If you’re wondering how many external monitors you can connect to your Surface tablet by daisy-chaining Displayport (or Mini Displayport) capable monitors together, this post is for you.
While the maximum number of external monitors (or other displays, see our post on how to connect external displays to your Surface) a Surface can support is just 2, it is highly dependent on a combination of your resolution settings/refresh rate. As you might expect it also depends on which processor you have (core m, i3, i5, or i7) and whether or not, you’re also using the built-in display.
Sound complicated?
Well, it kind of is. However, the table below that should simply it. It shows the number of monitors and the conditions that apply.
Note: In this post, I am only including information about Surface 3, Surface Pro 3, Surface Pro 4, and Surface Book. I am not including older Surface models.
How Many External Monitors Can I Connect?
| Surface | # of External displays | Max screen resolution | Max refresh rate |
| Surface Pro 3 – any processor | 1 | 4096 x 2160 | 24 Hz |
| Surface 3 & Surface Pro 3 – any processor | 1 | 3840 x 2160 | 30 Hz |
| Surface 3 | 1 | 3840 x 2160 | 30 Hz |
| Surface 3 | 1 | 2560 x 1600 | 60 Hz |
| Surface Pro 3 any processor or Surface Pro 4 Core M | 1 | 3840 x 2160 | 60 Hz |
| Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book – any processor | 1 | 3840 x 2160 | 60 Hz |
| Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book – i5 or i7 processor | 1 | 4096 x 2304 | 60 Hz |
| Surface Pro 3 with i7 or i5 processor, or Surface Pro 4 Core M | 2 | 3840 x 2160 | 30 Hz |
| Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book – i5 or i7 processor | 2 | 4096 x 2304 | 30 Hz |
| Surface Pro 3 – i3 processor | 2 | 1920 x 1200 | 60 Hz |
| Surface Pro 3 – i7 or i5 processor | 2 | 2560 x 1440 | 60 Hz |
| Surface Pro 4 or Surface Book with any processor | 2 | 2560 x 1600 | 60 Hz |
See the pattern?
Yep, the more powerful your device, the more external monitors it can support – not a big surprise. Also, notice that if you take down the resolution, you can support more displays. In addition, if you have 1 or 2 external displays that you want to run at a higher resolution, it may be possible with the Surface display (built-in) turned OFF. This helps with the DPI scaling for external monitors to keep them in focus, otherwise things may appear “fuzzy”. Turning off DPI auto-scaling or setting it all to 100% may help with this too.
One other bit of useful information; in general, you’ll have better performance for your external monitors if you turn the display on your Surface OFF. Not only does this free up video memory but, it also alleviates some possible display scaling issues which will make for a sharper display.
Finally, here’s a few tips that might make working with external monitors a bit easier:
- Tip 1: Use keyboard shortcut Windows Key + P to easily toggle between external monitor options.
- Tip 2: If you want to daisy-chain monitors (via Mini Displayport connections), you MUST make sure that you have the latest Windows and Surface Updates installed.
- Tip 3: Look into using an ACTIVE Mini Displayport adapter if you’re trying to connect multiple monitors. It will cost you a little more but, tends to work better than the , less expensive, passive versions.
Cheers!
Joanna-
