Just bought a new MBP. Grabbed the "legacy" model with unique ports for USB, HDMI, and power. Caveman tech, right? Shockingly, some of us use our computers for work - function over form.
I was experiencing a somewhat similar issue with 2 4K Dell monitors connected. In my case when my Mac and displays would go into sleep mode it would have issues with bringing them back up. Numerous times only one of the Dell displays would come back online. I also experienced flickering on one of the displays at intermittent times.
I've since returned the TS3 Lite and am on the fence if I will be trying another dock. Since Apple does not appear to support MST across multiple displays I am unable to daisy chain my displays. This forces me to use one TB3 ports and the DP for connecting up my dual 4K's. I'm now running both 4K Dell's off the native TB3 ports on my MacBook Pro which is working perfect except for the constant reconnecting/disconnecting of everything when I "undock" from my home office.
It is nice to have that one-cable solution, but it shouldn’t be the only one. It should be possible to have those “legacy” ports without having to plug in an adapter like that. It kind of defeats the purpose of a laptop. What if you need to copy some files from a flash drive on the train to work or copy some files from your camera’s SD card in a coffee shop? Laptops are supposed to be functional. If you only have one kind of port, it’s not very functional. In the very least, you should have one USB Type-A port.Since you mention "work", the advantage of a dock is so you can come into work everyday, and just plug one cable into your Macbook, instead of a myriad of cables that you may have to connect multiple monitors, power, USB devices, audio, etc. That will soon wear out your beloved legacy ports.
Docks of this type are not meant for portable users...something like this is, though...
Does the cheaper model TS3 work well on the regular single port MacBook?
I'm surprised no one has commented on how butt-ugly the TS3 is. Usually Mac people are all about design, yet this screwed-together aluminum brick throwback from the last decade goes without comment? The TS3 Lite is closer to what I'd expect a modern design to be...
The OWC $300 dock looks better and has more functionality than the TS3 (if it ever ships).
Since you mention "work", the advantage of a dock is so you can come into work everyday, and just plug one cable into your Macbook, instead of a myriad of cables that you may have to connect multiple monitors, power, USB devices, audio, etc. That will soon wear out your beloved legacy ports.
Docks of this type are not meant for portable users...something like this is, though...
Does the cheaper model TS3 work well on the regular single port MacBook?
instead of a myriad of cables that you may have to connect multiple monitors, power, USB devices, audio, etc. That will soon wear out your beloved legacy ports.
The lack of support for MST has been annoying for a long time. It was actually on my wishlist for 10.13.
Does the Caldigit TS3 dock charge USB connected peripherals when the computer is detached? I see that mentioned in the Belkin review but not mentioned either way for the TS3?
Tell that to my trusty 2011 MBP 17" which has spent most of its life alternating daily between home and work desks with no sign of worn out ports, the 15" MacBook Pro I had before that, and the half-dozen various MacBooks in use by my colleagues (who would come to me if they had a busted port). Sorry, those legacy ports are built to withstand daily unplugging.
The only USB-A port I've had fail is on a PC case, and I think that was semi-broken to start with. The main culprits were the old, pre-MagSafe, jack-style power plugs.
Time will tell how robust USB-C ports are (Lightning looks better-engineered to me). They're certainly a downgrade from MagSafe for the most commonly attached cable -power.
Oh and "myriad" probably averages out at about 3.5 - hardly the labours of Hercules.
So you're basically saying that a dock is worthless on a Macbook. Thanks for sharing your story.
And none of them are what this device is: a docking station. As anything with computers or electronics: they never work 100%, there are always issues.Dongles and adapter boxes suck. They always have. There are ALWAYS issues. None of them ever work perfectly, 100% of the time.
Apple gets it fine and so does everybody else in the IT industry. The one not getting it is you. You fail to understand that a docking station is something very different from those dongles and adapter boxes you speak of above. You also fail to understand that these docking stations are anything but new. They have existed probably as long as notebooks have existed which would be more than 20 years!Apple just doesn't get it.
