Thunderbolt is way too complicated!

Thunderbolt 3 is an extremely fast and awesome standard however Intel has made it way too hard for the average consumer to get on board. Today I show the steps needed to add a Gigabyte CG-Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 PCI-E add-in card to a 9th Gen Intel CPU and Motherboard. How I fixed it: forum.gigabyte....
Consider Supporting Me On Patreon? / timmyjoe
Asrock Thunderbolt 3 Card: amzn.to/2EiNtUd
Asus Thunderbolt 3 Card: amzn.to/2PEidko
Shopping on Amazon? Use these links and it supports the channel: www.amazon.com...
I have a website:
www.timmyjoe.com
I have an Instagram:
/ watchtimmyjoe
I have a Twitter:
/ watchtimmyjoe
I have a facebook: who cares about facebook...
-
Intro is Instrumental produced by Chuki, the best beats on youtube!
/ chukimusic
(Other music provided by the Epidemic Sound Library...)

[@matthewJ142]

I'm sorry but thunderbolt is basically what FireWire was going to be just more harder to get and way overpriced

[@MisterRorschach90]

Thunderbolt reminds me of having to have a card for everything back in the day and hoping your motherboard even supports the card.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

Oh god! I remember those days.

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

It's getting a lot better over these years.

[@razorsz195]

what, you didnt like having 2 GPUs and a Physx Card along with your sound blaster, modem and wifi add in cards, some more usb 2.0 and firewire combo cards along with a sata pci add in card for more drives? Fill out them slots baby! An empty slot is a missed opportunity xD

[@MisterRorschach90]

@@razorsz195 this is why when I part out a build I leave no slot unattended. Now I can’t wait for usb4 cards to drop.

[@razorsz195]

@@MisterRorschach90 When i eventually upgrade i cant wait to add pci-e nvme expansion cards, a capture card and a soundblaster card n perhaps some other things like thunderbolt 3, ain't all about the cpu n gpu, id prefer ditching these HDDs for all nvme gen 3/4 storage, a big ol punch into new hardware where pretty much everything on my system will change to new standards, which for me i think is the best time to upgrade rather than swapping a gpu in and calling it set, wait until stuff changes and becomes affordable, like AGP to PCi-e was, now from usb 3.0 to thunderbolt 4 later this year, huge step ups in every catagory. IMO storage has been left behind on the whole tech boom, at least from an affordability standpoint, same with interfaces, soon type A shall diminish into type C being standard, peripherals will be wireless and affordable, will be cool to see how PCs change where IO shields are full of mini ports and expansion slots are gone completely, perhaps GPU die will be socketed, who knows!

[@Pippithepoltergeist]

I'm so glad you mentioned Firewire - this totally reminds me of my childhood playing multiplayer with my brother connected over firewire by our soundblaster cards!

[@jonathanbock8435]

REALLY?! HA!

[@maxheadrom3088]

I'm currently using firewire to connect my Onyx-i 802 and using it everyday.

[@JesiErin]

I’m with you. It should come standard on all gaming and workstation motherboards as a back panel port. Someday...

[@swagfest2k144]

my freinds 1000 dollar laptop with a 1050 has thunderbolt but i guess its only in the highends of highends

[@karma_moths]

Aw man! I can't thank you enough, All day I freakin spent trying to get this THING to work. I found the same forum as you did but couldn't find the SECRET doorway in the aorus bios. I was just about to sweep up all the hair that I had ripped out of my head and take some pills when I found you Timmy. Thank you - all the best bud : )

[@WhiteManReviews]

Computer Parts!

[@Tomanista]

needs a t-shirt

[@UnsweetIceTea]

1:56 Intel Thunderbolt 3 licenses are free. They got rid of the fees entirely half way through 2017. That can be found with 20 seconds on Google. The problem is that the hardware costs money. Even Thunderbolt 3 compatible cables are more expensive, especially longer ones, as the signal quality goes down with length.

