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Posted 20 hours ago

ASUS ThunderboltEX 4 with Intel® Thunderbolt™ 4 JHL 8540 Controller, 2 USB Type-C Ports, up to 40Gb/s bi-Directional Bandwidth, DisplayPort 1.4 Support, up to 100W Quick Charge.

£89.5£179.00Clearance
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MSI fell behind when it came to providing a Thunderbolt 4 (TB4) solution for its motherboard models that didn’t offer integrated TB4 support. Which mostly just included its DDR4-supported models. Because of this, many of its customers had to go without Thunderbolt access. For Alder Lake adopters, it’s been nearly a year. However, that has finally come to an end now that MSI’s expansion card has finally made an appearance and I’m sure there will be a decent number of people scrambling to get their hands on one.

The card comes with three cables. Two Mini-DisplayPort cable and one system link (THB_C header) cable. The THB_C header links the Alpine Ridge’s Thunderbolt header to the one on the motherboard. Use the Mini-DisplayPort cables to connect the card to the DisplayPorts of the graphics card in the motherboard. Update the system BIOS after successful installation to enjoy the full force of Thunderbolt 3. Best Thunderbolt PCIe Cards – The Ultimate Buying Guide to Choosing the Best Thunderbolt PCIe Card for Your PC In addition, the card can pass 5k video at 60Hz via its USB-C ports, which is far better than what is available on the market currently. The card can also transmit 4k video at 60Hz if you connect to more than one monitor. The ASUS ThunderboltEX 3-TR add-on card brings 40Gbps bi-directional bandwidth, DisplayPort Alt Mode capable of 8K Ultra HD output, and up to 100W power delivery. The Sonnet Thunderbolt Upgrade Card comes with two Thunderbolt 3 cables. It’s the only PCIe add-in card that provides Thunderbolt cables for connectivity.The internal ports include a Thunderbolt 3 header and a PCI Express 3.0 x4 interface, which connects to your motherboard’s PCI Express (x16/x8/x4) slot. Accessories The Thunderbolt 3 ports support dual 4K displays at 60 Hz or a single 5K display. You can daisy-chain up to twelve Thunderbolt 3 devices using the two TB3 ports. The inclusion of an HDMI port is crucial, considering that some monitors only support HDMI inputs. All Thunderbolt PCIe cards require a PCIe 3.0 x4 slot on your motherboard. Ensure you have an available slot on your PC before buying a PCIe add-in card. Number of Ports

The DisplayPort signal input by DP IN 1 can only be output via USB-C 1, and input by DP IN 2 can only be output via USB-C 2. ASUS today rolled out the ThunderboltEX 4, an add-on card designed to give your PC full Thunderbolt 4 connectivity. The only catch here is that you'll need an ASUS motherboard with a Thunderbolt readiness header (which provides timing and other low-level system commands to the card). Also needed is a USB 2.0 header, of which you're likely to have plenty. The card features a PCI-Express 3.0 x4 host interface, and can be installed on any PCIe slot, x4 or larger. A 6-pin PCIe power input is also needed, as Thunderbolt 4 is capable of up to 100 W of power delivery per port, enabling single-cable RAID enclosures and monitors. Also, the disconnect sounds that Windows plays despite no activity in the logs and no devices actually disconnected, is a bit odd. It doesn’t stop a single thing from working. Just odd. Odd enough to bring the score down some more as it feels like something is broken despite everything working just fine (from what we can tell, at least).

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The GC-MAPLE RIDGE is a Thunderbolt 4 add-in card from GIGABYTE, and like ASUS, it uses a different type of Thunderbolt header. This card requires a 5-pin and 3-pin Thunderbolt header (two connectors), which is available on GIGABYTE motherboards from the Intel Z490 through Z690 series. GIGABYTE officially recommends an Intel 500 series motherboard or later. The card, however, supports two displays at a time, just like the Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge. You can use daisy-chaining to connect more than two monitors on the same port. Our Take As for monitor support, you can connect a single 8K display at 60Hz or dual 4K displays. But make sure to connect the included Mini DisplayPort cables to the Mini DisplayPort IN port on the card and the DisplayPort output ports on your graphics to enable video support through the Thunderbolt 4 ports. The card allows daisy-chaining of up to five devices per port, which is great for those with many Thunderbolt devices, or multi Thunderbolt monitors setups. Our Take

The other two ports are DisplayPorts, but these are inputs. Basically, this allows you to adapt any DisplayPorts from your graphics card to USB-C/TB monitors, passing the DP signal through the TB4 ports. So DP 1 port is for passing DP signal/connectivity to the 1st TB port, and DP 2 port is for the second TB port. If you do this, you can include a TB or USB-C supported monitor within your daisy chain. The card includes a Thunderbolt header (1 x 5-pin J1 header) and a PCIe x4 interface for connecting to your motherboard. Therefore, your motherboard must consist of the two slots to utilize this add-in card fully. Other ports include two Mini-DisplayPort (DP IN) slots that connect to your onboard graphics card. Accessories A simple way of putting this is that Thunderbolt 4 guarantees the best possible version, while USB4 does not offer that guarantee. Transfer speeds for USB4 are written next to the port, while Thunderbolt 4 ports have a thunder sign with the number 4 written below or next to it. What is a Thunderbolt header?Support for up to 8K display (need to connect the DisplayPort of the motherboard or discrete graphics card to the DisplayPort Input port on the ThunderboltM4 8K card) However, if you want future-proof support for 8K displays, go for a Thunderbolt 4 PCIe card. Best Thunderbolt PCIe Cards – Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) How to install a Thunderbolt PCIe card? Thunderbolt™ external capture device. Adding a Thunderbolt-enabled capture device to your setup can give your live-stream’s video quality a big boost. Dual Thunderbolt™ 4 ports (USB-C®), with support for up to five Thunderbolt devices in a daisy chain The most standing-out feature of the GC-MAPLE RIDGE is the additional DisplayPort output that lets you connect a native DisplayPort monitor without needing dongles—most Thunderbolt 4 add-in cards include only the two Thunderbolt 4 ports.

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