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Review: CalDigit's Element Hub Delivers Flexible Thunderbolt and USB Support
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Why are these Thunderbolt hubs so expensive when they’re literally just a box of ports? They also have terrible customer satisfaction overall based on reviews. I don’t mean this brand specifically, but all of them. Expensive + unreliable is such a bad combo.
OWC 11-Port Thunderbolt Dock with Thunderbolt cable
Add three Thunderbolt and four USB ports, Ethernet, audio, and card reader functionality to all M1/M2 Macs, Thunderbolt-equipped Macs, and Thunderbolt 4 PCs.
Got some names I can search for? Looking for a usb hub that can do dual display.
I purchased both for testing at my workplace last summer. (And a Kensington 5000 and a Razer silver something - also TB4)
The OWC TB4 has gigabit Ethernet built in and can charge with 90 Watt. And the Kensington is pretty much identical.
The CalDigit hub is much smaller on the desk - but the power brick is about the same size for all three.
I really like that the MacBook connection is on the side of the hub on the CalDigit and not in the front as it is on the OWC TB4 (and a lot of the other TB4 docking stations including Kensington and the Sonnet echo and the Razer).
The TB4 cable delivered with all of them is quite short and the OWC is super sensitive to touching the cable near the dock.
When I take off my headphones after a meeting or to go and get coffee I have to be careful not to let them touch the cable since that will disconnect the TB4 connection abruptly.
When this happens the Mac loses connection to all external peripherals and will have to rediscover both my external monitors which is super annoying (and my LAN connection which is less of a problem).
OWC even sells a small plastic piece they call a Clingon (maybe with a K) that you glue to the dock which should reduce the sensitivity to touching the cable.
Other than that I am very happy with the OWC TB4. (the Kensington TB4 Razer and Sonnet TB4 docks have the same layout as the OWC TB4 and it are also sensitive to touching the cable near the dock).
I have an older Elgato dock at home and on that the Mac connection is on the back which works better for me.
Other than the disconnect if touching the cable I have not had any issues with the OWC TB4 and it is now my daily dock at my workplace.
I now have a M1 Max and have the MagSafe and Apple charger in my bag when I go to visit customers.
So even though I really liked the CalDigit I chose to keep the OWC TB4 so I only had one cable to my machine.
My colleague have an M1 pro and he is now using the caldigit hub as his daily hub. And so far I have not heard him complain about it.
If the caldigit could deliver 90w to my MacBook I would probably have kept it.
But all the TB4 docks I mentioned here are good and except for the CalDigit hub almost identical - so go for the one that is easiest to find in stock and at the best price.
Not sure, why you would need this. 60W power is not enough (but the power brick looks like it is delivering 12.1 GW) - and that thing looks like **** and is obviously supposed to sit permanently on your desk. I have a small passive usb-c hub from sitecom (1-USB-C in 3 out) that comes in handy if ports are needed.
”
- Provides up to 60W Power Delivery via host port.”
It's a very nice TBT4 hub. Just got my M1 Max 14", charging at 60W speed, so far so good. No complaints. I ordered this hub almost a year ago I believe and used it with my old M1 13", very reliable. Now switch to Max Mac and keep using this hub.
Original M1 Macs support one display from Thunderbolt.
M1 Pro/Mac and Intel Macs can support two displays from Thunderbolt.
The hub can connect two displays.
No hub allows an original M1 Mac to use two monitors unless it is using DisplayLink or something similar (not a real GPU driven display).
Yes, any Thunderbolt device in a chain can drive one or two displays (depends on the device) but the total number of displays in a Thunderbolt chain is still dependant on the number of displays supported by the host's Thunderbolt port.
The LG UltraFine 5K is a dual tile display and therefore counts as two displays when working properly at 5K 60Hz - is a Thunderbolt device that uses two DisplayPort connections - one for the left half and one for the right half of the display.Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 Dock - SONNETTECH
Thunderbolt 4 docking hub with Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C), USB 3.2 Gen 2, Ethernet and audio ports, SD card slot, 90W power delivery, and 4K, 5K, 6K, 8K support.www.sonnettech.com
This one has 90W PD and supposedly can handle 2x 5K @ 60Hz external monitors (which is really just the LG Ultrafine 5K and maybe 1 dell)
So you cannot connect two of those.
Now for a single tile display: a 5K 60Hz display (assuming 16:9 aspect ratio) requires ≈22.2 Gbps for 8bpc and 27.8 Gbps for 10bpc or HDR. There's no way to connect two of those to a single Thunderbolt port (34.56 Gbps for DisplayPort except the Apple Pro Display XDR which uses up to 39 Gbps) unless you reduce the refresh rate or the bpp. DSC can reduce the bpp from 24 or 30 down to 12 (or maybe 8 with a macOS preference modification). Chroma sub sampling can reduce the bpp from 30 down to 20 or 15 or from 24 down to 16 or 12. The minimum bpp that could allow two 5K60 displays from Thunderbolt is 18.
That's just a USB-C hub. USB-C hubs are less expensive than Thunderbolt. But they are limited to 12.96 Gbps DisplayPort bandwidth, down from 34.56 Gbps for Thunderbolt. USB-C is limited to a single DisplayPort connection (unless it's using DisplayLink for additional connections but that uses USB instead of a real GPU connection). This USB-C hub appears to use an MST Hub for additional displays but Macs don't support MST for multiple displays, so this hub can only connect one display. I'm not sure if this USB-C hub supports DSC or relies on chroma sub sampling to allow two HDMI 4K30 displays. One or the other has to be used.This one might work:
Nov8tech USB C Docking Station Dual Monitor – 13 in 1 Triple Display USB C Hub Multiport Adapter With 2x 4K HDMI, Ethernet, VGA, USB 3.0/C/2.0, SD/TF Card Reader, PD For Macbook, Lenovo, HP, Dell, XPS
Upgrade your connectivity with the NOV8Tech 13-in-1 Aluminum laptop docking station, a sleek and powerful accessory designed to enhance your digital lifestyle. This computer dock offers a comprehensive range of ports, including 2x 4K HDMI for immersive displays, a 3.5mm Audio Jack for enriched au...www.amazon.com
M1 Mac mini only allows one display from Thunderbolt, just like the other original M1 Macs. Think of the HDMI port as corresponding to the built-in display of the original M1 MacBooks.
