A Thunderbolt cable/dock is capable of transferring 40gbps of data. This is more data than almost anyone could possibly use BUT if you're using your dock to connect to multiple 4k monitors, you may be using more data than you think. Each 4k 60hz monitor is using a steady 15gpbs. If you've got 2, you're using up 30gbps and you've only got 10 left to be split among all of your other peripherals.
So you could buy 2 docks and plug them into different Thunderbolt ports or you could buy the iVanky VCD10 dock that is basically 2 docks in one enclosure. Instead of plugging it in with a single 40gbps Thunderbolt cable, you plug it in with 2 to get 80gbps of bandwidth.
This dock claims to be able to connect to 4, 6k monitors, all running at 60hz, while still having enough bandwidth to power all of the extra ports. What ports you may ask? The most ports I've ever seen on a dock.
The only ports missing from this dock are DisplayPorts but most of these dock makers are recommending you buy USB C to DisplayPort cables anyway.
I personally do not own a Macbook capable of pushing more than 2 monitors but I was able to connect both of my 4k monitors at 60hz as well as every other port (minus the optical audio port) at the exact same time, and the dock did work.
I remember just a few years ago when USB C docks and dongles were the most unreliable products I ever had the displeasure of using. I'm thrilled that they've finally figured it out, and using these docks with a laptop has become one of the most convenient devices I own.
The iVanky 20-in-1 dock is the most expensive dock I've ever seen, but it's also the most feature-rich. It's certainly overkill for the average person, but if you're looking for the most advanced Thunderbolt Dock on the market, this is it.
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Hi Lee,
This is an interesting device. Maybe a bit too expensive, but if one needs it, it is probably worth the price.
One thing I thought you should have tested is the throughput speed of every connection you made for storage an network. Just reporting that the connection is done at 2.5 Gbps is not enough.
I am also interested in see what speeds do you get when you transfer large files between an external drive to your NAS via a network using you laptop and then compare it to using the docking station.
As always, I enjoy your videos.
Thanks!
Interesting idea, thanks for pointing this product out.
Of course depending upon the Thunderbolt controller in the computer and design of the computer I/O (TB controller throughput, number of PCI lanes, type & speed of CPU connection, etc) a product like this may not produce any better results than a single connection because all of the TB ports may be connected to a single TB controller (often the case IME), which may be maxed out.
A follow up article with some through put tests using a couple of different computers (ideally with different types of Thunderbolt / CPU implementations) would be interesting.
$550 is an insanely high price for what is offers. At that point, just build a desktop PC, if you don't need to do much gaming, then with a little more money, you can build a fairly decent PC (price gouging has largely decreased for almost every component, except video cards where AMD and Nvidia are still trying to keep their etherium mining craze pricing).
PS, for many laptops that offer thunderbolt ports, many will share a single PCIe x4 PCIe 4.0 connection for virtually all of the IO, thus you end up only about 8GB/s of throughput to share with everything connected to the chipset. In those cases, 2 thunderbolt connections may not give you a full 80Gbps, because there will be overhead, as well as bandwidth sharing with other components.
Though even then, if running 2 displays, in addition to a bunch of extra IO, then 2 thunderbolt connections would be needed. PS, depending on the controller, Thunderbolt does allow for some oversubscribing, e.g., a device can have 8GB/s of throughput to share with all IO, and allow 4 thunderbolt 4 devices to be connected, especially if the devices are things like storage enclosures where they can readily function at lower transfer rates. Where they run into issues is if a device device truly needs the full throughput of the port.
The IO that it offers is similar to what one might see offered by a modern mid range chipset (common on many $150 motherboards such as the intel B760 (intel because they more readily offer thunderbolt on their lower cost boards), and effectively has the direct PCIe lanes from the CPU , replaced with PCIe lanes supplied by 2 thunderbolt links, which could potentially be done since a chipset is effectively a PCIe device, which some companies have experimented with it when it comes to AMD chipsets.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NrKZeEmu6UA
First off, this is not a Thunderbolt dock. A Thunderbolt 4 dock is USB 4 compliant, but a USB 4 dock is not a Thunderbolt 4 device unless it is certified as such and has the Thunderbolt logo. Second, there is no way to get 80Gbps via a Thunderbolt 4 or USB4 port. If you have two ports, you still share the same bandwidth which is 40Gbps.
Article correct on two 4k@60Hz monitors taking up most of the outbound bandwidth and leaving you with about 8Gbps...
For bandwidth sharing, it depends on the system, and how the PCIe lanes are assigned. For example, the high end 13th gen Intel HX platform for laptops has 8 PCIe 4.0 lane connecting the CPU to the chipset. thus 16GB/s overall throughput to share with various devices.
The chipset dynamically shared between 16 PCIe 4.0 lanes, and 12 PCIe 3.0 lanes. which can be utilized for various IO on the laptop.
A high end config often has 2 separate Thunderbolt 4 controllers connected to the chipset, in which case if both controllers are saturated, it will use half of the throughput available to the chipset.
Lower end implementations may do things have a only 8GB/s or less throughput available to the chipset, where in which case, even if they add 2 thunderbolt 4 controllers, then they will never reach a full 8GB/s since the chipset needs to also provide bandwidth to a bunch of other IO.
Though in those cases, it is possible for a board maker to allocate CPU PCIe lanes, e.g., taking half the lanes from a dedicated GPU in a laptop, and allocating them to 2 thunderbolt 4 controllers, and thus allowing them to offer a true 80Gbps at the cost of lower GPU performance.
Though if going for a high priced laptop, odds are that there will be a good chance of having 80Gbps available, unless a user does something like reads or writes to 2 PCIe 4.0 m.2 NVMe SSDs at the same time while also doing a bunch of bandwidth intensive work on the dock.
Well said and explained (imho). This is what I was alluding to, but didn't explain.
It's unfortunate in my view that the actual total Thunderbolt / USB throughput capacity for a given computer typically isn't more readily available.. Pretty niche info though I suppose - I guess there's not that many who care.
Does anyone know of a list of computers that have sufficient Thunderbolt throughput to support & simultaneously utilize two 40 Gbps TB / USB interfaces and/or (something approaching) 80Gbps total? or examples of motherboards / computers known to support dual TB / USB controllers?
This could be interesting into for those connecting multiple displays and/or pushing lots of data around via Thunderbolt /USB until such time as TB5 motherboard & dock implementations become available.
Fwiw, it seems that at least the recent MacBook Pros with Apple silicon should be capable of taking advantage of the dual connections to the dock discussed in the article, in case that's helpful to anyone.
From the web page for the iVANKY dock product: "Compatible with Apple silicon MacBooks only", and from the Amazon page: "Specifically engineered for Apple Silicon MacBookPros and is not compatible with Intel-based MacBook Pros."
That might be a useful clarification to the article Lee, if you happen to read this and are so inclined.
This specific dock product may not offer much help to me or other Windows Intel or AMD users, but I do think that the principle is interesting. It does seem that at least some Intel CPU & I/O chipset implementations also support the capability to take advantage of multiple TB / USB I/O controllers and the increased total Thunderbolt / USB throughput which that should enable.