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I assembled a fine PC after years of lurking and contemplation. And, now I've discovered that I have something better than I planned for.

My system is a Ryzen 7 3800X on an ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming WiFi motherboard. I have 16Gb of memory that I won't bother describing until I adjust the memory clock and timings for best results.

I come to the source of all knowledge because I overlooked a spec when I bought my motherboard. It is THUNDERBOLT capable!!!

Of course that means that I have to try to get it working. Oh ohhh, the pain of being afflicted with tinkeritus.

It looks like ASUS Engineering and Design did not work well with ASUS Marketing, End-User Support and Sales.

The motherboard has a 13 pin Thunderbolt header. The manual has a half page illustration and description that ends by saying "The add-on Thunderbolt I/O card and Thunderbolt cables are purchased separately." Finito, end of story. Searching has not found any further expansion on the manual.

I get that it supports Intel's Thunderbolt Technology which allows setting up a Thunderbolt daisy-chain of up to six Thunderbolt enabled devices and a DisplayPort enabled display.

But, does anyone know where to locate said add-on cards and cables? The manual does not even identify what Thunderbolt generation we are talking about here.

Should I have posted in politics and religion?

I know Thunderbolt is closely related to Apple's (supposed) superiority for content creation. But, I am hoping that we can all just get along because we are discussing a new AMD platform that includes Intel technology AND I am not installing IOS.

Yay Team, can you help a tortured soul? Everything is working, it must be time to f,,, it up!

Asus calls it the ThunderboltEX 3. It's $66 at Amazon.

Do you need to be using an APU with integrated graphics to do video over Thunderbolt?. I do this between my work laptop and my monitor.

I visited your links. I agree they are good, as far as they go. But, the card itself seems very mature. It's QVL only lists two motherboards; the X99-Deluxe II and a Z170 board.

This reminds me of a fling that I had with SCSI from Windows 95 to Windows 2000. Not enough general documentation and often undefined hardware requirements.

You could ask Asus.

This review ranks the Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge card as #1. It's $99 at Amazon.

If this is something that you're actually willing to spend money on, Amazon's return policies are generous. What is it about Thunderbolt that you want or need?

I'll try to ignore my itchy tinkeritis. I have no real need.

I enjoy enabling everything and then figuring out whether it was worth the effort.

You are correct; If I ever get a round tu-it, asking ASUS will be one of my first moves.

Thank you for your time and consideration.

My Situation:

I work from home and I have both my monitors and all my peripherals going into a docking station that I can plug my work laptop into via a Thunderbolt3 port.

I want to build a gaming PC however I don’t want to unplug my monitors and peripherals out of my dock and into my PC every time I want to game, and then do it all again but in reverse to get my workstation ready for work the next morning.

My Question:

If I use a motherboard like the ASUS ROG STRIX B550-F Gaming and then get the ASUS Thunderbolt 3-TR expansion card, would I be able to connect my PC to my docking station via a Thunderbolt3 chord running from my dock to the expansion card IO? I am little ignorant on how Thunderbolt 3 works. I feel like this should work but I am not sure.

I would still have to unplug my laptop from the dock and then plug my PC into the dock (since my dock only has one thunderbolt 3 input) but that only takes a second and is much easier than having to do everything.

You could also just use a different input on the monitor from the desktop PC. My main monitor automatically switches to whichever input has a signal.

That doesn't solve my problem of having to switch my keyboard and mouse from my dock over to the the PC and then back again.

Actually what you suggested is currently doing I am currently doing with my PS4. Right now I have my PS4 on my desk and it's plugged into another input on my monitor. To switch from working to gaming I use the monitor menu to switch the input. But since I just use a controller for the PS4 I don't have to switch my mouse and keyboard over to it. Also i only need to switch over one monitor to the PS4, not both. I want to build a PC the replaces my PS4.

But yes I could buy 2 more DisplayPort cables , plug them in to my PC, use the monitor menu controls to switch inputs, move my mouse keyboard over, play my game, then do the whole process over again. Doesn't save me much time and hassle....Actually wait.... Lol I can't even do this because both my monitors only have one DisplayPort input (the PS4 is plugged into a HDMI input).

Simply unplugging my laptop's tb3 cable from my dock, gabbing my PC's tb3 cable (which would be laying right there next to that dock) and plugging that cable into the dock is what I am going for. I takes a couple seconds tops and I don't have to get out of my chair, super seamless going from working to gaming and back to working. A Thunderbolt 3 KVM switch would be exactly what I want but they don't make those with thunderbolt 3 inputs. Besides I already spent a lot of money on my current docking station (Lenovo ThinkPad Thunderbolt 3 Dock Gen 2).

