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I'm planning to upgrade from a 2011 base model Mac Mini to a 2014 high end Mini (2.8Ghz i5, Iris, 16GB ram) and wanted to see if I could drive two 2560x1600 monitors through the thunderbolt ports with two mini DisplayPort to DisplayPort cables.

Specs from EveryMac don't specifically mention Mini-DisplayPort to DisplayPort, but am I right to assume that Thunderbolt is pretty much identical to DisplayPort?

This model supports "up to two displays" at 2560x1600, both at millions of colors, via the two Thunderbolt 2 ports. It supports Thunderbolt digital video output and native Mini DisplayPort output as well as DVI, VGA, and Dual-link DVI using Mini DisplayPort to DVI, Mini DisplayPort to VGA, and Mini DisplayPort to Dual-Link DVI adapters.

Based on other questions I’m 99% sure it works but just wanted to be absolutely certain!

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  • Yes, and I am relatively sure that machine has a HDMI port on it so you could use that to drive a display port anyways, as DP is just using HDMI anyway. – unknowndomain Jun 17 '15 at 13:22
  • Did you buy and test eventually? – Sébastien May 28 '18 at 14:46
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You will not be able to drive a Mac Mini to a monitor with a resolution of higher than 1920 x 1200 off of that HDMI port (different versions of HDMI have different capabilities vs. different versions of DP/mDP--the Mac version of HDMI is old). For 2560 resolution you must attempt to use the Thunderbolt ports to connect to the display mDP ports--in theory, although they are not identical, as the thunderbolt capabilities of data transfer are a superset of the mDP's, the thunderbolt port is backwards compatible with the mDP port and the Mac Mini will recognize the mDP monitors. Problems have been reported in practice in achieving full resolution for the mDP displays; there are also positive reports.

see: http://www.techadvisor.co.uk/feature/digital-home/displayport-vs-hdmi-3535257/ and: https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT204388

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