Which Aukey hub do you mean? At that price, it’s almost certainly a USB 3/C hub rather than Thunderbolt. If it’s like this one that plugs into two ports then I’m pretty sure that it a USB hub that runs off one TB port while the second TB port, that would otherwise be obscured, is just passed straight through. That means that all the other ports are running off a single USB3 stream, lacking the bandwidth of a true TB hub. The giveaway is that the HDMI port only supports 4k@30Hz - typical of USB-C hubs.
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Sonnet Introduces Thunderbolt 4 Dock With Up to 90W Charging for Macs
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Funny how they do not show the power supply - not in their Video, not on product page
Every time i see a dock / other device with a Proprietary power connector it instant become less interesting for me.
yes it looks sleek and nice - but then where do i fit the huge transformer/power supply that you include - and if the cable ever break its a non standard conector. - its not that hard to include the power supply today -
yes i know a 90W will generate heat and make it bigger - but my 87W power supply with 5x usb is smaller than my normal power supply so it can be done.
Every time i see a dock / other device with a Proprietary power connector it instant become less interesting for me.
yes it looks sleek and nice - but then where do i fit the huge transformer/power supply that you include - and if the cable ever break its a non standard conector. - its not that hard to include the power supply today -
yes i know a 90W will generate heat and make it bigger - but my 87W power supply with 5x usb is smaller than my normal power supply so it can be done.
I've never seen two HBR3 streams over Thunderbolt except in macOS between a Mac and a XDR display (no intermediate dock) and only in the case where the Mac has a GPU that supports DisplayPort 1.4 but does not support DSC. I don't think anyone has shown this to work in Windows, or between a dock and the XDR?
I suppose you mean 2 x DisplayPort 1.4 HBR2 with DSC. In that case, you should be able to connect two 6K XDR displays since that only requires HBR2 with DSC and Thunderbolt can transmit two HBR2 streams no problem. I don't think I've seen someone connect two XDRs to the same Thunderbolt dock.
The name of the discrete Thunderbolt chips for Thunderbolt 4 is Goshen Ridge (for peripherals/docks/hubs) and Maple Ridge (for hosts). I guess they have two different chips because the two DisplayPort inputs of Maple Ridge is replaced by two additional Thunderbolt ports in the Goshen Ridge so the chips are the same small size?
Ice Lake and Tiger Lake and M1 has integrated Thunderbolt (in the CPU). Ice Lake is Thunderbolt 3 (or is it Thunderbolt 4?) and Tiger Lake is Thunderbolt 4 and M1 is Thunderbolt 3 / USB4. There are no Tiger Lake Macs yet. Thunderbolt 4 does USB4 as well.
I know right, SOOO many of these docks do this.
I want all the permeant connections round the back, and the temporary connections on the front i.e SD card, as USB-A, a USB-c and a headphone. Is that too much to ask?? The computer connection should be round the back, or make all the USB-C ports the same, so if you want the computer in the front (or a phone, iPad) for temporary connection then thats fine.
But I need my desk to be tidy and cables out the way haha. My kingdom for the dock I want..
I work in a fairly affluent school district, and we're just getting multiGig switches & category 6a ethernet cables this year, and multiGig wifi access points this summer. It just makes me wonder how many people & companies have the money & resources to really upgrade their infrastructure? It's not like my district can afford to upgrade to the latest and greatest every year.
@theluggage gave a good reply, but there's a few more reasons why people want a $200-300 hub/dock (and I own both the cheap hubs and expensive docks):
- Standalone charging. You can use a USB port on the dock to support charging your iPhone/iPad whatever, and whenever you remove your computer, the device keeps charging. This is a nice way to consolidate "bricks" while still have a physical connection of your device to the host computer when you need it. Some cheaper docks can power one HDD from your computers wall-brick, but not all.
- More stability. The standalone power supply of the more expensive docks means you're not constantly powering up/down things like attached storage every time you unplug your computer.
- Many of the cheaper hubs have captive cables to attach to the host computer, limiting where you can put them relative to the host computer.
