No one makes a 600Hz 1080p display or a 450Hz 1440p display. All of those numbers are for HBR3 link rate. Thunderbolt can only have one of those. The second display would be limited to HBR link rate. This gets complicated. It's easier to say that the Thunderbolt hub just allows an extension of the DisplayPort capabilities of the host computer up to two DisplayPort connections not exceeding a total of 40 Gbps.
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Review: CalDigit's Element Hub Delivers Flexible Thunderbolt and USB Support
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Unfortunately I've had this happen a couple of times with the caldigit Element too, only solution is to disconnect/reconnect the hub from Mac.
I do find it pretty usual that given all the horsepower Apple claims the M1 has, that it cannot support more than one external monitor.
My old Lenovo desktop at work drives 2 monitors with a fossil of a GTX 750Ti and a third monitor off of an external j5Create USB 3 graphics adapter. It only drives a 1080p display which is more than enough for web/office work and it has gotten the job done for over a year now.
I haven't tested it on my Mini but I do see drivers for it on the j5 website.
It not so much horsepower as just how the display controller is segmented. The laptops are setup for one internal display and that leave one external. The mini can manage two large external displays, one hdmi and one thunderbolt, because it doesn’t have an internal display allocated in the display controller.
The M1 was the first chip in this line and it was targetted at the low end products. It just wasn’t a priority to support more monitors with the first chip. The M1 Pro/Max allow for more monitors. The eventual M2 may as well. Multiple external displays is not a common use case in the consumer space. It is more common with processional users.
You are referring to the original M1 Macs. The M1 Pro and especially M1 Max are much more respectable.
- Original M1 Macs are limited to 2 displays but actually have 3 DisplayPort outputs from the GPU to allow for one of the displays to be a tiled display (like the LG UltraFine 5K).
- Intel Macs are limited to 3 displays.
- PCs or Macs with Nvidia are limited to 4 displays.
- PCs or Macs with AMD are limited to 4 displays for some GPUs and 6 displays for other GPUs.
- New M1 Pro Macs are limited to 3 displays but actually have 5 DisplayPort outputs from the GPU to allow for 2 of the displays to be tiled displays.
- New M1 Max Macs are limited to 5 displays but actually have 8! DisplayPort outputs from the GPU to allow for 3 of the displays to be tiled displays.
- In all the above cases the built-in display counts as a display.
- A tiled display counts as two displays in the non-M1 cases (for Intel, Nvidia, AMD)
For USB displays (not connected to GPU) on the Mac, usually people use DisplayLink which can go up to 4K (or even 5K in some cases). People have connected up to 6 displays to an original M1 Mac using DisplayLink for additional displays.
Yeah, the problem with the Echo 11 is that even when I do that (disconnect / reconnect the hub) the peripherals attached to the hub aren't recognized. The same peripherals are recognized instantly when connected directly to my Mac.
I doubt Apple will let future M2 users have more than one external monitor. The regular number in the CPU will be tied to the consumer market and the "Max or Pro" will get all the bells and whistles.
Multiple displays is more common in the professional market which Apple seems to be dead-set on losing over the throngs of iPhone masses. Why invest in Apple equipment as a small independent when you have no idea what their roadmap is?
I know what I was referring to and a majority of new Macs on the market are most likely M1 which means they are restricted to just one monitor without shelling out for an adapter of some kind.
I don't see what the problem is. Buy the Mac that supports the number of displays that you want. It is the same as always.
No, but my 1440p display is 240hz and I’m not going to buy something that isn’t capable of the same frame rate.
Not entirely true, in the Intel days you could add more displays later. My 2018 Mini can output 6 displays with its eGPU, there is no eGPU option for any of the ARM machines.
Doesn't help that the current ARM based machines that support multiple displays are expensive laptops and not desktops.
It's so unfortunate that they limited charging to 60w. I'm in the market for a Thunderbolt dock, and this unit is otherwise pretty much PERFECT... I don't want HDMI ports, audio in/out, etc., just USB/TB (I do need ethernet too, but I'm fine going with a dongle for that).
