wrote:
So I have 2 - 24" 1080p Acer monitors.... both HDMI.
I bought the Thinkpad USB-C dock (not the TB3)...
I connected 2 DP to HDMI cables I got off Amazon, one to each monitor....
It works flawlessly. 2 1080p monitors + my Yoga's 4K display...
Only bummer is with the USB-C dock is the Yoga doesn't charge also so I have to charge it + the USB c cable.
#solved
wrote:
So I have 2 - 24" 1080p Acer monitors.... both HDMI.
I bought the Thinkpad USB-C dock (not the TB3)...
I connected 2 DP to HDMI cables I got off Amazon, one to each monitor....
It works flawlessly. 2 1080p monitors + my Yoga's 4K display...
Only bummer is with the USB-C dock is the Yoga doesn't charge also so I have to charge it + the USB c cable.
#solved
While watching your CPU (in Task Manager or wherever), play some 1080p video on both monitors, or drag a high-res photo between the screens for 10+ seconds. I'm curious how much CPU that dock uses when doing that. My Wavlink with the DisplayLink DL-6000 chipset can eat up 50% of the CPU (turbo-boost disabled), but I'm running dual QHD (2560x1440) monitors on it. Your 1080p screens should use less, but still a considerable amount if you do graphic-intensive stuff.
I'm on the fence with the Wavlink. If only there was a TB3 dock that has MST daisy-chain support over a DP output, I think that would work with this machine and I could daisy-chain my displays. I don't like the CPU working so hard all day, but as long as the fan isn't running, I guess I don't care. But that's the fact of life with a USB dock.
I used this setup all day today and the dock's processes weren't generally exceding 10% CPU usage. A couple times, the fans ramped up when I was messing around with wallpaper. I think I saw 24% CPU usage. Dragging a Chrome window around rapidly between the 2 monitors for 10+ seconds could make the CPU ramp up to about 45% usage and burst to 88*C, and 79*C once the fans caught up and it leveled out. But the actual graphic performance is pretty good. It's not always buttery smooth, but it's decent enough. Like the slideshow in Windows 10, using 4K+ resolution images, it pans them smoothly without any jerkiness...though I saw it hiccup once (who knows what the CPU was doing right then).
If I need to do anything extra-intensive, or watch 4K video, I drag it down to the laptop's screen. Feels pretty roomy with all these pixels, haha! Now if only the scaling differences didn't wreck Citrix apps...