Btw worth noting that DSC is not without impact on the video quality in some specific circumstance. Plug something like a 4/5k 60Hz screen through it, and do a simple experiment: write a script that outputs a lot of random characters on a monochrome background (e.g., red on black). Have it scroll that content as fast as possible, ideally so that no two frames share much if anything. Compression effects will be visible to the naked eye. (Red fonts will become a bit blurry, for instance).
It does not manifest itself in regular use cases, such as 60fps video (actual video, not made up, hard-to-compress streams), but it certainly is detectable in specific circumstances. I noticed it when I wrote a very talkative script doing database cleanup with a ton of rapid debug output on the screen.
Out of curiosity I just tested in a few scenarios:
- 2020 m1 mbp - when two screens connected (one via displaylink-equipped startech 3x4k dock, another directly) - quality degraded on the dock-connected display.
- 2019 intel mbp16 - no artifacts when two such screens connected and both running the test script, as long as plugged to ports on the opposing ends of the machine; quality degraded when plugged to adjacent ports (no clue why),
- native connection from a nvidia 3090 gpu running windows10 (no artifacts even when three such screens connected - i figure there is no compression whatsoever on a discrete gpu with multiple output ports, but didn't read the specs to confirm),
I'd emphasize that this is an extreme example where every 100ms or so the entire screen changes with a completely different random text content, meaning whatever compression algos are being used have little chance compressing loselessly. I never saw any real quality degradation in those scenarios when viewing anything else but this test scenario.
I don't think DSC does temporal compression which means it doesn't use previous frames for compression of the current frame. I think you are talking about DisplayLink which does not use DSC - it uses a different method for compression.
The following can use DSC (requires Ice Lake, Tiger Lake, AMD Navi, Nvidia RTX graphics):
- CalDigit SOHO
- HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 (current firmware)
- Delock 87737 (but mine has an old firmware that doesn't include DSC)
- Other DisplayPort 1.4 MST hubs with current firmware
- Apple USB-C Digital AV Multiport Adapter
- Club 3D DisplayPort 1.4 to HDMI 2.1 Adapter
- Other similar adapters
- Some high resolution displays such as the Apple Pro Display XDR
- Some high refresh rate displays such as some PC gaming displays
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TPS65988: Titan ridge output ports - Interface forum - Interface - TI E2E support forums
Part Number: TPS65988 Hi team, On the Intel titan ridge reference design, it shows that TR have one PCIe Gen 3, one DP and one USB3.1 Gen 2 output as below showse2e.ti.com
Adaptertek Technology Co., Ltd.
Adaptertek and Intel Collaborate to Release the World's First Thunderbolt 3 Titan Ridge ModuleWith the support of Intel (Shenzhen), Dong Guan Chen Shuan Electronic Co., Ltd (Adaptertek) pioneered thewww.adaptertek.com
Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 controllers (as shown in the 1st link above) had 2 Thunderbolt 3 ports, an x4 PCIe 3.0 port, 1 Displayport, and 1 USB 3.1 Gen 2 port on the controller. It seemed like all Titan Ridge docks ended up targeting compatibility with non-Thunderbolt USB-C computers and so didn't utilize the x4 PCIe 3.0 port. Instead all the non-display ports like USB-C, USB-A, Ethernet, SD card, and audio are connected through a series of internal USB hubs to the Titan Ridge's single internal USB 3.1 Gen 2 port and so are bottlenecked to a combined 10Gb/s (as shown in the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 dock reference design in the 2nd link). This provides more bandwidth for the non-display ports than a basic Type-C USB 3.1 Gen 2 hub, but less than older Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 docks where the non-display ports were implemented using dedicated controllers off the x4 PCIe 3.0 port.
Are Goshen Ridge Thunderbolt 4 docks still implementing compatibility with non-Thunderbolt USB-C computers by hanging all the non-display ports off Goshen Ridge's USB 3.1 Gen 2 port? The Ethernet port in the Sonnet Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 dock is from a Realtek RTL8153B which is an USB-Ethernet controller rather than a PCIe-Ethernet controller suggests this to be the case. Does anyone know if Goshen Ridge at least has more than one internal USB 3.1 Gen 2 port now or are all the USB-A, ethernet, SD card, and audio ports still bottlenecked to the 10Gb/s of a single internal USB 3.1 Gen 2 port?
