The Retina MacBook Pro, on the other hand, sports two physical Thunderbolt ports plus an HDMI port, meaning that you don't need to do any daisy-chaining to get to the maximum of four displays that the more powerful NVIDIA GeForce GT 650M is capable of pushing.
Because the Air only has one physical Thunderbolt port, however, the only way to support the maximum number of monitors is to daisy-chain Thunderbolt displays-an expensive proposition. The Intel HD Graphics 4000 GPU in the 2012 MacBook Air supports a total of three displays (up from the two supported by last year's HD Graphics 3000) and the Thunderbolt controller used by both the Air and the Retina MacBook Pro, the DS元510L, also supports two display outputs. The number of displays that Thunderbolt-equipped Macs can drive is dependent largely on the capabilities of the GPU and the Thunderbolt controller chip installed. Past MacBook Airs have only supported the use of two displays simultaneously, while the 15" and 17" 2011 MacBook Pros could only support a total of three. Users of multi-monitor setups are in for a treat: according to a report by 9to5Mac and legwork by Gabor Cselle and OWC, the 2012 MacBook Air can support two external displays for a total of three, while the Retina MacBook Pro supports three external displays for a total of four.
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