USB video card, or 2 monitors to a laptop with 1 output...?

Question

Video cards

Hello dear community, once again I hope for your advice and your experience.
There is a situation:
MacbookPro 2011 early, with AMD Radeon HD 6750M on board. 1 video output in the form of Thunderbolt.
You need to connect a second monitor for expansion.
Please tell me how to solve this problem.
As an option, I see a USB video card (here the snag is that I don’t understand at all which one is suitable, and some exceed 10,000 rubles. This price does not suit), or wait for the release of the Thunderbolt hub from Belkin when the thread is in the 1st quarter of 2013.
The monitor has DVI \D-SUB\HDMI, but the monitor supports a resolution of 1920x1200 and if you choose a USB video card, it must support this resolution.

Thanks in advance.

PS if it turned out chaotically, then help me choose the equipment.

Answer 1

It seems to me that it is better to wait for a TB hub than to buy a USB video card.
A quick google gave this option: www.matrox.com/graphics/en/products/gxm/dh2go/digital_me/
It seems to suit your requirements (two screens in 1920x1200)

Answer 2

There are Thunderbolt to hdmi cables, why can't this option be used? Thunderbolt is backwards compatible with MiniDisplay Port, and there are plenty of such cables available.

Answer 3

You can buy a splitter (for example: www.ixbt.com/video/sapphire-vid-2x.shtml ), connect the splitter via Thunderbolt to DP, and monitors via DVI.

Answer 4

Alternatively, purchase a Thunderbolt display. Connect it to the laptop, and connect the old monitor to the Thunderbolt monitor.

Answer 5

It should be borne in mind that the video card, among other things, is responsible for 3D acceleration. You can't stuff anything powerful into a usb keychain. 3D acceleration will be software. For Excel, this is not important, but for "modeling" it may be important.

Answer 6

At one time, I thought about a similar idea, and when calculating the usb bandwidth, it turned out that it makes sense to take it on a small monitor, and for something that does not require high-speed display. The cost of the card was about 3k

Answer 7

Perhaps this somewhat unusual solution will suit you: use the tablet as a second monitor.
For this you can use for example: http://www.getidisplay.com/

Answer 8

If the compactness / portability of the solution is not critical, then I recommend EGPU and its commercial counterparts (ViDock):
habrahabr.ru/post/156587/
In addition to supporting multiple monitors, get full acceleration.

Answer 9

You at least write in the title that for a Macbook, but you came to advise buying a Thinkpad:
support.lenovo.com/en_US/detail.page?LegacyDocID=MIGR-76617
But after reading the text I realized that the advice would not work :)
You really have a hub, as above advise.

Answer 10

Thunderbolt to PCI-Express adapter + cheap graphics card (no external power)