[@Dev24670]

"as the signal quality goes down with length" Zeke Levin, I think you need to check that information. I have three different lengths of TB3 chords that are all certified. This guarantees the transfer rate on the medium. I searched for a longer chord and found most to be just as expensive as a genuine TB3 chord, however a certified chord allowed me to sustain the transfer rate with a longer chord. www.cablematters.com/pc-835-132-thunderbolt-3-40gbps-cable-thunderbolt-3-device-compatible-only.aspx

[@JohnGeorgeBauerBuis]

Tiger Lake finally makes Thunderbolt standard on Intel CPUs.

[@PchipZ91]

you really don't need a special card you just need to look for the right motherboards that actually support thunderbolt 3 natively.. gigabyte z390 designare and there's actually a decent amount more

[@DogsCryDubstep]

Spent 90$ on a thunderbolt EX card. Needed it for my UAD black arrow. Took me 30 minutes to figure it out. The internet’s a great place.

[@Marta-nl1xe]

How does it work? I'm considering similar solution.

[@antianrose]

How did you install the driver??

[@daltonrandall4348]

I could feel your pain... I'm going through the same thing right now. It's so dumb how difficult this is.

[@MichaelQuinn10]

You’re a lifesaver. I just got the Titan Ridge version of the card and was just about to send it back!

[@colin8601]

Just test with Crystal disk mark and select that drive to run the benchmark off of. That easy. No need to install another ssd

[@calidude1114]

He should know this if he is really a "Tech Expert".

[@nexxusty]

@@calidude1114 He's not.

[@catsandchords625]

I’m using an older Gigabyte motherboard and the only way to get the Thunderbolt menu to show up at all in peripherals in the bios is to load the optimized defaults or whatever that option is. Otherwise there are zero Thunderbolt options in the Bios. And if you save the config and reboot, if you go back into the bios, it’s gone again. And even when it’s there, the submenu you used to get it to work isn’t there anyway. The motherboard claims to be Thunderbolt ready and has the 5 pin connector for it. So what the hell? And why are the controls for it hidden in the advanced bios view? This is even stuff from the same company and it’s a mess to deal with.

[@Metaman9000]

Dude thank you so much! I've been searching everywhere to get this to work and it finally works!!!

[@Myself-yh9rr]

Keep up the good work on showing these kinds of fixes for things. Everyone that ever bought one of those cursed cards probably wishes they had seen this! Also there should be a big red instruction card in the box with the card telling you about that setting and where it may be on different boards. Things like this probably keep the tech support phones ringing off the hook!

[@vinny2t491]

Thunderbolt 3 is great for laptops, I'm sure it will become more mainstream in the next couple years. On a desktop at this time though, I think it is more of a nice to have, than a must have. My next laptop or 2 in 1 I purchase, will have to have at least one thunderbolt 3 port. If Microsoft would add one to their surface pro, I might actually consider buying one.

[@bluebird1954]

its got one now 😳😳

[@bobvance-]

Definitely has become more mainstream. We use TB for our interface between devices at my job. It works a bit better than having to carry a switch around and configuring them. Though they don't seem to play nicely with VM's quite yet..

[@maxheadrom3088]

Both FireWire and Thunderbolt have professional applications that keep them in use. I'm listening to your audio using FireWire and a Mackie Onyx-i mixer. Firewire can be used even for industrial applications since it supplies master clock sync and can be used for real-time applications. It's 5 years later and nowadays notebooks with thunderbolt is commonplace.

[@theartshow1476]

Yeah I got a hp spectre the black and gold one. It only has thunderbolt 3. I can literally connect anything to any port, and even though you need dongles, you can plug hdmi through tb3, hard drives, sd, daisy chaining, egpu enclosures, and more. it’s proven more useful and travel friendly then I ever imagined. And each of the tb3 ports work as a charge port as well. Computer was 1000 bucks but it was designed around the technology. You either gotta wait for the tech to get older and cheaper or shell out the money for it.

[@TechWithSean]

Thunderbolt and USB-C gen x/y/z confuse me, especially since I have PCs and a Mac 😕 my new laptop has thunderbolt though, ASUS GU501, don’t really know what I’d use it for on there though since I just game on it 🤷‍♂️ I’m never going to dump $ into an eGPU.