Yes and by going USB-C/Thunderbolt 3 they are now letting it go completely. The might accessory manufacturers from China have full control now.They have always exercised control over their hardware and software because they believe that reliability, quality control and stability can be achieved this way.
Unfortunately in most cases like this it is in fact the user who is the weakest link. Computers are still rather complex devices and most users still have little to no clue about them. It is why ransomware and spam are so extremely successful and why people still jam a USB-A connector into a RJ-45 port even though any toddler doesn't because they know it won't fit. USB-C is actually one of the pieces of technology that make things more easy for users to understand and that is why it is very important that we start implementing it. ASAP!And dongles and adapters are most certainly weak links.
Apple had to do it because the Intel CPU they used simply doesn't offer enough PCIe lanes. They could have used the same CPU as in the 15" but the impact on battery life would have been bigger than the benefits of having those additional PCIe lanes. You simply connect something like a dock or display to the slow side of the 13" and you're fine.In some ways it is, apples chocie of controller and bandwidth of the TB in the 13" play a part in how these 3rd party accessessories work.
Unlike dongles and adapters, docking stations are not meant to adapt/convert anything. Docking stations are meant to connect everything at your desk to the machine at once.
USB-C is actually one of the pieces of technology that make things more easy for users to understand and that is why it is very important that we start implementing it. ASAP!
You are not reading what I wrote nor understanding what a docking station is. As I said a docking station is nothing but a device that allows you to connect all of your peripherals at once by connecting a single connector to the notebook. There is no limit as to kind of ports or how many. In other words, just because the notebook has 4 TB3 ports doesn't mean that a docking station can only connect those or can only connect 4 peripherals.Not really - a typical laptop docking station has always done a bit of both. Last time I had a PC laptop with a dock, the dock added things like dual DVI (and probably parallel printer & RS232) that just weren't on the laptop (the controllers may have been, the connectors weren't). You can use a TB1/2 dock to add USB3 to a 2011 MBP that only has USB2, or ethernet, ESATA or FireWire to a rMBP.
No, what's happening is people using the wrong reasons. Again, docking stations are never meant to put legacy ports on a notebook. That's why these Thunderbolt 3 docks have the same (or almost the same) port layout as their Thunderbolt 2 predecessors. The CalDigit TS3 is exactly the same as the TS2. The only difference is TB2 vs TB3. If TB3 docks were indeed means of adding legacy ports to the notebook then they'd have more of them and would add things like USB2, PS/2 (ports that are still used quite a lot), etc. That alone tells you it isn't about adding legacy ports at allWhats happening now is that people are looking to TB3 and USB-C docks as an alternative to multiple adapters needed to connect their existing devices to a new MBP.
Ah so you are one of those textbook examples of someone with progress-anxiety because everything you bring forward as an argument is nothing but an excuse. In fact all those excuses are the main reason why we should move towards USB-C ASAP. As you've demonstrated there currently are too many different cables due to having to use non-USB-C connectors on one end of the cable. That's one of the reasons why we need to adopt USB-C ASAP: we can have USB-C on both ends of the cables which cuts down the amount of different cables to choose from tremendously.So, lets see... all the following now have identical connectors (unless you have your Scout's badge in USB-C icon recognition):
And we have people who are ranting about stuff they have clearly no idea about...then we have computers/phones with USB-C outputs which may or may not support USB3.1gen1, USB3.1gen2, various levels of power in/out, Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort alt mode, HDMI alt mode (coming soon), other alt modes to come...
...three completely different and incompatible ways of driving displays (DisplayPort alt mode, HDMI alt mode, DisplayPort over Thunderbolt) which may or may not be supported by any given device...
No good luck necessary as you cannot plug in USB-C into the wrong port when there is only USB-CSo yeah, right, people who currently can't even work out that you put the square peg in the square hole are going to cope really well with a dozen permutations of identical square pegs that fit oh-so-neatly into the square hole but don't actually work. Good luck with that.
