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Thunderbold is generally not available on AMD systems. Several reasons. a) Intel wants licensing cash for allowing you to use it b) It does not actually add
by fefe23 6y ago
Thunderbold is generally not available on AMD systems.
Several reasons.
a) Intel wants licensing cash for allowing you to use it
b) It does not actually add that much to USB. You want to attach monitors? Non-Thunderbolt USB can do that. You want to attach storage? Non-Thunderbolt USB can do that. Networking? Charge your device? USB can do all that.
The remaining selling point of Thunderbolt is that you can attach an external graphics card over it. There are external USB graphics solutions, too, but they can't really compete if you plan to do high perf 3d graphics over it.
However this selling point is also the Achilles heel of Thunderbold. It exposes PCIe to devices outside the device, allowing direct memory access over it. This can be partially mitigated if the OS and all drivers cooperate and are really well written (for example not expose a memory page that contains other stuff as well).
But bottom line? I actually view this as an AMD advantage.
It's a bit like Firewire was. a) it cost licensing money and b) it introduced a similar security issue while c) not actually delivering that much of an advantage over USB unless you are part of a certain niche.
- neogodless 6y agoIn my opinion, though I don't actually have this option, the killer use case for Thunderbolt (or USB 4) is sufficient bandwidth and a large aftermarket for... Docks. Now, I had a thin 'n' light with just 2 USB-C ports, and I could get a dock/adapter that had power delivery, HDMI, Ethernet and a couple USB-A/USB-C ports. But for high-refresh rate monitors, a proper dock will want a lot of bandwidth. Without that bandwidth, you'll have to pick your compromise on the dock.
- Naac 6y agoThunderbolt may not matter so much for desktop, but it definitely does for laptops. Like the other comment mentioned, docks. Yes you can theoretically accomplish everything with other ports, but I don't want to feel like I'm disconnecting my laptop from life support every time I move around. 1 Wire for Power + 10+ peripherals is awesome, and I can't go back.
- techrat 6y ago>1 Wire for Power + 10+ peripherals is awesome, and I can't go back. This can still be done with non-TB USB-C. Including power and video.
- domano 6y agoNot if you use 4k or even more.. DisplayLink compression sometimes gets so bad that you can measure it in seconds per frame.
- techrat 6y agoUSB C alt mode over DP isn't DisplayLink, does 4k and is published by VESA. https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000141328/displayport-over-usb-type-c https://www.dell.com/support/kbdoc/en-us/000141328/displaypo...
- dijit 6y agoI believe, based on my own experiences, that you're mistaken here. MacOS has a nice feature that shows you in the device tree what the thunderbolt connection speed is, for my eGPU it shows as '2x' which is 20GBps, and that's running an eGPU with 2x 4k displays. For work, I run a 4k panel from Lenovo[0] that has a USB-C in and while that's a 60Hz screen, it does not show any signs of input lag or artifacting. [0]: https://www.lenovo.com/il/en/monitors/p27u https://www.lenovo.com/il/en/monitors/p27u
- domano 6y agoMany Docking stations only can do it via DisplayLink though