Looking at the soon to be released Thunderbolt 3 docks for my MBP and was curious as to which dock you had decided on. There is no "perfect" dock for what I'd like, but I really look forward to getting rid of the cable mess on my desk.
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Which TB3 dock for your 15MBP?
- Thread starter richpjr
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The OWC Thunderbolt 3 dock is what I have ordered. I do wish it had a couple of USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports though!
Where do you see the specs on the OWC charging? I have this one, the cal digit one, and keeping an eye out on the elgato one.
I haven't seen them posted, but somebody contacted OWC and I believe it puts out around 60 watts.
I asked them about it way back when it was first announced, posted the info on reddit. The support person didn't explicitly say 60watts but 'couldn't confirm' 85+watts. However let me stress, this was almost 2 months ago now and it may very well be the case that they legitimately didn't know what the power output would be at that point.
Regardless, the Belkin dock still looks like the winner to me, in all categories except expected price: http://www.belkin.com/us/p/P-F4U095/
I can make use of all the ports on the Belkin whereas the OWC dock has ports I don't want (mDP, FireWire, pro audio). I suspect choice of dock will come down to the the most important ports for your use case as I suspect Belkin will come down in price to compete with OWC and all the other companies that are going to be pushing TB3 docks on the windows side of the world.
Elgato's will have to come down in price. By a lot. I don't see the point of buying the Belkin when Caldigit's has all of its features, plus two eSata ports, plus USB 3.1 instead of 3.0, and it's at least $150 less.
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I have just purchased the new MBP 15 inch and looking to new set it up.
This is replacing a 15inc MBP 2013 Retina Model, which i use connected to a Henge horizontal Dock, I connect the dock to an apple Thunderbolt Display and an LG curved 37inch 4K monitor. I currently only use those two screens and I also fee that the old MBP cpu / graphics would not have been able to handle the third built in screen.
I am also looking for a dock and I am confused with all the new formats and choices.
Henge are coming out with a new horizontal dock with USB C and TB interface... the TB version will take longer to release.
Henge also have a regular dock coming out soon.
I also see a number of docks coming out shortly... In short which one should I go for?
Also does it matter if I go for USB C or TB3 performance wise?
This is replacing a 15inc MBP 2013 Retina Model, which i use connected to a Henge horizontal Dock, I connect the dock to an apple Thunderbolt Display and an LG curved 37inch 4K monitor. I currently only use those two screens and I also fee that the old MBP cpu / graphics would not have been able to handle the third built in screen.
I am also looking for a dock and I am confused with all the new formats and choices.
Henge are coming out with a new horizontal dock with USB C and TB interface... the TB version will take longer to release.
Henge also have a regular dock coming out soon.
I also see a number of docks coming out shortly... In short which one should I go for?
Also does it matter if I go for USB C or TB3 performance wise?
Didn't know anything about the Caldigit until about 2 minutes ago, thanks.
The Caldigit dock that looks like it works with the 15" it listed at $250 ($200 pre-order), which seems like a reasonable price. I've seen the rumors of $400 for the Belkin but that would seem to price themselves right out of the market so I don't think that's realistic for them. Point is, I don't think the Belkin is going to come out at $400, but if it does I agree, the Caldigit seems like a better choice for me.
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TB3 gives you a lot of options and simultaneous connections and in theory the max performance of 40Gb/s vs 10Gb/s is quite a big difference. Whether you do enough to saturate that bandwidth is only something you can answer. Regarding the 2013 cpu, it's barley any slower than the 2016. Literally a 4-5fps (max) difference in handbrake encodings. The GPU is significantly faster, specially the 460 model.
I didn't either - only knew about their USB-C docks. If that had a card reader, it would be perfect. That is a great introductory price.
Belkin likely costs more $$ but it comes with 170w power adapter. 85w to MacBook Pro and plenty to power other USB devices. Elgato supplies 85w to MacBook Pro and 15w to USB devices. So both seems good candidates.
I would not consider any TB3 that can not supply at least 85w to MacBook Pro. Defeats whole point of TB3 dock in my opinion.
I would not consider any TB3 that can not supply at least 85w to MacBook Pro. Defeats whole point of TB3 dock in my opinion.
All I want in a TB3 dock is four or five full speed USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports, a GB Ethernet port, an S/PDIF port, a TB3 port, and a SD card slot. A couple of USB 3.1 Gen 2 ports would be nice but not required.
I don't care about power since the MacBook Pro can get that from the LG 5K display.
I don't care about power since the MacBook Pro can get that from the LG 5K display.
I'd vote for Caldigit's one because it supports 85W and is the only dock I have seen that claims to support a 5K display over Thunderbolt 3 (e.g. the LG UltraFine).
You might not care about 5K support today, but considering the price of these docks, and the fact Thunderbolt 3 probably won't be superseded for a good few years yet, you will likely be using one of these docks for a long time and 5K displays will be far more commonplace in the future.
You might not care about 5K support today, but considering the price of these docks, and the fact Thunderbolt 3 probably won't be superseded for a good few years yet, you will likely be using one of these docks for a long time and 5K displays will be far more commonplace in the future.
We will have to wait and see. These things never ship on time. OWC is saying March for new orders; Caldigit is saying "Q1 2017".
Why is that no body is considering the Lenovo's upcoming (next month) TB3 dock?! https://9to5mac.com/2016/12/28/lenovo-thinkpad-thunderbolt-3-dock/
Except for the lack of SD card slot, it seems like a solid dock, especially if you are looking for triple display support and also from a reputed company.
Except for the lack of SD card slot, it seems like a solid dock, especially if you are looking for triple display support and also from a reputed company.
It looks good, especially for a corporate setting, but it is the most expensive, doesn't charge a MacBook Pro at full speed, doesn't support a 5K display, and if you want to use it for a triple monitor setup, only one of those monitors can run at 60Hz.
All TB3 docks can do this over the TB3 port; it's an inherent part of the spec. I'm not sure why it's not being clearly advertised that way, but the Elgato one does say "Thunderbolt™ 3 output: up to 5120 x 2880 pixels at 60 Hz."
I sure hope it's soon, because Caldigit charged me right away when I preordered...
It looks nice for business use, but I imagine most people would rather have anything else than that VGA port, and it doesn't charge at 85W. Lenovo is also not traditionally a Mac company like the others and it's butt-ugly.
Are you sure? I don't believe it is an inherent part of the spec. Depending on how a dock handles the DisplayPort streams it might not support MST displays like the LG 5K via its secondary TB3 port. Considering how few TB3 docks are on the market, and the competition for pre-order sales, I am sure OWC would have updated their page to clarify it can support a 5K display in response to Caldigit putting that if it was indeed supported. I might email OWC for clarification.
It's my understanding that you only have to worry about that sort of thing with USB-C, when bandwidth/lanes is limited. If it supports dual 4K I don't see why it wouldn't support one 5K. But yes, best to email them. This stuff is complicated.
