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Thunderbolt could've been the goldilocks solution for the "PC in the other room" crowd, there was even a brief moment were both nVidia and AMD GPUs had USB-C wi

Thunderbolt could've been the goldilocks solution for the "PC in the other room" crowd, there was even a brief moment were both nVidia and AMD GPUs had USB-C with DisplayPort MST on them. However, TB never gained VRR support as far as I know, and both nVidia and AMD dropped USB-C after one generation. Wasn't meant to be, I guess.

jbverschoor 3y ago
The problem is that they made things way too expensive for most people. A simple usb hub and a separate hdmi cable does essentially the same for most people
- zamadatix 3y ago
  Agreed. Extending things like the LAN connection is usually actually a downside in most "PC in another room" cases and USB/display are already very easy/cheap to extend great distances. Being it's a PC in another room you probably don't want to plug in actual PCIe devices locally (GPUs, high performance disk, whatever) since it defeats the point of having the PC in the other room. The only real upside of Thunderbolt is it had the potential to bring things down to a single cable, assuming that single cable had enough bandwidth for your needs (e.g. a single HDMI 2.1 cable can deliver more bandwidth than an entire Thunderbolt 4 cable).
jeffbee 3y ago
I use it for this. The big PC is in the basement directly below where the desk sits. A 3-meter TB4 cable is hilariously expensive, though. My main complaint with Thunderbolt remains that you need to be picky about the implementation. Macs all work fine, and fully integrated solutions like the Intel NUC also work perfectly. Getting an OEM or DIY workstation that supports TB4 is harder. The motherboards that provide Thunderbolt with an add-in card and cable headers never work right. They will fall over dead as soon as you push them even moderately hard, or if you do something unthinkable like unplug the cable.
- PaulHoule 3y ago
  I had an Alienware (Dell) that would take forever to configure itself when plugged into a dock that my coworkers with Macbooks used with no problems and half the devices wouldn’t work. Later I got a Latitude with a matching Dell dock and those have worked together just great for years.
pantalaimon 3y ago
Huh isn’t DisplayPort tingelte through Thunderbolt so you get VRR via that?
PaulHoule 3y ago
Myself I use several kinds of “remote desktop” with my big PC regularly. I use Microsoft’s RDP to log in with a laptop and a iPad. I use Sunshine and amok light to play PC games on my NVIDIA Shield and Xbox One. And I use Immersed to use my computer with a Meta Quest 3. All with just Ethernet and WiFi.
jwells89 3y ago
I can get VRR via Thunderbolt with my gaming PC through a couple of different docks, but it’s flaky. Running a display through TB on that machine is kinda flaky even without VRR enabled, though… I think it’s either Nvidia drivers or the card itself (3080 Ti FTW3) that is to blame, because the results are the same regardless of the OS I’m booted into (Windows or Linux) and Intel/AMD iGPU-equipped machines have no such problems. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Nvidia driver dev team does little to no testing of TB3/TB4 passthrough with their desktop card drivers.

jbverschoor 3y ago

The problem is that they made things way too expensive for most people. A simple usb hub and a separate hdmi cable does essentially the same for most people

zamadatix 3y ago
Agreed. Extending things like the LAN connection is usually actually a downside in most "PC in another room" cases and USB/display are already very easy/cheap to extend great distances. Being it's a PC in another room you probably don't want to plug in actual PCIe devices locally (GPUs, high performance disk, whatever) since it defeats the point of having the PC in the other room. The only real upside of Thunderbolt is it had the potential to bring things down to a single cable, assuming that single cable had enough bandwidth for your needs (e.g. a single HDMI 2.1 cable can deliver more bandwidth than an entire Thunderbolt 4 cable).

jeffbee 3y ago

I use it for this. The big PC is in the basement directly below where the desk sits. A 3-meter TB4 cable is hilariously expensive, though. My main complaint with Thunderbolt remains that you need to be picky about the implementation. Macs all work fine, and fully integrated solutions like the Intel NUC also work perfectly. Getting an OEM or DIY workstation that supports TB4 is harder. The motherboards that provide Thunderbolt with an add-in card and cable headers never work right. They will fall over dead as soon as you push them even moderately hard, or if you do something unthinkable like unplug the cable.

PaulHoule 3y ago
I had an Alienware (Dell) that would take forever to configure itself when plugged into a dock that my coworkers with Macbooks used with no problems and half the devices wouldn’t work. Later I got a Latitude with a matching Dell dock and those have worked together just great for years.

pantalaimon 3y ago

Huh isn’t DisplayPort tingelte through Thunderbolt so you get VRR via that?

PaulHoule 3y ago

Myself I use several kinds of “remote desktop” with my big PC regularly. I use Microsoft’s RDP to log in with a laptop and a iPad. I use Sunshine and amok light to play PC games on my NVIDIA Shield and Xbox One. And I use Immersed to use my computer with a Meta Quest 3. All with just Ethernet and WiFi.

jwells89 3y ago

I can get VRR via Thunderbolt with my gaming PC through a couple of different docks, but it’s flaky. Running a display through TB on that machine is kinda flaky even without VRR enabled, though… I think it’s either Nvidia drivers or the card itself (3080 Ti FTW3) that is to blame, because the results are the same regardless of the OS I’m booted into (Windows or Linux) and Intel/AMD iGPU-equipped machines have no such problems. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Nvidia driver dev team does little to no testing of TB3/TB4 passthrough with their desktop card drivers.