It's tricky, because in my testing of my most common high-usage task (exporting JPEGs from Lightroom), my M1 Max pulls about 55-58w, so I'd probably be ok with 60w of charging for 90% of what I do, but encoding video with Handbrake draws a bit more than 60w, so if I left it running for a while like that on a big batch of encode jobs, it could hypothetically run the battery down and shut off.
It's tricky, because in my testing of my most common high-usage task (exporting JPEGs from Lightroom), my M1 Max pulls about 55-58w, so I'd probably be ok with 60w of charging for 90% of what I do, but encoding video with Handbrake draws a bit more than 60w, so if I left it running for a while like that on a big batch of encode jobs, it could hypothetically run the battery down and shut off.
WARNING: Make SURE your laptop doesn't come with a power adapter LARGER than 60w.
If it does, this will ONLY act as a hub (not a proper power supply for your laptop). While it can keep your 95w (and over) laptop "running", you won't be getting full computer performance as it won't be receiving enough power. I didn't realize that when they said it's M1 compatible, that didn't relate to my 14" M1-Pro (10 Core). So I have to have to use both it's huge power brick and my laptop's power adapter together. This takes up a lot of room on my desk and in my backpack.
I'm choked I spent $375cdn on this thing now. $375...for. a. hub... that doesn't even supply proper power to my device. Anyhow... hopefully I can get a good portion back when I try to sell it and get their upcoming, Thunderbolt Station 4.
CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 4
98w Power, 18 Ports, 8K Display, Dual Displays, 2,5GbE
thunderbolt-station-4
If it does, this will ONLY act as a hub (not a proper power supply for your laptop). While it can keep your 95w (and over) laptop "running", you won't be getting full computer performance as it won't be receiving enough power. I didn't realize that when they said it's M1 compatible, that didn't relate to my 14" M1-Pro (10 Core). So I have to have to use both it's huge power brick and my laptop's power adapter together. This takes up a lot of room on my desk and in my backpack.
I'm choked I spent $375cdn on this thing now. $375...for. a. hub... that doesn't even supply proper power to my device. Anyhow... hopefully I can get a good portion back when I try to sell it and get their upcoming, Thunderbolt Station 4.
CalDigit Thunderbolt Station 4
98w Power, 18 Ports, 8K Display, Dual Displays, 2,5GbE
thunderbolt-station-4
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I have an M1-Pro (10 Core - 96watts) and the 60watts the Element 4 delivers isn't enough to provide full performance of all 10 cores. When you spend more money for more performance, it makes no sense to spend even more on top of that for something that throttles that performance.
I confess you lost me in the longest paragraph, but that’s because I don’t know anything about the various chipsets you mention.
So perhaps you can boil it all down to a thumbs up or thumbs down on this hub?
Does anybody know whether the USB-A ports on this all have their own USB controllers or if they are sharing controllers via an internal hub (or, more likely, some combination thereof)?
I.e. if I connected 4 x 5 Gbps USB 3 devices to this hub, could they all get 5 Gbps simultaneously, or would they be competing for a single 5Gbps connection (plus all the other speed/latency/compatibility disadvantages of using a USB hub)?
Trying to decide whether the USB A ports on this would be any "better" than just hanging a plain old USB 3 hub off the Mac.
I guess you could get a clue from a Mac "System Report"?
I.e. if I connected 4 x 5 Gbps USB 3 devices to this hub, could they all get 5 Gbps simultaneously, or would they be competing for a single 5Gbps connection (plus all the other speed/latency/compatibility disadvantages of using a USB hub)?
Trying to decide whether the USB A ports on this would be any "better" than just hanging a plain old USB 3 hub off the Mac.
I guess you could get a clue from a Mac "System Report"?
I am trying to understand what you want to know it for - they probably all share the 5GBps to the final destination anyways?
No, the final destination is a 20-40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 port. In theory a TB device could contain enough PCIe-to-USB controllers to provide 4 independent USB 3.1 ports that could each support full bandwidth. Or, it could just have a single USB controller and use an internal hub to turn that into multiple ports - which creates an internal 5 Gbps total bandwidth bottleneck and adds a lot of other latency & overheads that come from using a hub & would be no better than connecting via a regular USB hub.