That would only apply to notebooks having only 2 ports. In all other cases, which would be all of the notebooks, the chance of success was a lot smaller.At least, beforehand, if the plug did fit the hole there was a 50/50 chance that it would work...
You are not reading what I wrote nor understanding what a docking station is. As I said a docking station is nothing but a device that allows you to connect all of your peripherals at once by connecting a single connector to the notebook.
If TB3 docks were indeed means of adding legacy ports to the notebook then they'd have more of them and would add things like USB2
PS/2 (ports that are still used quite a lot)
Again, just because these docks have such ports doesn't mean that their sole purpose is adding legacy ports.
As you've demonstrated there currently are too many different cables due to having to use non-USB-C connectors on one end of the cable.
Basically this USB-C standard allows people to simply use a cable and not worry about supporting any of the protocols you just mentioned.
Nice, then I have multiple names such as CalDigit, OWC, HP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM, Hengedocks and many more!That may be what your personal made-up dictionary says, but here in the real world "docking stations" and "docks" cover a wide variety of products sold for various different purposes.
Because they behave differently than USB3. There are still many devices out there that will not work or work unreliably when used on a USB3 port. Besides, you are shooting yourself in the foot here because why on earth would you want to use any USB-A ports when USB-C is backwards compatible with all of them (it can do USB3.1 Gen 2 all the way down to USB1.1). It would be an even better idea to do so because you'd then be able to still use it in the future when more and more stuff is going USB-C.They have USB3 ports, which are backward-compatible with USB 1&2. Why would they add USB 2 ports?
And yet again you have no idea what you are talking about. PS/2 ports are not used that much on servers (there is no such thing as a PC server because it is either a PC or a server and it isn't just a farm either), they have mostly moved to USB because it is much easier.So, let's get this argument right - if docking stations were meant to support legacy ports then they'd include every obsolete port you can think of, even ones like PS/2 which were never used on Macs and only linger around on PCs because they're used for keyboard/mouse switches in PC server farms (not a key market for desktop TB3 docks, methinks).
Just about anyone in this thread including you.Who said sole purpose? They've always served multiple purposes.
You did since everything below doesn't matter with USB-C to USB-C cables:Nope. Read the examples I gave. Apart from the HDMI issue, all the cables I was talking about have USB-C connectors at both ends.
...then we have computers/phones with USB-C outputs which may or may not support USB3.1gen1, USB3.1gen2, various levels of power in/out, Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort alt mode, HDMI alt mode (coming soon), other alt modes to come...
...three completely different and incompatible ways of driving displays (DisplayPort alt mode, HDMI alt mode, DisplayPort over Thunderbolt) which may or may not be supported by any given device...
It's a charging cable which is labeled and advertised as such. Do note that it doesn't stop the drive from working at all or working properly. It just isn't as fast as the drive can be but that is a complex thing anyway (it is not going to be as fast as advertised when moving lots of small files).Plug a high speed USB-C external drive into the USB-C connector MBP with an Apple USB-C charge cable and it will only run at USB 2 speeds.
Not entirely true. It provides the basic USB-C configuration which is the same as the charging cables (=power and USB2.0 data).Connect a LG/Apple 4k display with an active Thunderbolt cable (USB-C at both ends, remember) and it won't work.
This isn't entirely true either as the same thing applies. When using the charging cable that came with the MBP you can connect that display and have it charge the notebook.Connect a LG/Apple 5k display with a non-Thunderbolt cable and it won't work.
That is not a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 issue but an issue with the 15" MBP. In high load the power draw of this notebook exceeds the 85/87W those chargers can provide and thus you end up with a battery that is slowly discharging. It is something we've known since people started experimenting with it. As demonstrated by many other 15" MBP users even a very small 15W charge is enough in those lower end cases and 45 to 60W is enough for average usage.Connect a USB-C dock that has 90W charging to your 15" MacBook pro with the wrong USB-C to USB-C cable that doesn't support 90W charging and it will charge slowly or discharge under heavy use.
