Which Uses Less Resources? Mirror Display or Secondary Display?

[RomanDarkArtist]

Hey guys, I have a 27" 1440p monitor, and a 900p macbook air.

I wanted to know which would use more resources, if I used them both as separate displays (macbook native 1440x900 and asus 1600x900),

OR

would using just the separate monitor, set to 1080p, but mirroring it with my built in display on my mac (and just not using it, putting the screen to sleep).

Which setup would put less strain on my computer but give me more room to work (I'm working with video and audio editing so more screen real estate is ++)

 

My macbook is just a 1.7ghz (at turbo boost) dual core so if I do 1440x900 and the asus monitor at 1080p in a multi display setup, the fans start going and the mac heats up a lil bit just from the displays alone (just has an intel hd5000 if thats relevant info)

[Thermosman]

Should easily be capable of powering 2 monitors expanding screen

[heimdali]

IIUC, if you mirror the display, you don´t really get more screen space but another display showing a bit more of the same.

 

Driving two monitors with the same graphics card probably requires more RAM than driving only one.  It would be best to try out if mirroring or enhancing require more resources overall.

 

[Radium_Angel]

I feel you are going to be hard pressed to notice the difference in resources, as that should all be handled via the GFX card and it's memory, as opposed to the CPU and RAM. It's been a loooooong time since I noticed any issues using dual displays

[Zodiark1593]

Most probably, the driver forces gpu clock speeds up when connected to another display. We're well past the point of integrated graphics driving high resolutions competently, so gpu load isn't likely to be the cause.

 

As for screen real estate, you will want to run both displays as separate.