The problem here is that people who buy expensive "tb docks" are not tech savvy enough to ask "are all these ports just behind one usb controller?"
And when they are, 2nd question: "Why would I pay more for this tb dock than some cheap usb dock?"
If the customers would ask this, manufacturers could even compete with this and tell this in their product pages.
Now it's just guessing, before some genius nerd finds out.
Those are good reasons for choosing a powered, desktop hub/dock rather than a mobile, host-powered one, but my $40 USB 3 hub ticks all of those boxes, and there are more affordable USB-C (non-Thunderbolt) powered hubs around, too.
The significant distinction here is:
A: Docks that communicate with the host over 40 Gbps Thunderbolt , add multiple, independent 5/10Gbps USB ports to your system and can support 2 4k+ displays,
vs.
B: Much cheaper USB-based hubs which - even if they use USB-C connectors - communicate with the host via a single 5 (maybe 10) Gbps USB 3.1 link that has to be shared between all the ports and (unless everything in the chain is DisplayPort 1.4 compatible) can't drive a 4k display at 60Hz - and certainly not two.
Type "B" is great if it does what you need it to do - and is probably what you want for convenient on-the-road connectivity, but has severe limitations.
...and even if they are, few manufacturers actually provide clear tech specs or explanations. I don't blame the customers - the whole USB/USB-C/Thunderbolt thing is a confusing mess of terminology, and now the addition of USB4/Thunderbolt 4 has messed it up even further (partly just down to a confusing choice of names caused by the USB IF wanting to have "USB" in everything, plus Intel trying to piggyback on USB's success).
It's just a regular powered USB 3 type A hub (this one FWIW) which isn't really important here - except it ticks your boxes for always-on charging/power.
There used to be a few more options for powered USB-C docks with display outputs and laptop charging... they seem to have dried up a bit probably because of the issues with 4k displays and the way cheap, generic USB A hubs get the job done for a lot of people. That and the market is limited since its pretty much only Apple who thought that it was a good idea to make laptops with 2 USB-C ports and nothing else so you couldn't plug in a charger, an external display and a USB device without a hub...
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Yeah that's apples-to-oranges because I'm describing a one-cord connector option to your laptop that charges the laptop and peripherals. (as you mention below)
Ya, exactly which is why several folks don't mind paying $200, because something with the same (or extremely similar) functionality doesn't exist at a $40 price point.
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I've got one almost the same.
"Date First Available : 7 Aug. 2018" tells about when the developemnt pretty much stopped and even now, it's pretty hard to find decent reasonably priced 10G usb hub.
Orico (and others using similiar designs) haven't studied Apple's design enough. I'd like these hubs to use as less desk space as possible. But it's a struggle between having 2 tails in each end or 2 tails in the back.
Mine is like this (pic from 2016 just after I moved):
With 90° plug this might be nice.
But not putting that socket to a level angle is just lazy.
2 needed connections could be under the hub in the recessed to the middle, like usb sockets in last Apple's wired keyboard. (Even Apple made it only half the way, normal mouse plug still comes out of the keyboard a bit.)
I wonder whe there's more discontinued 10G usb hubs than available?
VIA's chip from 2018 proved to be very problematic?
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The largest cost by far is the manual labour involved with replacing existing cable. CAT6A is good for 10GbE. One of the key reasons for 2.5 GbE ethernet to exist is that you can use it with older cables (CAT5E, which is the same as required for 1 GbE) and you can thus get more than double the speed by only changing endpoint infrastructure (switches, access points and network interfaces).
This is why I find it even more disappointing that 2.5 GbE is not everywhere yet. For a bit of context, 1 Gbase-T was launched in 1999. Back then the high-end computer specs were 400 MHz CPUs, 128 MB RAM and single-digit GB spinning hard drives. Every component except network interface has had their performance increase dramatically since then.
(Apple included 1 GbE as standard in PowerMac G4 from 2000, PowerBook G4 Ti in 2001, iMac G5 in 2005 and MacBook in 2006.)