Again, this is just passive vs active. Connect a charger with such a cable and it will work. On the other hand you can apply that logic to just about anything that isn't using USB-C (the MacBook only has USB-C so anything that doesn't have it won't work because you can't connect it).Connect any Thunderbolt 3 device to a 12" MacBook and it won't work.
And that is where you are so dead wrong. You clearly are missing the fact that we are already in a "1 plug is all you need" era. Many people are using it as such since the MacBook with USB-C was released. The proof of that can be found easily on the forums here (people only connecting their LG 27" display to it which connects all the other peripherals to the notebook; the Apple-LG cooperation also shows this as do all those docking stations).Having one connector, one cable for everything would be a great idea, but USB-C/TB3 haven't delivered that - they've delivered a confusing variety of superficially identical and mechanically compatible ports and cables with huge numbers of permutations.
That doesn't have any thing to do with USB-C at all. It simply is about quality of both hardware and software. With the complexity of today you have to be prepared to expect things to not work 100% of the time. Software isn't bug free and neither is hardware. It has always been a matter of "plug & pray" and it always will be.Welcome back "Plug'n'pray".
Laugh all you want but don't underestimate the power of simple features like this! This is by far the most important thing USB-C brings us. Having a 1 cable solution is nothing compared to this, absolutely nothing!But, hey, you can plug it in upside down...
Nice, then I have multiple names such as CalDigit, OWC, HP, Dell, Lenovo, IBM, Hengedocks and many more!
It just isn't as fast as the drive can be but that is a complex thing anyway (it is not going to be as fast as advertised when moving lots of small files).
Not entirely true. It provides the basic USB-C configuration which is the same as the charging cables (=power and USB2.0 data).
That is not a USB-C or Thunderbolt 3 issue but an issue with the 15" MBP.
as well as making people believe there are tons of different kinds of USB-C only cables where in fact there are only 2 (active, aka Thunderbolt 3, and passive).
The active cables are marked with a lightning icon AND the number 3. That makes it rather easy to explain to the average user. Users aren't that retarded.
Unfortunately in most cases like this it is in fact the user who is the weakest link. Computers are still rather complex devices and most users still have little to no clue about them. It is why ransomware and spam are so extremely successful and why people still jam a USB-A connector into a RJ-45 port even though any toddler doesn't because they know it won't fit. USB-C is actually one of the pieces of technology that make things more easy for users to understand and that is why it is very important that we start implementing it. ASAP!
The proof of that can be found easily on the forums here (people only connecting their LG 27" display to it which connects all the other peripherals to the notebook
The problem here is that you seem very negative towards new technology.
And then time goes by and nobody uses those ports anymore. What do you call the new ones that come with say, USB-C?Lets see..
Dyn: "docking stations are not meant to adapt/convert anything"
8<
...or you could just look at the specs and see that they (variously) have HDMI, Ethernet, eSATA and audio/SPDIF outputs (not protocols directly supported by USB-C/TB2), which is a bit odd for something that is "not meant to adapt/convert anything".
For the same reason many cars aren't electric. It's still all relatively new. The current docking stations are first generation products. You even need to have a specific firmware version for the Thunderbolt controller and install drivers when running Windows. Both Apple, Microsoft and even Linux are currently working on Thunderbolt and USB-C support so we no longer need all this. Apple has started with 10.12.5 (it comes with a lot of changes) and continues with 10.13. Microsoft is doing the same with Windows 10 and its upcoming update. Linux is behind them.If your claim was true, and it was only about connecting multiple devices to one port, why don't they just have multiple USB-C ports (since USB-C is so far superior to any other connector)? In fact, extra USB-C ports is the one thing many of them don't offer.
Sure, who is going to notice the difference between 5Gbps and 22Gbps when they plug in their external SSD...Sure, who is going to notice the difference between 480Mbps and 5Gbps when they plug in their external SSD...
I know most people will have that because they simply connect the supplied cable. The "issue" you were trying to raise just doesn't exist in the real world.I think most people would regard having an image on the screen as being a minimum requirement for a display to be "working".
