How many external monitors possible for XPS 17 9700

Question

I have a Dell XPS 17 9700 laptop that I now will be using as my primary workstation.

I currently have an EliteDisplay E272q and now this laptop will be my primary workstation. I have two more of these displays, that I want to connect to the laptop, probably through a dock. Would this be possible to get working?

My laptop has the NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1650 Ti graphics card, so it's the medium option for this laptop. The External Display Connection Guide states that : "On computers with the NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2060 graphics card installed, you can connect up to four external displays or two 8K displays by enabling the Direct Graphics Controller Direct Output Mode in the BIOS."

But what options do I have with the GTX 1650 graphics card, and can I even use my 3 current displays (HP EliteDisplay E272q) for this tripple monitor setup? The resolution of these displays that I want to work with, is 2560x1440p, and I will not be using my XPS screen with this setup.

Could someone guide me towards what type of docking station I should get, or if this is even possible, given my current gear? Any suggestions are welcome!

ejn63 · Accepted Answer

The GTX1650 uses the Intel GPU for all video output, so its setup is the same as it is for integrated graphics -- the manual says three displays (internal + 2 external or three external with the internal display disabled).

The system you have cannot use the nVidia GPU to output directly -- that's why the version of your system with the RTX GPU has support for four rather than three displays (it does have the option of using the nVidia GPU standalone, which the GTX version cannot).

One of the Dell thunderbolt docks like the WD19TB will do the job.

Mr-Andrews · Answer

Hi ejn, thank you for the detailed response. That particular dock seems to be difficult for me to find locally, but will thunderbolt docks with 3 video outputs generally do the trick? There is an HP thunderbolt 280W G4 in stock locally, would that work? I’ve tried with an HP USB-C G5 which only works properly with one external screen. It also worked with 2 external displays if I connect one displayport through the G5 dock, and one through the hdmi-dongle/adapter that came with the XPS, but I could not get 3 external working displays at the same time - I guess it has to be thunderbolt then, as you said. Thoughts?

mgargan · Answer

@Mr-Andrews wrote:

Hi ejn, thank you for the detailed response. That particular dock seems to be difficult for me to find locally, but will thunderbolt docks with 3 video outputs generally do the trick? There is an HP thunderbolt 280W G4 in stock locally, would that work? I’ve tried with an HP USB-C G5 which only works properly with one external screen. It also worked with 2 external displays if I connect one displayport through the G5 dock, and one through the hdmi-dongle/adapter that came with the XPS, but I could not get 3 external working displays at the same time - I guess it has to be thunderbolt then, as you said. Thoughts?

I'm pretty sure that as long as the dock has DisplayLink supported, you should be good.

I bought this for my wife's M1 Macbook Air, which officially only supports 1 external display... hooking this up to her machine allows her to have multiple displays.

I'm pretty sure this will work for you too... but I'm not 100% sure. More like... 89.34% sure.

StarTech.com USB-C Triple Monitor Docking Station - HDMI/DP Triple 4k USB C Dock - 5X USB Hub - GbE - 100W PD - Universal Multi Monitor Docking Station - Thunderbolt 3/4 Compatible (116N-USBC-DOCK)

Mr-Andrews · Answer

Thank you - the local salesman actually allowed me to borrow it to see if it worked, and return it if it didn't, so that was great.

I found that with this docking station I'm at least able to have 2 displays 2560x1440 and an additional display at 1920x1080, using the 2 x DP ports and the HDMI ports, so this works good enough for my purpose. But then I found out also that I'm able to have 3 external displays at 2560x1440 through this docking station if I use the Dell XPS supplied HDMI converter dongle in the Thunderbolt port of the "HP Thunderbolt G4", and that is acutally a perfect solution in my case: 3 external displays at max resolution that these displays can show (2560x1440p).

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

mgargan · Answer

@Mr-Andrews wrote:

Thank you - the local salesman actually allowed me to borrow it to see if it worked, and return it if it didn't, so that was great.

I found that with this docking station I'm at least able to have 2 displays 2560x1440 and an additional display at 1920x1080, using the 2 x DP ports and the HDMI ports, so this works good enough for my purpose. But then I found out also that I'm able to have 3 external displays at 2560x1440 through this docking station if I use the Dell XPS supplied HDMI converter dongle in the Thunderbolt port of the "HP Thunderbolt G4", and that is acutally a perfect solution in my case: 3 external displays at max resolution that these displays can show (2560x1440p).

Thank you all for your comments and suggestions.

What a good sales guy! I hope it all works out!!

XPS

How many external monitors possible for XPS 17 9700

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