Some say that part of the blame why the world is stuck on 1 GbE goes to Intel for deliberately avoided selling their 2.5 GbE controllers separately (launched in 2013 in their line of Avoton servers only) in order to try to upsell customers to their much much more expensive 10G controllers. Personally I'm not sure, but I think it's still a shame since the use case for 2.5 and 10 GbE is quite different in my opinion.
Now, over 20 years since the launch of 1 GbE something has finally started to happen, likely thanks to Realtek entering the competition with their cheap RTL8125 and RTL8156 controllers. (Aquantia, now owned by Marvell, did launch their multi-gig controllers before Realtek, but their focus on 5 and 10 Gbase-T meant they were more expensive.)
Apart from the now more well-functioning competition the other reason it has started gain momentum lately is the need for fast wireless APs as I mentioned previously.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2.5GBASE-T_and_5GBASE-T
Yeah, my district has 9 schools, and we're only doing new runs for the new wireless APs we're going to install this summer. We're not even replacing any of the other runs for things like printers & VOIP phones (with some note having been updated in 10-20 years). Just new runs for APs. It's taken months. Partially because we don't want to take down wireless while students are here, and partially because of the pandemic. Plus, with being a public school district, we don't really have the funds to pay for all new cabling, new switches, new switches, and whatever every time a new specification comes out. While we've been fortunate to replace wireless APs every 5 years or so, and we've upgraded switches maybe twice in the last 15 years. But even then, we were fairly late to 1 Gb switches (and didn't upgrade all the switches to 1Gb).
Even market for dumb switches faster than 1Gb is still very disappointing.
I bought TP-Link TL-SG108E 8-Port Gigabit Switch to my father last year for 24€.
Identical 2.5G switch TL-SG108-M2 costs 10x.
2.5x speed = 10x cost, after all these years.
Something isn't right in this industry...
I bought TP-Link TL-SG108E 8-Port Gigabit Switch to my father last year for 24€.
Identical 2.5G switch TL-SG108-M2 costs 10x.
2.5x speed = 10x cost, after all these years.
Something isn't right in this industry...
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1 monitor from usbC, 1 from HDMI. Can’t support 2 from the 2 USBC ports.Not sure why this keeps getting passed around but M1 Mini can support 2 monitors.
Mac mini - Technical Specifications
See all the technical specifications for Mac mini with the M4 or M4 Pro chip.www.apple.com
Video Support
Simultaneously supports up to two displays:
- One display with up to 6K resolution at 60Hz connected via Thunderbolt and one display with up to 4K resolution at 60Hz connected via HDMI 2.0
Unfortunately, to date, it still does not work with LG IPS 5K screens ..
Accessory maker Sonnet today introduced the Echo 11 Thunderbolt 4 Dock, which greatly expands a Mac's connectivity options for storage drives, external displays, and more. The dock is equipped with four Thunderbolt 4 ports, four USB-A ports (three 3.2 and one 2.0), one Gigabit Ethernet port, one 3.5mm combo audio jack, and one SD card slot.
The dock is compatible with all Intel-based and M1-based Macs with Thunderbolt 4/Thunderbolt 3 ports, and provides up to 90W of pass-through charging with a single-cable connection. Depending on the Mac, the dock also supports connecting one external display with up to 8K resolution or up to two external displays with up to 5K resolution.
Given that Thunderbolt 4 shares the same connector design as USB-C, the dock can also be used with 2018 and newer iPad Pro models, as well as the fourth-generation iPad Air. It can also connect to USB-C external displays.
Sonnet says the dock will be available in early April in the United States, priced at $249.99, with international availability to follow in May. For a limited time, customers in the United States and Canada may sign up on Sonnet's website to receive a promotion code that will allow them to purchase the dock for $199.99 when it is available.
OWC and CalDigit also introduced Thunderbolt 4 docks recently, priced at $249 and $179.99, respectively, so it's worth checking out all three options. Those two brands also announced availability of Thunderbolt 4 cables today.
Article Link: Sonnet Introduces Thunderbolt 4 Dock With Up to 90W Charging for Macs
Frederic