Really, if you don't even know that none of the Apple power adapters have ever been more than 85W then this discussion is clearly way above your head.Well, its an issue with Apple dumping MagSafe on the MacBook Pro in favour of USB-C.
You just proofed it to be true since the list included only passive or active cablesSimply not true. Even the wikipedia page lists 4-5 types (and that's without Thunderbolt) - now, maybe those won't all see the light of day, like the separate regular (5Gbps) and "superspeed" (10Gbps) versions (but that distinction ispart of the spec), but let's remind ourselves what you can actually buy from the Apple store:
That assumption would be wrong. It all depends on the material used, not the amount of Watts. I have a small 0.5m TB3 cable which is stiffer than the 2m version. That 2m version is far suppler than the USB2.0 cable from my mechanical keyboard. The TB3 cables also don't vary in thickness. Ordinary USB-C cables might be a teensy bit thinner but most are just as thick as the TB3 ones. There just isn't that much difference if any difference at all.I assume that the reason that all USB-C/TB3 cables don't support full power charging is that a cable with thick enough power wires and 4 pairs of data wires is just too thick and unwieldy. Maybe they should have thought of that before making USB-C the only way of charging high-end devices like the MBP.
As you've just proofed yourself that is not correct at all. It is simply in the naming of the cable already. If you can't read that then I'd say you have bigger issues than the cable being the right one or not. Or as you put it:Oh, and for added confusion points, you can only find that stuff out by going in and reading the detailed specs about max speeds and charging currents...
I'll refrain from throwing the forthcoming optical TB3 cables into the mix - since they'll cost hundreds of bucks (and won't say "Monster" or "Denon" on the label) so people will probably notice.
I know that this is limited by the display due to the way they designed it. It is NOT a limitation of USB-C or the cable they supply with the display.You do know that the USB-C connectors on the LG 4k USB-C display are USB 2.0 only?
Nope, that's not how it works. It doesn't use "high-speed data lanes" but it uses the alternate mode lanes. As VESA mentioned you don't need to use all 4 of them to output 4k@60Hz, you can use less lanes too. There are implementations that do use all 4 alternate mode lanes for DisplayPort.if you connect a 4k@60Hz display via USB-C then it uses all 4 of the high-speed data lanes are needed for DisplayPort.
The daisy chain option isn't available on all Thunderbolt devices and it is perfectly fine to connect your super-fast 40Gbps TB3 peripherals to the same controller as the 5k display. Each TB3 controller has 2 ports that are both capable of 40Gbps max each. Or put differently: a TB3 controller is capable of 80Gbps max. The only thing you wouldn't want to do is daisy chain the 5k display because daisy chaining means sharing that 40Gbps max bandwidth between all devices in the chain.The 5k TB3 display fares a bit better - its USB-C ports at least support 3.1, but there's no TB3 passthrough - the display uses over half the TB3 bandwidth anyway so you wouldn't want to connect your super-fast 40Gbps TB3 peripherals to the same controller as the 5k if you could avoid it.
Then you are not doing Thunderbolt any justice. TB3 also adds USB 3.1 Gen 2, power, USB-PD, ethernet (max 10Gbps iirc) and 2 DisplayPort streams instead of 1. There aren't that many 5k displays around (3: one from Dell, one from LG and the Apple iMac), 4k displays are not that many around either (but a lot more than 5k). All these displays are quite expensive and people have been complaining about it for ages.The problem with progress here is that USB/TB bandwidths have merely doubled, whereas the move to 4k/5k displays has quadrupled the bandwidth required for displays. Using a single wire for display and data just got a slightly less good idea.
Which is fine if you had actual knowledge on the subject and made strong arguments here. The arguments you put forth are weak and some do not even reflect the real world. Not knowing the standards, having no knowledge of engineering and yet ranting about them does not help either. It all just comes across as rather desperate. Especially since you keep on ignoring the many examples that can be found on the forums here and comments on the Microsoft Surface Laptop (number 1 complaint: there is no USB-C...).I'm negative towards new technology that creates additional complexity, expense and confusion without any real payoff.
