News First AMD Motherboard Earns Intel's Thunderbolt Certification: Here's Why That Matters

[Admin]

ASRock's X570 Phantom Gaming-ITX/TB3 is the first AMD-based motherboard to earn Intel certification for Thunderbolt.

First AMD Motherboard Earns Intel's Thunderbolt Certification: Here's Why That Matters : Read more

 

[Soaptrail]

My Intel laptop connects to a docking station via thunderbolt and it is so buggy! I love how static electricity causes my two external monitors to go blank everytime i get up and come back to my desk.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

Now the rumor that Thunderbolt 3 is still Intel exclusive can finally be put to rest.

 

[TechLurker]

You forgot the AsRock X570 Aqua. The first AM4 mobo to ever come with Thunderbolt capability. Linus himself was able to use it for his home PC setup.

Then there's the older TR4 X399 Designare Ex from Gigabyte, which had a Thunderbolt header to connect to a TB Card. Though no one has ever mentioned if Gigabyte has enabled Thunderbolt capability on it since Intel finally made TB available to all. Last I recall, Level1Techs managed to get it working, but at the time, could not publicly share how. No one has tried ever since.

 

[Gillerer]

I don't think they forgot. This news item wasn't about "capability" but official certification; I don't think any of the boards you mention have that.

 

[digitalgriffin]

I have dual port usb c thunderbolt on my dell docking station. If you breath on it wrong the best you can hope for is the docking station going to sleep and not locking up. But the only way you can get the docking station working again is to put the laptop to sleep and then restart it. Then you have a 50:50 chance it will restart properly.

Basically its trash, even after 5 firmware updates. Everyone in the company HATES them. What's even worse is the small docking stations are even worse.

 

[TechLurker]

I don't think they forgot. This news item wasn't about "capability" but official certification; I don't think any of the boards you mention have that.

Not that I'm disagreeing or anything, but isn't certification mandatory before a company can even allow a mobo to use Thunderbolt? The story mentions that certification by Intel is still required for now.

If that's the case, the X570 Aqua has had the Intel Driver for its TB port available since its release, implying AsRock already paid for the Certification for the Aqua motherboards (and undoubtedly part of its high cost). Same would apply for the X570 ITX/TB3, assuming it also already has a Thunderbolt driver available.

On the other hand, the Designare was not permitted to allow use of a TB Card despite having a TB header. And either they didn't want to pay for Certification or just haven't bothered to do it, since their X399 Designare support doesn't have any kind of Intel Thunderbolt Driver available. The only person who got TB to work on the Threadripper Designare was L1Techs, and he couldn't share how he did it since it used proprietary code.

 

[hannibal]

When Intel did allow the use of thunderbolt there has been devices using it, but vertification is different thing.

 

[Darkbreeze]

When Intel did allow the use of thunderbolt there has been devices using it, but vertification is different thing.

Not verification, "certification".

 

[duddit21978]

My Intel laptop connects to a docking station via thunderbolt and it is so buggy! I love how static electricity causes my two external monitors to go blank everytime i get up and come back to my desk.

Ive found quality of cables really matters with he TB docks, after nothing but trouble I got a new cable and not a single issue has sprung up....

 

[Rdslw]

Now the rumor that Thunderbolt 3 is still Intel exclusive can finally be put to rest.

its not but license cost so much that literally few boards did certify that way for AMD. I've seen I think 2 boards 750$ one and 1000$ limited one.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

its not but license cost so much that literally few boards did certify that way for AMD. I've seen I think 2 boards 750$ one and 1000$ limited one.

The one for this article is literally one of the mainstream ITX options. Its 230$. I just don't think you're looking in the right places for TB3. For the Tom's review of this motherboard, one of the positives that they note is literally that it has a low price.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VXYYG7...c=1&ascsubtag=tomshardware-custom-tracking-20

 

[Rdslw]

The one for this article is literally one of the mainstream ITX options. Its 230$. I just don't think you're looking in the right places for TB3. For the Tom's review of this motherboard, one of the positives that they note is literally that it has a low price.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07VXYYG7...c=1&ascsubtag=tomshardware-custom-tracking-20

I did not really search for it, I mostly tried to find am4 slot in nanoitx size. it was never my aim to get tb3, but I remember all I've seen did not have it.

 

[TCA_ChinChin]

I did not really search for it, I mostly tried to find am4 slot in nanoitx size. it was never my aim to get tb3, but I remember all I've seen did not have it.

Maybe in the Ryzen first gen days that was the case, but TB3 support on AM4 on the most modern chipsets won't really cost you that much more than options without TB3.

 

[thGe17]

"Thunderbolt 3, therefore, can carry a bandwidth of up to 40 Gbps, which is twice that of USB 3.2 and four times as fast as USB 3.1 connections. Since USB 4 uses the Thunderbolt 3 protocol, it basically is Thunderbolt 3, so USB 4 will be able to reach that speed too once it's implemented in devices."

That's not correct. TB3 provides 40 Gbps whereas USB 4.0 only guarantees 20 Gbps; 40 Gbps (Gen3x2) are only optional according to spec. Therefore any host or device can call themselves USB 4.0 compatible but may never be able to reach 40 Gbps. Also the TB3 compatibility is only optional and also for example PCIe pass-through is also only optional in USB 4.0 spec.

 

[Dolfke]

My Intel laptop connects to a docking station via thunderbolt and it is so buggy! I love how static electricity causes my two external monitors to go blank everytime i get up and come back to my desk.

I use a MacBook Pro and a Caldigit thunderbolt 3 station connected with one cable for power delivery and all other connections.
It works fine since day one !!

 

[Rdslw]

I use a MacBook Pro and a Caldigit thunderbolt 3 station connected with one cable for power delivery and all other connections.
It works fine since day one !!

I work with macbooks also, and tb3 docks tend to "forget to charge" macbooks once in a while. Usually its nasty supprise when macbook tell you that at 3% battery....
and one thing about apple stuff. 1 dock 1 screen, unless you buy apple, so watch out for dissapoints guys.

 

[Soaptrail]

Ive found quality of cables really matters with he TB docks, after nothing but trouble I got a new cable and not a single issue has sprung up....

My docking station has a non replacement thunderbolt cable.

I use a MacBook Pro and a Caldigit thunderbolt 3 station connected with one cable for power delivery and all other connections.
It works fine since day one !!

I would expect that from Apple. My work gave us Dell laptops and these things are buggy in general not just the thunderbolt cable. Maybe windows was not yet ready for this new fangled technology as of 2019.