So that is why I am doing as much research as I can to see if I can do this with my PC. I am sure it's possible, I mean my laptop (which is just a PC with built in peripherals) connects to my dock and I am able to use my monitors and keyboard and mouse so I would think I could my a desktop PC do the same thing. I am fairly sure the solution I outlined in my original question would work. I just want to be 100% sure. I am hoping to find somebody who really know things about Thunderbolt 3.

This is what KVMP switches are for. Unfortunately DisplayPort ones are still a bit pricey (but they've come down a lot since a couple of years ago).

https://www.amazon.com/IOGEAR-2-Port-Di ... 071V685QD/

I don't think that switch will work because I need to connect my laptop to the dock via Thunderbolt 3. As I've mentioned earlier, nobody makes Thunderbolt 3 KVMP switches. Also that KVMP switch is for 2 computers sharing 1 monitor, I have 2 monitors.

TechSeve wrote:

I don't think that switch will work because I need to connect my laptop to the dock via Thunderbolt 3. As I've mentioned earlier, nobody makes Thunderbolt 3 KVMP switches. Also that KVMP switch is for 2 computers sharing 1 monitor, I have 2 monitors.

The switch goes downstream of the dock, not between the laptop and the dock. The dock outputs DP for video, right?

Yes, here is the dock I have: https://www.amazon.com/Lenovo-ThinkPad- ... B07M6S81CM
I have 2 DP out ports that right I have 2 monitors plugged into both.

Hmm ok I am looking at the KVMP switch you sent me In the link. So are you saying that I can plug my PC into the "CPU1" DP and plug my docking station into the "CPU 2" DP I can plug one (and only one) of my monitors into the "CONSOLE" display port? I am not sure there is a way to plug 2 monitors into one DP port unless I wanted the monitors cloned. Am I interpreting that KVMP switch diagram correctly?

I am really leaning towards getting a Thunderbolt 3 expansion card and just plugging that into my dock. Thunderbolt 3 can carry enough data for two 4k monitors, keyboard, mouse, audio, as well as an internet connection bandwidths of 32Gbps (although I won't need it to because my PC will have it's own ethernet cable). This seems like the easiest solution and one that doesn't add more clutter to my desk. The reason why I was found/was drawn to this discussion thread is because there was a lot of discussion about using a Thunderbolt 3 expansion in the exact motherboard I plan to use for my PC build.

Ahh, I guess I missed the part about 2 displays. You would need a KVMP that supports two monitors then. Those start to get expensive.

OMG I DID IT.
so to start, i managed to get my Asus Rog Strix B550-F to work on my LG 5k Monitor via thunderbolt 3 expansion card (GC Titan Ridge v2.0)
Ive ordered various cards and tried different things, but this is my setup that i just put together now and it worked first try, 100% as far as im concerned.

First, my setup it
Asus Rog Strix B550-F
Asus Geforce RTX 2070 Super
AMD Rzyen 9 3900x
and the Card im using is Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge 2.0

1. I installed the driver first
2. Shut everything off, restart comp, boot up BIOS.
3. search (f9) thunderbolt
4. enable thunderbolt, and also select titan ridge as the card from drop down menu.
5. save and shut off.
6. Connect Titan ridge to pcie 4 slot
7. plug in USB header wire to titan ridge and MOBO
8. Plug 6 pin power in both spots on the titan ridge to my power supply
9. Plugged my 5 pin wire in my titan, but not into the MOBO, since the header there requires 14-1 pin. so i just left it unplugged to see if itll work
10. connect DP from graphics card to titan mini DP port 1
11. Connect LG 5k thunderbolt wire from thunderbolt port 1 on the titan to the main plug onto my LG 5k.

booted up. works.
Audio works and is recognized, resolution shows 4096x2304 in display settings.
This just happened now, so im mad excited to share after weeks of trial and error. probably some redundancies here, but hey, just want to spread the good news

Just purchased my son an ASUS ROG Strix B550-F Gaming (WiFi 6) with Thunderbolt, newest AMD 5X series cpu and other goodies for his birthday...

A little research shows the following ASUS products WILL work with that motherboard...

ThunderboltEX 3 (do a search on the ASUS support website for specifics)

and.... ThunderboltEX 3-TR (do a search on the ASUS support website for specifics)

The EX 3 provides excellent basic connectivity, at an affordable pricepoint - the EX 3-TR is much more capable, but correspondingly more expensive.

If your goal is to connect high-speed external storage and at the same time one or more high refresh rate 4k monitors, then this is the way to go...