And then time goes by and nobody uses those ports anymore. What do you call the new ones that come with say, USB-C?
What ports are used on the docking station and how many does not play any role whatsoever.
...
The fact that current docking stations can bring those old connections to the 2016/2017 MBP is no more than a side effect.
Sure, who is going to notice the difference between 5Gbps and 22Gbps when they plug in their external SSD...
I know most people will have that because they simply connect the supplied cable. The "issue" you were trying to raise just doesn't exist in the real world.
Really, if you don't even know that none of the Apple power adapters have ever been more than 85W then this discussion is clearly way above your head.
You just proofed it to be true since the list included only passive or active cables![]()
As you've just proofed yourself that is not correct at all. It is simply in the naming of the cable already.
I know that this is limited by the display due to the way they designed it. It is NOT a limitation of USB-C or the cable they supply with the display.
Which is fine if you had actual knowledge on the subject and made strong arguments here.
I know that this is limited by the display due to the way they designed it. It is NOT a limitation of USB-C or the cable they supply with the display.
...
Nope, that's not how it works. It doesn't use "high-speed data lanes" but it uses the alternate mode lanes.
...and...An Alternate Mode dedicates some of the physical wires in a USB-C 3.1 cable for direct device-to-host transmission of alternate data protocols. The four high-speed lanes, two side-band pins, and (for dock, detachable device and permanent cable applications only) two non-SuperSpeed data pins and one configuration pin can be used for alternate mode transmission.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USB-C#Cables
Early implementations of DisplayPort Alt Mode USB Type-C devices will likely use existing DisplayPort 1.2a capabilities that support up to 5.4 Gbps per lane. Using 5.4 Gbps across all four high-speed lanes will support up to 4K (4096 x 2160) display resolutions at a 60Hz frame rate with up to 30-bit color.
https://www.vesa.org/news/vesa-brings-displayport-to-new-usb-type-c-connector/
I think they'd be more inclined to use docking station because it is something that has been used for decades. It is how people have come to know these things. Suddenly calling it differently might have a negative effect which is why I doubt they'll do it.We'll see what the manufacturers call them when they arrive, but I'd assume that a box that shared one USB-C "in" between several USB-C "outs" would be called a "hub" just like USB-A "hubs".
You mean USB. USB-C controllers do not exist because USB-C is only a connector and a cable.What a TB3 version - which didn't share a USB-C connection but actually added extra USB-C controllers - would be called, we'll have to wait and see.
And yet both are called a docking station. Heck, if all your peripherals are USB-A and you use a simple USB-A hub to connect to your notebook than even that can be called a docking station. It's just a description of what the device does.I'm sure the people currently weighing up the OWC TB3 dock with miniDisplayPort and SPDIF vs. the Caldigit TB Station 3 with eSATA and other comparisons will find that insight really helpful.
Sarcasm doesn't work on forums. The only thing you will notice is speed but you can still get to the data because the drive still works.You missed the sarcasm. Of course you'll notice the difference between USB 2 and USB 3.1 speeds if you plug your drive in with the "wrong" USB-C to USB-C cable.
And in anybody else's real world people are simply too lazy to do so. They keep the cables connected to the devices themselves because they are going to use it in the future anyway. Why would they want to remove it?In my real world, cables get unplugged, put into boxes and cupboards, taken out again and plugged in wherever they will fit (and, where others are involved, sometimes where they don't fit).
Ok, but let's start by reading what comes in the box with the MacBook Pro...a charging cable and power adapter. Not to mention that people have already been using 60W MagSafe power adapters to charge their 15" MBP because they forgot their own power adapter. Works fine, they get the MBP charged albeit slowly. So how is the above even an issue?OK, lets take this slowly.
- The power supply for the 15" MBP is 87W. [Edit: and if you buy a spare, it doesn't come with a cable]
- USB-C and TB3 cables come with two power ratings: 3A/60W and 5A/100W (go read the specs).
