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The Surface Pro 2 supports daisy chaining 1080p aka FullHD aka 1920x1080 monitors (and other resolutions too). Does anyone know for certain how many external 1080p displays the Surface Pro 2 can drive this way, in addition to it's own inbuilt screen?

To clarify, I'm asking about the number that it can drive "natively", not using additional graphics chips that come with the DualHead2Go or the Plugable docks.

The same question for the Surface Pro 1 has already been answered here: Does the Microsoft Surface Pro support multiple external monitors over displayport? and here Can the Microsoft Surface Pro drive multiple external monitors?. One of the answers confirms that it is possible to do this with the Surface Pro 2, but there is no information about the maximum number of screens.

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  • Well the only major difference between Surface Pro and Surface Pro 2 is the switch from Ivybridge to Haswell. Since your linked answer explains that Haswell, supports the daisy chaining, the number of displays would be limited to the version of DisplayPort supported by the Surface Pro 2.
    – Ramhound
    Mar 13, 2014 at 15:18
  • @Ramhound that was my thinking too. I just failed to find information on how many that is. My guess is it can drive 4, but I don't know if that includes the built-in display or not. To make matters more confusing, there was an update to the DisplayPort drivers in the March 2014 updates "Intel(R) HD Graphics Family (v10.18.10.3431) improves Miracast support and enables daisy chaining of monitors using DisplayPort 1.2."
    – Peter
    Mar 13, 2014 at 15:22
  • Alright? You can contact Microsoft Support for specific device specifications. If the product advertises as support DisplayPort 1.2 and DisplayPort 1.2 supports 4 monitors then the Haswell based Surface Pro 2 supports 4 monitors.
    – Ramhound
    Mar 13, 2014 at 15:26

1 Answer 1

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2 external monitors are supported by the Surface Pro 2, or 3 if you turn off the screen on the device. The screen on the device can be turned off to support 3 external screens at the same time.

I got this info from various sources, such as forum comments. One of the sources is the club3d website:

Get even more from your Surface Pro 2 tablet with its powerful DisplayPort output. Microsoft Surface Pro 2 has a powerful 4th Generation Intel Core i5 and with the Club 3D MST Hub is capable to drive up to 3 external displays*

*by using 3 external displays will disable the tablet screen.

I found the following statement on microsoft-news in regards to the Surface Pro 3, which has nearly identical hardware to the Pro 2. The GPU in the Surface Pro 3 i5 is the same as in the Surface Pro 2 models, the Intel HD4400:

For those concerned about multiple monitor support, Microsoft engineers tell me they’ve tested these scenarios thoroughly. The i3-based model can comfortably drive two Full HD (1920×1200 at 60 Hz) displays, while the i5 and i7 models can power two external displays at a maximum resolution of 2880×1800 each at 60 Hz.

In all cases, you need to make the connection to the external monitors using the mini-DisplayPort adapter on the side of the device. For a single monitor, you can use an adapter to output to HDMI, DVI, or VGA. For dual displays you need either a DisplayPort hub or monitors that support DisplayPort chaining. In any configuration, you can continue to use the built-in touchscreen in addition to the external displays.

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