[@JimmysTheBestCop]

Thunderbolt 3, USB Type C and USB 3.x are all different. Thunderbolt 3 uses USB C connector while Thunderbolt 1 and 2 used mini display port. You can still have a USB Type C connector that is only actually USB 2.0 rated. Some cheap mobiles that have Type C connectors but can't fast charge for example.

[@D0x1511af]

thunderbolt is very important I/O for professional musician videographer cinematographer that need high speed low latency *REAL TIME* processing

[@justinbeamon6624]

If you have a good external display you can use it or high speed storage.

[@bradmorri]

to test the read and write performance of the drive you could use a ram drive to copy to/from

[@stevenwilliams6638]

Troubleshooting is half to fun! Great vid TJ

[@BuildOrBuy]

Amen to that!

[@19Caeddie07]

I love, I really love, your video! I am sitting on this for 3 days now and I can't find a card fitting my MSI z490 Mobo! Your whole video fits so much how I feel. I swear, I never related more to something

[@mattsmechanicalssi5833]

You should plug in the MB's 6 pin PCI-e connector, and enable that in BIOS, versus running off of the 24 pin.

[@j0rd346]

New fangled thunderbolts 🤔 much love Timmy joe

[@RespectTheGrinders]

Best video on the internet! They should hire you and send you free devices

[@webfischi]

You also need a Thunderbolt socket on your MB, those are also very expensive, I have a USB-C expansion card and all it need additionally is power

[@marcopervo]

Thunderbolt 2 built into my old Gigabyte board has been a major hit-or-miss, even with Windows 10. MACs still seem to be the way to go for consistent Thunderbolt performance.

[@asafblasbergvideographer]

Absolutely right 100%

[@wayneosman8971]

Thanks, Timmy Joe I still haven't found any way to use my Motherboards built in Thunderbolt connection, and YES, it's frustrating, that I have 3 Motherboards with these onboard, and yet I don't know the right words to ask online to get the right parts to use them. Incidentally, I have an ASUS ROG Maximus Z270 Formula IX was made in, 2014, at that time it was new so no one even then had a clue how to set them up, so everyone I spoke to just said, "What the hell's that for"? Well now it's almost March 2022 and I still can't use It, but I'm looking. I "Subscribed", "Clicked the Bell" and chose "All" to get your content P.S. I don't know when you made this Video, KZbin stopped posting the dates when they were made.

[@omegalugia9]

I guess they didn't get the "It Just Works!" memo...

[@WarriorsPhoto]

😂 🤣 😆

[@TheNiteNinja19]

Thunderbolt, its like Optane, only the people who have the money to have it, wouldn't use it anyway.

[@sersoft_corp]

I tried to use my laptop's TB3 port to connect it to an external GPU, but Dell disabled that functionality on my machine because they wanted me to buy the alienware graphics amplifier. So I bought the AGA for 200$CAD, in addition to the 800$CAD I spent on the graphics card itself. For that price I could've opted for the ti model. I was concerned that the 3.5mm jack on my laptop was getting worn out so I plugged in a usb-c to 3.5mm dongle, but it didnt't work, because "thunderbolt doesn't work that way". I then tried to charge my laptop via thunderbolt, but it didn't work because Dell opted not to include that functionality on Alienware laptops. Conclusion: The TB3 port on my laptop is therefore totally useless, since I don't use DP out or a fourth USB port.

[@D0x1511af]

thunderbolt is very important I/O for professional musician videographer cinematographer that need high speed low latency *REAL TIME* processing

[@calidude1114]

LOL, ASUS Thunderbolt Card is only $60!

[@InimicusSolitus]

Feel your pain. Sometimes tech stuff is very weird.

[@xthelord1668]

tb3 put into mass production would basicly kill USB since it is much faster,charges better,dosen't bother you when you want to plug it in,smaller size,supports more features than USB which is why this thing is held up by intel and apple because they know this and buying those tb3 boxes would put you actual improvement since you would be able to copy massive things and that SSD tho it is capable of cloning entire 1 TB drive really quickly by its speed

[@sabishiihito]

Getting TB3 working is much easier on Asus and MSI boards, FYI.

