Can Surface Laptop 3 power dual 4K external displays?

The Surface Laptop 3 is a thin and light laptop that builds off the already impressive Surface Laptop line. There are now two versions of the Surface Laptop 3, a 13-inch version and a larger 15-inch version. Both sizes of the Surface Laptop 3 have a USB-C 3.1 Gen 2 port. This port allows a laptop to connect to two 4K monitors at once at 60Hz.

A Microsoft Mechanics video showed off how the new line of Surface devices can power two 4K displays at once at 60Hz refresh rate. Being able to do this with just a single port leaves other ports open, such as the Surface Connect port and USB-A port that are available on all sizes of the Surface Laptop 3.

Unfortunately, getting the Surface Laptop 3 to power two 4K displays at once at 60Hz is not as simple as plugging in a USB-C port into your laptop and monitor. As outlined in a post by Dan S. Charlton, connecting two 4K monitors and hitting 60Hz via USB-C requires additional or specialized hardware. This is due to the Surface Laptop 3’s support of DisplayPort 1.4. There are a few options to power two 4K monitors at once.

The easiest solution is to purchase an adapter. You can purchase Plugable’s USB-C to DisplayPort or USB-C to HDMI adapters to allow your Surface Laptop 3 to power two 4K monitors. The downside to this setup is that there will be a bit of latency.

Another option is to wait until USB-C adapters that natively support DP 1.4 and Multi-Stream Transport (MST) come out. These are expected to become available in either later 2019 or early 2020. Cable Matters has one listed on Amazon, but it’s not available for purchase yet.

The final option is to purchase a monitor that natively supports DP 1.4 MST up (through DisplayPort or USB-C) and DP 1.2 or 1.4 down to start a daisy chain. The second monitor in this setup only needs to run DP 1.2 or DP 1.4 to connect back to the first display. Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be many, if any, monitors that can act as the primary monitor in the daisy chain available right now. Monitors like this are expected in the future, though.

What about docking stations?

As an alternative to the USB-C port of the Surface Laptop 3 powering your displays, you can use the Surface Connect port. The Surface Dock is in need of a refresh, but it can power a single 4K display at 60Hz or two 4K displays at 30 Hz.

You can also opt to purchase the more modern D6000 Universal dock from Dell. This dock allows you to use the USB-C port of your Surface Laptop 3 to power two 4K monitors at 60Hz. There will be some latency in this setup, so it’s not great for gaming, but it shouldn’t be an issue for productivity tasks. Additionally, this dock gets you a USB-A 3.0 port, a USB-C port, two DisplayPort, HDMI, a 3.5mm audio jack, and RJ45 Ethernet.

What 4K monitors do we recommend?

We haven’t gotten our hands on any 4K monitors capable of DP 1.4 MST daisy chaining, so for now we recommend the HP Z27 and a Plugable USB-C to DisplayPort adapter. This setup will allow you to power two 4K displays at 60Hz from your Surface Laptop 3. The IPS monitor has wide viewing angles, precise color, and an 8ms response time to go along with the 60Hz refresh rate.