs with Thunderbolt 5 on the Mac can

Better display connection

The second advantage of Thunderbolt 5 is the better connection of many large monitors. Up to three screens with 4K resolution and 144 Hertz Boterholzen frequency (4K @ 144 Hz) or two with 8k @ 60 Hz support the docks connected with only one cable depending on the graphics unit (GPU) of the host computer. Unfortunately, this is not the only prerequisite, because, unlike Windows 11, MacOS did not manage to head more than two 6K displays with 60 Hertz on a Thunderbolt-5-dock. If you want to use more monitors, you have to connect them directly to the Mac.

This could be related to the fact that MacOS still has not dominated the display port function “Multi-Stream Transport” (MST). You can connect two monitors in a row if one of the two has a corresponding outcome. Initially, the docks were advertised without specifying this operating system restriction, which caused great disappointment in the first testers.

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