[@mfs1390034]

How do you get it working on an MSI board? And which card do you need? Would this one work? I can't find an MSI version. The Thunderbolt M3 doesn't seem to be available anywhere.

[@nickl6820]

It's a bummer that it's that much of a pain. HP's Zbook G4's use a Thunderbolt dock that is sooooo much better then the older versions. But like Timmy Joe said, they're super expensive. My work computer isn't of lease for a while, but last I looked at the new ones you could run multiple USBs, 1GB ethernet and 2 displays all through the dock/Thunderbolt connection.

[@JimmysTheBestCop]

This is exactly what Thunderbolt 3 was created for. It only exists because of the strength of the Type C connector as previous thunderbolt was using mini display port. But Thunderbolt 3 exists to the the 1 port for everything especially in docking situations for corporate laptops.

[@LViktorGameplay]

I entire agree. I though it would be only needed a cable for thunderbolt, but actually no. It is require PCIE slot. I hated it.

[@pkerry12]

thunderbolt was really only meant for portable devices like laptops, its not for desktops really. because you have pci'e ports

[@carlymeador6867]

wow thank you. bless your soul sir. ive been battling the my thunderbolt interface troubleshooting for a few months now

[@rossmpostpro]

Black Mesa on the desktop, respect Timmy Joe!

[@vitaliistep]

It's so great feeling, when you've finally made something to work! :)

[@PearComputingDevices]

I just bought a Latitude 5491 to upgrade from my 7470 and it has a thunderbolt. I bought the dock too, expensive as the new laptop and dock was, I enjoy the rapid charging. Faster then my older eport dock. I just don't have any thunderbolt devices to really test the speed of this thing. I have a wireless keyboard, mouse, back up drives and two displays and it just works. But then again my 5491 has dedicated graphics and 16gb of ram. You would hope to do actual stuff with this beast. But that said I don't think I see much of a benefit outside of a faster charge that I USB c couldnt do. But it's an early technology. I remember these same ramblings with USB. I remember you had to have at least a 200 mhz cpu, 8mb ram, Windows 95 revision C. Even then it wasn't all that useful without actual peripherals to take advantage of them or the buggy software. It wasn't until Windows 98se/2000 did USB get decent support.

[@Lexxo777]

I had the same issue, same card, same board! Fixed it using this bios power method a year ago, i also installed the Intel TB controller which you can launch once in windows to see what devices you have connected to the TB card. My next issue is to figure out how many lanes the card is taking up in relation to how many NVMe drives i have mounted on my motherboard, and if either the NVMe's or the TB card will be slower as a result. I only use the TB card to run a single Antelope Audio interface. TB is a pain!

[@uriel-heavensguardian8949]

Thank you for this video.

[@FoathTV]

Over 3 years after this video was uploaded and this is still an issue for so many hahaha I bought a BlackMagic Ultra Studio Recorder so I could connect my cinema camera to my PC through an SDI cable for visual effects purposes. On the website and the box it states that it's thunderbolt and it'll work with Windows. I just figured that since it looks identical to a USB C plug, it'll just work on a USB C port already on my PC. Well didn't I make a mistake assuming that. I bought the thing, didn't work. Found out I need an actual thunderbolt cable. Already breaking the shrink wrapping, I know I'm not getting a refund or exchange because I made a stupid assumption instead of asking someone who knows more about it first. So I find out that my motherboard is compatible with Thunderbolt if I purchase an extra ASUS branded Thunderbolt EX3 PCI card. Great! Until I find out they've been discontinued! Days of hunting, I manage to find a guy in the US selling a 2nd hand one. I buy it, follow the instructions to install it and it's not working. So I don't know whether this process is super complicated or I've purchased a faulty/broken card. What a pathetically stupid system Thunderbolt is.

[@GordonFreeman.]

What add-in cards are easy to use? Raid cards, the pcie ssds, etc are all a pita. But thunderbolt built into motherboards is great. Having such high bandwidth allows for so many more options on thin and light laptops, external gpu, or anything that requires a connection like pcie. And there are cheapish laptops with tb3. You can buy $800 dells with tb3.

