Question Computer in another room - Effective USB/Video Cables?

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oguruma

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Jul 1, 2022
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I'd like to install my PC in my server rack, which is located in my utility room. The room is cooled better than my office, and it has a very nice UPS. Plus, the PC is quite large (E-ATX motherboard and large case).

From my office to the server rack would be about a 40 foot run of cable.

Obviously, this would be outside the spec for HDMI and USB.

Are any of the active USB / HDMI options reliable and low-latency enough to work for things like gaming?

Is using USB/HDMI over IP a viable alternative?
 
Thunderbolt optical cables may work, depending on your peripherals.

Universal solution would be thunderbolt capable motherboard/PC to thunderbolt dock to Optical Fiber to thunderbolt dock -> Display and peripherals.

Not super cheap though.
 
Eximo said:
Thunderbolt optical cables may work, depending on your peripherals.

Universal solution would be thunderbolt capable motherboard/PC to thunderbolt dock to Optical Fiber to thunderbolt dock -> Display and peripherals.

Not super cheap though.
Click to expand...
So that would imply 2 thunderbolt docks? Couldn't it just go PC > Thunderbolt Optical Cable > Thunderbolt Dock > Display and Peripherals ??
 
My understanding is that the docks are multi-channel and effectively act as direct pass through to USB, Display, etc. So you would keep your latency as much as possible.

Optical Fiber, not a fiber optic cable if that makes sense. Basically the same stuff they use to connect high end network equipment together. Whereas an optical thunderbolt cable is just thunderbolt converted to optical and then back again, so you would be limited to the speed of that. Thunderbolt 3 or 4. Your Display and peripherals would be directly sharing bandwidth.

I've been considering it myself for a while, but I ran into a cable routing issue in my house. Need to map out the whole house or find the plans as I can't see a decent way to get from living room to my 'office'
 
Eximo said:
My understanding is that the docks are multi-channel and effectively act as direct pass through to USB, Display, etc. So you would keep your latency as much as possible.

Optical Fiber, not a fiber optic cable if that makes sense. Basically the same stuff they use to connect high end network equipment together. Whereas an optical thunderbolt cable is just thunderbolt converted to optical and then back again, so you would be limited to the speed of that. Thunderbolt 3 or 4. Your Display and peripherals would be directly sharing bandwidth.

I've been considering it myself for a while, but I ran into a cable routing issue in my house. Need to map out the whole house or find the plans as I can't see a decent way to get from living room to my 'office'
Click to expand...

I don't understand the distinction you're making between "fiber optic cable" and "optical fiber." Fiber optic cable is a cable that contains optical fiber strand(s), as well as other components that shroud the fibers, themselves.

The sharing of the bandwidth would be the rub... The video signal for the monitors, alone, might fully saturate the 40Gbps of Thunderbolt 3.

For peripherals, I need support for a webcam (1080p) and as fast as I can get reads/writes from a card reader (photo/video files from a camera), with 1500MBps (12Gbps) being the theoretical maximum I could make use of. And, of course, some minute amount of bandwidth for mouse/keyboard.
 
oguruma said:
I don't understand the distinction you're making between "fiber optic cable" and "optical fiber." Fiber optic cable is a cable that contains optical fiber strand(s), as well as other components that shroud the fibers, themselves.

The sharing of the bandwidth would be the rub... The video signal for the monitors, alone, might fully saturate the 40Gbps of Thunderbolt 3.

For peripherals, I need support for a webcam (1080p) and as fast as I can get reads/writes from a card reader (photo/video files from a camera), with 1500MBps (12Gbps) being the theoretical maximum I could make use of. And, of course, some minute amount of bandwidth for mouse/keyboard.
Click to expand...

I suggest reading up on it. A standalone thunderbolt optical cable increases the distance via a fixed length. Certainly worth trying, but as you say, might run into bandwidth issues.

ATTOs docks solve part of the problem by giving you two thunderbolt channels to work with and potentially doing a better job of managing the traffic. The cost is pretty high though, might look around for some used older models.

The neat thing is you can determine the cable length you want and change it later vs a fixed length thunderbolt cable.
 
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