I see what you mean now. Was just still not sure on what scenario it would come to play. But it would be odd if the hub would have a shared controller for all ports. (Without that I know)
Its not unusual - e.g. on my Mac Studio Max, according to system report, all 4 of the non-Thunderbolt USB C and A ports appear to be on an internal hub.
What you are asking is probably outlined here https://www.caldigit.com/element-hubs-controllers-and-data-paths/
That helps a bit - thanks. Not entirely clear, but kinda suggests that the 4 USB A ports are sharing 10Gbps/5Gbps.
The USB-A ports are a 4 port USB 3.1 gen 2 hub connected to the USB 3.1 gen 2 hub that supplies the USB-C ports. This means the USB-C ports will have slightly better performance.
The CalDigit Element Hub only has one USB controller. This is true for all Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 docks that support being connected to USB-C hosts that don't support Thunderbolt. Such docks use either the Goshen Ridge chip (Thunderbolt 4) or the Titan Ridge chip (Thunderbolt 3). These docks support 10 Gbps USB total. PCIe from downstream Thunderbolt devices can be combined with USB for up to 22 Gbps of data. DisplayPort 1.4 can use between 0 and 38 Gbps of the 40 Gbps total. Whatever remains can be used by USB and PCIe.
Note that the USB controller of a Thunderbolt 4 dock is not used when connected to a host that supports USB4 (such as with Apple Silicon Macs). In that case, the USB controller of the host is used. The USB controller of Apple Silicon Macs is known to be less performant than the USB controller that's in the Thunderbolt 4 dock. You can force using the USB controller of the Thunderbolt 4 dock by putting a Thunderbolt 3 device between the Apple Silicon Mac and the Thunderbolt 4 dock.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...ally-10gb-s-also-definitely-not-usb4.2269777/
Older docks that use Alpine Ridge chip (like the CalDigit TS3 Plus) do not support being connected to USB-C hosts that don't support Thunderbolt. These docks usually contain multiple USB controllers. The TS3+ has two 5 Gbps USB controllers (4 Gbps), one 10 Gbps USB controller (7.88 Gbps), and the 10 Gbps USB controller of the Thunderbolt chip (9.7 Gbps) so you could get up to 22 Gbps.
https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus-interface-bandwidth-allocation-and-diagram/
These older docks only support DisplayPort 1.2.
This shows how a USB 3 hub is actually two hubs: one for USB 3.x and one for USB 2.0. USB 2.0 devices are always separate from USB 3 devices.
Thanks - that's really helpful. The Caldigit article doesn't make it clear what the data path is when connected to a TB4 host. So, I think what you're saying is that - as far as downstream USB 2 & 3.1 gen 1 bandwidth and latency is concerned this is not going to be any better than my current setup of an old-school 7 port USB3 hub connected to a TB4 port on my Studio. (and, just like that hub, ports 4-7 are provided by a second internal USB hub).
One of my issues is that I have a number of USB 2 devices - 2 audio interfaces and several USB MIDI devices - which may use a piddling amount of bandwidth by modern standards but do need low latency and are best connected as close to the 'root' of the USB tree as possible (I already understand that the USB 2 tree is separate from & parallel to the USB 3 tree so even on USB 3 hardware they're still subject to USB2 era bandwidth and latency issues). They'll probably be fine on a hub, but I'd certainly rather avoid them going through a cascade of hubs... I think in my case the role of something like the Element hub would be to consolidate other devices to free up ports on the Mac for Audio devices.
Alternatively, I suppose there's this:
External Thunderbolt 3 to USB Controller - 3 Dedicated USB Host Chips - 1 Each for 5Gbps USB-A Ports
Convert your laptop’s Thunderbolt 3 port into multiple USB controller ports, with one USB-C and one USB-A port supporting 10Gbps, plus a daisy-chainable TB3 por
www.startech.com
...or getting a PCIe enclosure and putting in some USB controller cards, but that's getting a bit ridiculously expensive.