[@christopherblaisdel]

1.) You volunteered to test a thunderbolt 3 device and you did not know that you bought a motherboard without thunderbolt? 2.) Just look at that card, it clearly plugs in to a pcie x4 slot which has a max bandwidth of 16gbps. Thunderbolt 3 is 40gpps. How did you see that working?

[@VST2323]

will this pcie work with amd ryzen 3900x?

[@Cyraxsify]

If you want to show how fast the transfer speed is use a control like a ramdisk, which bounds it from above in speed.

[@pctrashtalk2069]

I was looking at boards and noticed that the Gigabyte Z390 Designare has Dual Intel Thunderbolt 3 type C connectors on the backplane so no add on card needed. It's about $270. Also the Gigabyte Aorus Extreme has 2 x Thunderbolt 3 connectors (USB Type-C ports, with USB 3.1 Gen 2 support) on the back $549.99 MSRP (ouch!). Thunderbolt is interesting, it supports display, storage and networking over the cable. crazy

[@ulissesvillegas8395]

PC Trash Talk lmfao thts so much fck

[@llcooljay66]

You also made a huge mistake not getting a Titan ridge card. Then you need the bios option enabled

[@defaultHandle1110]

Sounds like you know this topic. What’s the diff between titan and alpine ridge cards ? I want TB3 on a Ryzen system. Haven’t bought it yet. So I want to game but also want to have one TB3 connection for an uaudio interface. Tips ? Thanx!

[@gabriel1812]

There is a price premium because there is a target market. Thunderbolt is miles and bounds better than any other standard for professionals in need of extremely high throughputs & expand ability. Just because you didn’t know you had to turn on a setting in your BIOS doesn’t make thunderbolt useless. With time, prices will drop, and new tech will replace it. But its still far better suited than USB for many, like myself.

[@jackdaniels8356]

Sup Timmy Joe much love my guy

[@ejkitchen]

Wow you literally saved me hours of work. Thanks for the video. Amazon label print, return. I am literally shocked that you cannot simply plug in the card in a PCI slot and be done with it.

[@charleshines8523]

I am just glad I am finding this stuff out now so I know what to expect. We are all used to plug and play and it is really confusing for some of us when that doesn't go as expected.

[@daggergblue]

It literally says "Thunderbolt(TM) Configuration". It even has a bright orange square next to it. How is that some secret hidden option?

[@bobbyferguson8802]

Yeah exactly. I dare say if he had read the manual for his motherboard he would have had no problem setting it up.

[@ApowerRO]

you are really an amazing person if no one has told you that yet. THank you.

[@avrdude4503]

My Gigabyte Z170X-Ultra Gaming has TB3 and it works just fine.

[@Alexa88kg]

Thanks for review, and I want to add to your review, that not all MB supports thunderbolt. I have no idea about this.

[@lashyndragon]

Thunderbolt devices are also expensive. Good technology crippled by Intel and Apple's greed.

[@GrandNebSmada]

apple doesnt actually own the rights to thunderbolt anymore. thats why you even see it on anything other than apple devices.

[@lashyndragon]

@@GrandNebSmada no of course not. But gen one thunderbolt was originally an Apple thing if I'm not mistaken with the 2010 MBP and 2011 iMac. They paid Intel for exclusivity.

[@xxnapalmchildxx]

Thunderbolt 3 is amazing for musicians. When you record an instrument having that 40GBPS transfer speed is pretty awesome specially if you DI out.

[@calidude1114]

LOL, only $60 for a ASUS Thunderbolt 3 Card on Amazon. Not expensive! www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HDUVJ54/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o00_s01?ie=UTF8&psc=1

[@Sm00thieK]

@@xxnapalmchildxx What kinda music instrument uses 40 GB/s bandwidth?

[@charleshines8523]

I know someone who thinks that Thunderbolt is proprietary to Apple. I can see why someone would think that since they are known for having weird ports that are not always what you would find on a PC. What he doesn't know is that Intel owns it really and you just don't see a lot of desktop or laptop PCs with it. The *ONLY* reason is because Intel used to charge a royalty anyone wanting to use it had to pay and so it became somewhat expensive to buy any computer with it. I guess the added cost tricked some people into thinking it was just a fancy new Apple technology when Apple was only paying a royalty to Intel to include it and most likely passing that cost on to the customers.

