>Also, PCIe was nerfed by Intel in TB3 for unknown reasons to 22Gbps, there's hope it'll be 32Gbps this time for real. You can still run a 3440 x 1440 @ 60 Hz monitor on the remaining bandwidth (or to spew marketing BS, 4k @ 30 Hz).
I'd just like to clarify, and add some info:
- you're not running the video over pcie
- ...unless you use an egpu (which has been a mostly problem free experience for me but wow YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY)
- the "problem" with pcie-via-tb3 is not bandwidth, but latency. You can run "normal" GPUs on 4x with minimal penalty for most games.
- problem free USB experience... if you're using titan ridge with modern drivers - some laptop and enclosure manufacturers ship and include in their built-in updating software old drivers. Get the latest from intel and hope for the best. Alpine ridge is still buggy, and also quite limited in many ways. Fortunately, most laptops sold in 2019 shipped titan ridge. The only way to tell if you have alpine ridge is to count how many tb3 capable usbc ports you have, if the laptop you bought maxed out the usbc ports - which it might not have on an ultraportable. insane.
- you can only get the highest speeds (>20Gbps) over a 6inch cable or a USB Type-C Active Cable. Both sides of the cable include a chip which performs clock, sync, and some power negotiation of the link
My biggest issues with my eGPU have been with Windows' weird limitations on addressing space for devices, so if you have 3+ graphics cards (builtin primary, builtin secondary, eGPU card) you end up having to endlessly screw around with disabling and reenabling devices and device buses to change the order they're initialized in, messing with bootloaders to change which PCIe lanes get loaded at startup, etc etc. It's a nightmare.
By contrast, all my experiences on Mac have been either "it just works" or "after one reboot it just works". Still not ideal, but not anything close to the 4+ hours it took me to get it working on Windows for the first time (and after which it immediately stopped working again the first time I disconnected the Thunderbolt cable).
At work I have a late model Dell laptop that works well with a Dell dock. My year older Alienware (also Dell) has struggled to work with various docks, but I have built a network of single purpose USB gadgets under my desk (Hub, Ethernet, SD card, XBox dongle) that is rock solid that plugs into a USB-A 3 and leaves the USB-C for the monitor.
My biggest issue with the eGPU, on an Intel Skull Canyon NUC so Intel from top to bottom including Thunderbolt technology, it was very flakey with the eGPU and the computer frequently getting locked into a dysfunctional state. Sometimes I'd spend 20 - 30 minutes cycling through powering on and off before it all worked.
Now I use it with a Macbook Pro and it works very smoothly, even using a TB2 adapter. I can only use it in bootcamp because of Apple's policy towards nVidia, but it works every time and disconnects every time.
Even with the troubled experience, being able to move a GPU between computers is really just awesome, I wouldn't buy another machine without Thunderbolt or USB 4 eventually.
My problems haven't been with drivers, but rather with Windows being unable to allocate enough PCI resource lanes even though the hardware can physically support everything.
I'd just like to clarify, and add some info:
- you're not running the video over pcie
- ...unless you use an egpu (which has been a mostly problem free experience for me but wow YOUR MILEAGE MAY VARY)
- the "problem" with pcie-via-tb3 is not bandwidth, but latency. You can run "normal" GPUs on 4x with minimal penalty for most games.
- problem free USB experience... if you're using titan ridge with modern drivers - some laptop and enclosure manufacturers ship and include in their built-in updating software old drivers. Get the latest from intel and hope for the best. Alpine ridge is still buggy, and also quite limited in many ways. Fortunately, most laptops sold in 2019 shipped titan ridge. The only way to tell if you have alpine ridge is to count how many tb3 capable usbc ports you have, if the laptop you bought maxed out the usbc ports - which it might not have on an ultraportable. insane.
- you can only get the highest speeds (>20Gbps) over a 6inch cable or a USB Type-C Active Cable. Both sides of the cable include a chip which performs clock, sync, and some power negotiation of the link