- 87W is bigger than 60W (don't make me link to Sesame Street) so to deliver the full 87W to your MBP you need a 100W rated USB-C cable.
- If you plug in a 60W cable, USB-C's intelligent power delivery will cap the power at 60W so your computer will either charge more slowly or, under heavy load, start running down its battery. If the MBP only ever needed 60W they'd ship it with the smaller, lighter, cheaper 61W power supply that they already make for the smaller MBPs.
The list says active and passive. Period. USB-C and passive Thunderbolt cables are the same thing.Read the list. Again. Passive TB3 cables are not the same as USB-C cables - even if the only difference is Intel certification and the contents of the cable's ID chip. Then, both USB-C and passive Thunderbolt cables come in 60W and 100W flavours (again, differentiated by an ID chip) plus you have "charge cables" that lack any high-speed data whatsoever.
You almost got it. The entire point here is the same as with the USB2.0 vs USB3.1 speeds: things will work, just not at the full capability. Over time the differences we have now will fade away because everything uses USB-C. For the average consumer the only thing that matters is whether or not it works. They really don't care nor understand USB2.0 and USB3.1.Unless what you're trying to say is that all you need are passive TB3 and active TB3 cables - which is true, but doesn't alter the fact that a range of other, more limited cables are being sold individually and bundled with peripherals.
Since it is the standard that speaks of passive and active and not me, I'm afraid it is you who needs to do the reading on it. And while you are at it, do read up on USB in general. And DisplayPort. And DVI/HDMI. All of them are passive and all of them have ID chips so the computer can figure out what the device on the other end of the cable is and use the appropriate driver (and in case of Windows: install it when it isn't there).No. Go read up on USB-C. USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 cables include ID chips that define their capabilities. That is quite apart from any active/passive distinction. (I think you can have a "lowest common denominator" cable with no chip).
No it just shows that you haven't got the foggiest of what I did...which shows that you really don't know what you are talking about.
Ah yes, but have you read what VESA said properly and what the idea is behind the USB-C design?...so using all 4 high-speed lanes for DisplayPort only leaves the solitary USB 2.0 lane for data. Which is fine if you want to hang a mouse and keyboard off the display... maybe even a low-res webcam, but not much good for anything else.
There is a hint in there...Now the VESA article then goes on to talk about UHD + high-speed data and single-cable 5k + USB2, but that's all contingent on support for DisplayPort 1.3 or better. True, the cables and connectors will support that, but that's rather academic when there are neither computers nor displays that offer it.
And what where the limitations of Thunderbolt 1 and 2 again?AFAIK, the latest GPUs that Apple are using actually support DP 1.4 - its the Intel TB/USB-C controller that is the bottleneck. Now, if you want to split hairs and say that the USB-C specification isn't the problem, fine, but I'm more concerned with the practicality - which is that USB-C as currently implemented isn't much good for multi-peripheral docking if you want to use 4k or better displays.
...I suspect that this is one of the reasons Apple has been holding off on making Apple-branded 4k/5k/8k displays.
You mean USB. USB-C controllers do not exist because USB-C is only a connector and a cable.
It would also be nice if you wouldn't simply ignore the entire point: the fact that there never has been a power adapter by Apple capable of doing more than 85W supplied with MacBook Pro machines capable of pulling more than 85W and thus depleting the battery.
USB-C and passive Thunderbolt cables are the same thing.
The entire point here is the same as with the USB2.0 vs USB3.1 speeds: things will work, just not at the full capability.
You finally started reading up on things and using technical arguments.
Ah yes, but have you read what VESA said properly and what the idea is behind the USB-C design?
And DisplayPort. And DVI/HDMI. All of them are passive and all of them have ID chips so the computer can figure out what the device on the other end of the cable is and use the appropriate driver
You are not seeing the fact that with USB-C the cable is leaving the equation.
There aren't that many people trying to connect multiple displays, 4k displays and so on.