[@giovannip.1433]

Wait til PCIe 4 comes out for AMD. double the bandwidth... Does this improve connection speeds or just reduce the numbers of PCIe lanes required for devices?

[@burdendmist6543]

Thunderbolt 4 is now out explain that plz

[@TommyCrosby]

Or buy a small Intel NUC, they have Thunderbolt 3 on i5 and i7 models

[@WarriorsPhoto]

Does it work smoothly?

[@mauroinde]

Thank you for the suggestion. It really helped me a lot. You are right I will get one soon for solving my Egpu problem. Thanks

[@xNYCMarc]

@1:56 Intel DOES license Thunderbolt "cheaply". It's FREE. Intel does not charge a license fee to use TB. A manufacturer simply has to submit their device for "certification" to use the TB logo. It can't get any cheaper than FREE.

[@Skrubenz]

God bless you, dude, I was losing my mind trying to figure this shit out and you saved me a lot of effort!

[@dreamrealitysyndrome]

I'm glad I saw this. I'm having issues with my 5 year old ASUS ROG G751JT and a JetDrive (external PCIe NVME SSD) and I'm trying everything to get Thunderbolt to work right.

[@eliadbu]

truth to be told right now it up to the manufacture to implement it and gigabyte sure screw up on the instruction to how properly configure the card on the bios. in the future USB 4 will have thunderbolt features but the issues is it is up to each manufacture to implement the features. what is nice is that TB 3 will be implemented to future CPU architecture like the upcoming Ice lake that should make it much cheaper and easier to put TB 3 on mobo and make it more accessible.

[@Myself-yh9rr]

If USB was this difficult we would probably still be using 9 pin serial ports! They would be slow as heck but they work!

[@anthonyrau9844]

Your fix helped get my MSI Thunderbolt M3 card working! Thank you!

[@babotaengi]

The asus TB expansion card designed to work with the TB header on my asus MB is twice the price of the actual MB. Was pretty excited to get me some TB when I bought the MB, but now not so much.

[@Fee.1]

If you think this is bad just imagine what the AMD guys have had to deal with to get thunderbolt working

[@allkindsofthings673]

Thunderbolt gonna be the standard. Soon all new motherboards gonna have

[@BuildOrBuy]

Ubiquitous, yes! Eventually... That's what we thought too until after doing further research, we found different. For example: Gigabyte currently makes (4) X399 Motherboards. Only 2 of those have the 5 Pin GPIO Thunderbolt Header, undocumented and no Bios support. Works though, for the most part, on Gigabyte X399 Aorus Xtreme. Gigabyte's latest X399 (GIGABYTE X399 AORUS PRO), has NO 5 Pin GPIO Thunderbolt Header. You can see the spot on the Motherboard, according to pics, where it would have been, but is not. Which begs the Question, can we install a Thunderbolt 3 card on a Motherboard that does not Support it? Possible. some Users have the Titan Ridge Thunderbolt 3 card working on unsupported systems by jumping GPIO Pins 3 to 5. Curious. BTW: Only 2 wires are required for SMBus communication. The 5 Pin GPIO Thunderbolt Header is for the Thunderbolt chip to communicate status through the SMBus to the Computer. Which seems redundant since that can be done through the PCIe Bus. The SMBus communicates Fan Speeds and Thermistor temps. Other I/O cards can communicate their Status, why can't a Thunderbolt 3 card. Curious.

[@wd9165]

My 999 HP Omen 15 has Thunderbolt 3.

[@synthdude7664]

Newer X570 motherboards by Asrock all have the thunderbolt header.

[@xWood4000]

Thunderbolt 3 will be included in USB4 so it will be a lot easier later this year

[@danielrose1392]

Optimist, the standard was officially released few weeks ago, but yes it will be easier once USB4 is widely implemented.

[@bowlingdoughnutsmd3703]

For others not having a Thunderbolt menu in the uefi I got it to read without further settings by just turning off Intel trusted platform. After that it just worked for me.

