But you also may see something similar to the USB hubs of old: Devices that take Thunderbolt in and then provide several USB-C (including Thunderbolt) ports out. First, there’s the budget versus full-featured docks we’ve highlighted above. We’re beginning to see the Thunderbolt dock market break down in a few different ways. Ports, cables, peripherals: Those are the three major considerations when buying a Thunderbolt dock. IDG Buying Guide: what to look for in a Thunderbolt dock The vast majority of Thunderbolt docks should include a Thunderbolt cable like this one, which indicates that it’s specified for Thunderbolt 3. USB4 requires just half that.ĭevice maker Anker has a nice summary of all of the technical features associated with Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4, and USB4, if you really want to get into the fine distinctions (below). Note that Thunderbolt 3 and 4 require at least 15W to power devices plugged into the Thunderbolt port, such as a bus-powered hard drive. The first products will debut (as a guess) in early 2023. USB4 Version 2 is an upcoming standard that will propel USB4 to 80Gbps, which is the only 80Gbps standard yet announced. Instead, most hubs and docks are marketed as Thunderbolt 4, while most devices (like an external SSD) are designed around USB4. Don’t worry about this too much, as it’s rare to see a USB4 hub. But a Thunderbolt 4 device may not work as expected when plugged into what is specifically a USB4 port. As a subset of Thunderbolt 4, a USB4 device will run just fine plugged into a Thunderbolt 4 port. USB4 can only support one display, and manufacturers can choose whether it supports a 20Gbps connection or a 40Gbps connection, according to Thunderbolt dock designer Plugable. USB4 is essentially a subset of Thunderbolt 4, mainly designed as an an I/O specification. Thunderbolt 4 allows for longer cables and more Thunderbolt ports on laptops, too.
Thunderbolt 4 supports “wake on sleep” from an external keyboard or mouse, which allows you to tap your external keyboard or wiggle your mouse to wake up your PC, which is handy. For external storage, Thunderbolt 4 supports 32Gbps of data transfer-this really only matters for video, external GPU connections, or possibly games. Thunderbolt 4 doesn’t allow for any leeway-you’re getting a full-fledged 40Gbps connection (32Gbps PCIe + USB 3.2), no questions asked. Thunderbolt 3 is also the only specification (not Thunderbolt 4) that we’ve seen connecting to external GPUs, in case you’d like to try that approach. Thunderbolt 3 also supports a slower (16Gbps) PCIe connection for connecting to external storage.
#Cdock coupon mac full
Most manufacturers go beyond this, however, and our recommended docks support the full specification (and two 4K displays) unless noted. “Up to” is the key phrase: Thunderbolt 3 is only required to support a 10Gbps connection, allowing for a single external 4K display (a 16Gbps PCIe connection, paired with USB 3.2). Think of Thunderbolt 4 as the more restrictive version of Thunderbolt 3, with little room for any gotchas.Įssentially, Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 allow up to 40Gbps maximum bandwidth, enough for two 4K/60 displays. The longer answer, which we’ll describe below, is that there are differences, and parsing the nuances can be confusing. The short answer: Not that much, and we consider Thunderbolt 3 docks and Thunderbolt 4 docks to be functionally equivalent for most users. DisplayLink USB-C docks try to offer Thunderbolt capabilities over a USB-C cable, but with middling success. If you don’t have one, that’s fine-just buy a Thunderbolt dock instead. The latter is useful if you’re among the small number of those who own dedicated Thunderbolt displays. We define a Thunderbolt hub as mainly Thunderbolt-in, Thunderbolt-out. Our recommendations use some specific terminology: We use the term dock as one that supplies the ports you need for legacy devices, like USB-A and HDMI.
Good Thunderbolt docks also supply power to charge your laptop and smartphone.
(A good laptop-and dock-will label these ports to help you distinguish between the two.) The key difference is in display support: Thunderbolt allows for up to two 4K displays at a standard 60Hz, while USB-C allows only a single 4K display, at a 30Hz refresh rate that will tire your eyes. Thunderbolt and USB-C devices share the same physical USB-C interface, but Thunderbolt delivers 40Gbps versus USB-C’s 10Gbps. Here’s the short version: More bandwidth allows for more devices to be connected.
0 kommentar(er)