Just another Thunderbolt 4 dock. The problem with Thunderbolt 4 hubs/docks (or Thunderbolt 3 docks that use Titan Ridge) is that everything internal is USB so the max portion of the Thunderbolt 40 Gbps bandwidth that can be used by a Thunderbolt 4 dock/hub is 10 Gbps - more of the 40 Gbps can be used only by downstream displays or Thunderbolt devices. Internally, these Titan Ridge or Goshen Ridge docks have a single PCIe USB controller with a single USB port which has a USB hub connected to it. Most Thunderbolt 4 hubs have one USB hub. The Element Hub has two USB hubs connected together (I like it because it adds more ports without increasing the size much). Thunder 4 docks will have three USB hubs with a bunch of USB adapters for audio, SD card, Ethernet.
The situation is worse for USB4 hosts like the M1 Macs - in that case USB tunnelling is used to bypass all the USB controllers in the chain of Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs - so the max bandwidth for all USB devices connected to all Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs in the chain is 10 Gbps. You can put a Thunderbolt 3 device between the host and the Thunderbolt 4 chain to disable USB tunnelling so then all the USB controllers in the Thunderbolt 4 chain can have their own PCIe connection - and the Goshen Ridge USB controller is superior to the USB controller of the M1 Macs (except maybe the ASM3142 controller in the 4 port M1 iMacs for the non-thunderbolt ports).
The TS3+ is old and uses Alpine Ridge instead of Titan Ridge or Goshen Ridge, so it can use all of the Thunderbolt data bandwidth (up to 22-25 Gbps) for its devices (the rest of the 40 Gbps can only be used up by displays). Internally, it has 5 PCIe devices: the Thunderbolt controller itself including the Alpine Ridge USB controller and 4 other devices connected to it: three USB controllers (two FL1100 and one ASM1142), and an Intel Ethernet controller.
Goshen Ridge has 1 lane of PCIe (for an additional 8 Gbps of possible Thunderbolt bandwidth), but no-one uses it because a PCIe device wouldn't be usable if the Thunderbolt 4 hub/dock was connected to a USB-C (non-Thunderbolt) host. But if CalDigit want's to do something new (and maybe they do - the TS3+ and Element Hub are different designs compared to other Thunderbolt 3 docks and Thunderbolt 4 hubs), then using some PCIe would be interesting. And in fact, they could pair a Thunderbolt 4 controller with a Thunderbolt 3 controller to get the benefit of having additional downstream Thunderbolt ports and to have superior PCIe controllers (especially for Ethernet - no-one likes USB Ethernet) which can use more than 10 Gbps of the Thunderbolt bandwidth.
and up to the capacity of the M1 Pro/Max - which is 2.
But only one from Thunderbolt. The other must be connected to HDMI.
I bought one of these a few weeks ago and it’s a great little piece of kit. Need more than the 4 TB ports on my 2018 Mac mini. I first got the OWC one (far fewer ports) but be warned; the input TB cable connects poorly and works its way loose with a couple of small jiggles or bumps. Returned it and been very happy w CalDigit’s. Solidly built & reliable.
Ok, dual 4ks or a 6k. But what refresh rate at 1440p or 1080p? If it can't do at least 120hz it's useless.
I had to stop using my TS3+ because it stopped my iPhone from syncing or indeed being recognised properly by my MBP14. I am hoping this unit doesn’t suffer from the same issue. Also hoping the issue will resolve itself because it’s a really nice hub otherwise.
I mean, Caldigit's own TS3+ does this at 87w and I've been using it for years - currently to my M1 MBP connected to a 5k/2k screen...
Have not used it frequently enough to say there are zero issues, but the few times I did there were no issues.
Dual 6Ks should be possible since 6K60 uses DSC@12bpp so each connection only requires HBR2 link rate just like 4K60 displays that don't use DSC (30 bpp). The Mac's GPU just needs to support DSC and have enough performance for two 6K displays (I think Mac's with Intel Ice Lake CPU do support DSC for one 6K60 display but not for two but it can connect two 4K displays?).
Actually, the Apple Pro Display XDR cannot do 6K60 from a Thunderbolt hub/dock unless it is using DSC because Apple doesn't attempt the tiled mode for GPUs that don't support DSC when there's a Thunderbolt hub/dock/optical cable between the XDR and the Mac.
There are bandwidth and refresh rate calculators.
https://linustechtips.com/topic/729232-guide-to-display-cables-adapters-v2/
Thunderbolt 4 supports DisplayPort 1.4. That means 4 lanes of HBR3 link rate. Using CVT-RB2 and DSC@12bpp we get these numbers: 1080p684, 1440p450, 4K228, 5K135, 6K99, 8K62
The numbers can be higher using DSC@8bpp. Anything less is a limitation of the OS or drivers or display - not a limitation of the Thunderbolt hub.
Genuine question here as I don’t much about docks. Can you link me to something at under $50 dollars that can allow me to use dual displays with my M1 Macbook air please.
I was waiting for Caldigit to release a newer version of the TS3 for my new 16" MacBook Pro but I ended up getting the Sonnettech Echo 4 Thunderbolt 4 box. Works fantastic for just a bit more $ and has more port options than just USB