[@gam3stv]

Thank you for this video! my problem was a little bit different. at first I didn't even have a Thunderbolt option in my BIOS, so I had to update the BIOS. after the update the menu was there and GPIO was already enabled and everything just worked!

[@tauheedulali2652]

I cant use an Asrock Thunderbolt 3 AIC with an Asrock Z790 Thunderbolt 4 capable motherboard with the latest BIOS. It has the right connectors, it lights up, all the Thunderbolt BIOS settings are enabled and it even powers on connected displays but Windows cannot see it. Contacted support and they say it isn't in the supported motherboard list. I assumed it WOULD be backwards compatible, but definitely not. So the solution is the generation of the Thunderbolt standard has to be the same, AND it has to be in the supported motherboard list to guarantee software compatibility even if the hardware is capable of the standard.

[@whataniceday]

The main advantage of Thunderbolt or Firewire over USB is peer to peer connection, no CPU cycles or RAM needed to manage the traffic. Even more the data transfer is both directional at once. All these ensure almost no latency. USB in other hand is everytime as slave, just one direction transfer at a time and needs tons of CPU cycles and RAM to manage. This introduces a latency.

[@PcDragonProductions]

Cant believe you did it, you absolute mad man! Go Timmy Jo!!

[@darkSorceror]

USB-C is a bitch too. * USB devices at 10Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 2), 5Gbps (USB 3.1 Gen 1/USB 3.0), 480Mbps (USB 2.0 High Speed), 12Mbps (USB 1.0 full speed) etc. * Thunderbolt 3, up to 40Gbps * 20V power delivery up to 5A (USB 3 or Thunderbolt only) putting up to 100W extra strain on your PSU * 5V power delivery up to 500mA (USB 1 and 2 official rating) * Pass-through power to daisy-chained devices (optional) * DisplayPort 1.2 (Thunderbolt) or up to 1.4 (USB alternate mode) * Embedded HDMI over DisplayPort * Analogue audio over USB data pins alternate mode It can do some cool stuff, like powering a display and passing graphics data over a single cable (USB-C/Thunderbolt-connected monitors) but it is still crazy complicated. Even if Intel licensed the standard cheaply, it would be a nightmare for inexperienced device manufacturers to work with. It is a really stupid standard, invented for idiots (also note the reversible design instead of keyed plugs like every other sane connector style) by managers who wanted to just "plug it in and have it work" with literally everything.

[@ChuloRob617]

Do you know if GIGABYTE GC-Titan Ridge (Thunderbolt 3 card) will work on an Asus MOBO or do I need to have Gigabyte MOBO?

[@bengrogan9710]

If the mobo has a thunderbolt header it should

[@BuildOrBuy]

Ditto what Ben Grogan said! The Gigabyte Titan Ridge appears to be easier to work with and configure. In a supported System, those Bios settings matter. The 5 Pin GPIO Header is suppose to communicate status through the SMBus which seems redundant. Anyway, same Pin Out. In the Bios, what seems to matter most is 1.) Identify PCIe Slot and 2.) the Power Setting - GPIO3 Force Pwr to True / On. Since the GPIO Thunderbolt Header is keyed, no worries about getting it wrong! Thunderbolt Platform Sequence Control 1. Gnd (Black) 2. Platform Sequence Control (Brown) 3. Platform Sequence Control (Red) 4. Plug_Event (Orange) 5. Power (yellow)

[@pf100andahalf]

I'm glad you went through all this and made a video about it so I don't have to. When I see thunderbolt I will run away.

[@bloeckmoep]

Thank you for this video, I know its older but you cleared that alpine ridge ghost out of my head. I have a new boxed ga z270x ud5 board with a still boxed 7700k lying around which proclaims thunderdolt compatibility. I think I will sell that since I jumped wagon to an x570s board with an 5800x since I never came to setup the z270 board. I recently obtained a usbc to m.2 housing and built in a 980evo, I think it makes any kind of thunderdolt dabbling obsolete.

[@ViperDemonWright]

Wooo complicated computer parts!

[@matthewmcsparren7534]

I was thinking of getting the add on card for my asus board. But I'd honestly just try a new board like an ASRock that typically have it built in

[@JimmysTheBestCop]

But for what reason? What could you use to take advantage of Thunderbolt?

[@matthewmcsparren7534]

@@JimmysTheBestCop it was mainly to add that ability for thunderbolt for the future. I don't have any current devices that use it. But also like I said, I can buy a new motherboard with more features and get Thunderbolt instead of paying for an add in card.

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi @@JimmysTheBestCop, Excellent Question - Like 4K. Is this a Need or Want? Feature or Benefit?

[@knight024]

I'm having an issue getting thunderbolt 3 to work on Z8 G4, but can only get 2100MB/s disk reads and should be getting 2800MB/s

[@johnhopkins6260]

Lenovo ThinkStation P520(Xeon W-2125, 64GB DDR4 -8x8)... VROC key slot (BIOS RAID MoBo dual M.2 slots: 2 x Samsung 980PRO, RAID 0)... and Thunderbolt GPIO port... 500 bones for the OEM PCIe add-on card.

[@WarriorsPhoto]

I know your pain Timmy. I have issues with Thunderbolt on a Windows 10 PC. I wish it was smoother than it is.

[@TrueThanny]

You young folks are so spoiled. Complicated isn't setting a couple options in software. I remember when every expansion card was way more complicated than that by default - set jumper switches, edit a device driver load string, etc.

[@RobertMememe]

@ My first modem was 1200 baud dial-up on an AMD 285 with 4 megs of ram and a 40 meg hard drive

[@Domstar97]

I've got the same exact Logitech keyboard! And yeah, Thunderbolt is kinda stupid, never used it in my life.

[@Zwordi90]

Framework laptop are now Thunderbolt certified and are not in the higher casket of brand and very expansive laptops. You could have a look.

[@m.distefano84]

Guys, buy motherboards with thunderbolt ports (not usb c) if you are coming from Mac and need to run external soundcards including FireWire. Also if you're a keen music producer stay on Intel based PC's as they own thunderbolt ;).

[@thechurchofsupersampling]

Isnt an M.2 drive a better choice? 970 EVO hello

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi Nik, M.2 NVMe, yes! All depends upon what You have and what You're trying to accomplish.

[@uriel-heavensguardian8949]

Thanks for the video. So only certain mother boards will work with this card?

[@vinylmonster4907]

The trouble is eventually the average user runs out of available PCI Express Slots and is stuck with a useless Legacy PCI slot. By the time you add a decent graphics card, which will probably block another PCIe x1 slot you run out of expansion. Yeah I have some PCIe x1's available but there isnt a bunch of support for those......Then you have to upgrade your motherboard, then the CPU, then the memory, so you are gonna spend some money.

[@tr4gik11]

Could have use disk mark to show us the disk performance? I am interested to see how much speed that is if its actually worth the hassle. I know TB has other uses but I was interested from the storage side of things. Which maybe its not worth the hassle in that regard, since I can just buy a cheap NVME drive and probably beat this thing.

[@nathanatwell]

Thank you for posting this. Your pain is my salvation.

[@thatjokerperson7062]

i feel like they could use the whole pcie slot and make it a lot better

[@BuildOrBuy]

Hi thatjokerperson , Thunderbolt 3 uses 4 PCIe Lanes.

[@thatjokerperson7062]

@@BuildOrBuy i meant slot not lane

[@BuildOrBuy]

@@thatjokerperson7062, You're right and ditto on that one! Everyone excited about Thunderbolt forgets, it's only 4 PCIe Lanes instead of 16 PCIe Lanes.

[@JonXuereb]

What motherboard were you using it with. According to Gigabyte's website only the Titan Ridge v1.0 supports the Z390 motherboards. This is an absurd. It seems like a lot of different websites conflate Titan Ridge and Alpine Ridge and figuring out what revision is just absurd. What im trying to find out is if the Alpine Ridge works with a z390 because you imply thats the card you have but dont specify

[@alcom2732]

Yea i live in Toronto and have an msi z390. I ordered an msi thunderbolt M3 from italy on ebay cost around $120 CAD. Took a while to figure things out since you can use it for multi displays for upto 10 displays or something.