Aurora-R7, Thunderbolt 3 compatibility?

Thanks Tesla, it's really weird that alienware notebook has Thunderbolt-3 but not for desktop... I just changed to R7 and never thought that it does not support Thunderbolt.  Ok, it's my fault not to read the spec carefully >.<

The Aurora-R6 has USB-C, but no Thunderbolt-3 behind it. Weird right.

I guess Aurora-R7 is the same. 

It's my understanding that for ThunderBolt-3 to work, it needs direct and specific motherboard support for it. You can not add it by PCIe Add-In card. I think all recent Apple Desktops have it.

Thunderbolt ANY VERSION ANY VENDOR ANY OS requires a thunderbolt Header on the motherboard and GPIO cable from the header to the TBAIC card as well as DISPLAY PORT WRAP thru cable and and and.  USB3 and even USB3.1 does not have thunderbolt built in. Intel's decision to use USB-C as the connector for Thunderbolt 3 did not make it possible to retrofit it onto older chipsets etc.  It did confuse people and the thunderbolt2 to 3 adapters just make this worse.  Most vendors have to pay a royalty to INTEL for the thunderbolt chipset and software protocol. This further alienates vendors picking this up as a standard.

This is NOT a feature that can be ADDED if the physical controller is not on the motherboard.  There is no such thing as a PCI-E upgrade to add thunderbolt if the MOTHERBOARD CHIPSET AND HEADER AND CONTROLLER are not already there.

The other problem is that there IS NO STANDARD for what the Header looks like NOR for what the PCI-E card looks like connector and jumper wise.

Dell Precision Tower 5810/7810/7910/1700MT/1700SFF/3620MT
and Rack 7910
Thunderbolt Add-In-Cards Setup Guide

http://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/precision-t5810-workstation_White%20Papers3_en-us.pdf

Thanks all for your information.  I finally got a PCIe card for Firewire 1394 and successfully added to R7.  Problem solved.

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@cewkyaa01wrote:

Thanks all for your information.  I finally got a PCIe card for Firewire 1394 and successfully added to R7.  Problem solved.

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Excellent.  :Cool:  Yeah, sometimes the obvious/easy solution is best.

I looked through the Aurora-R7 Specs and saw no mention of ThunderBolt-3 functionality. I also looked at the motherboard pic in Owner's Manual. If there is a ThunderBolt-3 header on the MB there somewhere, they don't acknowledge it.

I recently bought a Dell XPS 13 and Lenovo Yoga 920 and both have Thunderbolt 3 (TB3) ports, although the Dell is neutered a bit and only 2-lane. TB3 ports are more commonplace on laptops since it is useful to eliminate bulky hard wire ports (HDMI, Ethernet, multiple USB 3.0 ports, etc.) so the laptops can be made lighter and thinner, a la MacBook Airs. The main deal with them is they support multiple UHD monitors which can run at 60 Hz and of course, you can run eGPUs.

At first I was disappointed my Aurora R7 didn't have it (at least it does have a GEN 2 USB-C port at back and a GEN 1 port up front) but then I checked the latest models of Asus motherboards and even they only have one MB that supports it. It's too early for it to be incorporated in desktop motherboards, but you will probably see it show up later this year.

Frankly, you don't really need a TB3 port on a desktop since you don't need to add multiple peripherals like an HDMI port, optical drive, and Ethernet via a single, convenient USB-C type port, since it's hardwired at the back. I can also tell you that USB-C ports have power deficit and plug-and-play issues with laptops, so you don't want to go there. In fact, most of the high-end ($200-300) TB3 hubs automatically charge the laptop when connected, because once you turn off charging, all peripherals hooked up to the TB3 hub short circuit. Even though the hubs themselves are powered by 60 watt bricks. That's why there is no TB3 hub on the market yet that will allow you to turn on and off charging the laptop at the same time, because the manufacturers don't want you to find out what happens . . .

Also there are no external HDDs yet that can support the 40 GBPS speeds anyway. So I really don't feel so bad that the R7 does not support TB3 and it definitely has no header port (it's usually between the PCI slots).

"there are no external HDDs yet that can support the 40 GBPS speeds anyway"  well thats not correct.

https://eshop.macsales.com/shop/Thunderbolt/

• Dual Thunderbolt 3 ports
• Dedicated DisplayPort 1.2 port
• Up to 1527MB/s sustained performance
• Works with 3.5" or 2.5" drives – no adapter needed
• User configurable in RAID 0, 1 , 4, 5 & 1+0
• Ultra quiet, heat dissipating aluminum chassis
• Rigorously pre-tested with multi-hour burn-in

PCI-E Firewire card what vendor?

What Part Number?

What Chipset?

This is important because not all PCI-E cards are created equal.

Texas Instruments started demanding royalties from various vendors and their response was to Drop firewire Entirely.  This is true for Apple as well as for Microsoft and Dell and HP and and and.

The PCI-E 3.0 bus is NOT Backwards compatible to OLDER PCI-E 1.0 and 1.1 and 2.0 cards.

Power and speed requirements change with PCI-E 2.1 and 3.0.

This is one of the reasons why PCI-E cards for Firewire and Storage and Video and TV Tuners and sound cards etc DO NOT WORK AT ALL or even register on the bus with modern PCI-E 3.0 systems.

I'm checking R7 bios updates to see if dell have added support for 9th gen Intel cpu yet, and these come across my attention:

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@touti1988 wrote:

Enhancements:
- Enhanced Thunderbolt PCIE add-on card support.

 

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Yes, it seems Dell often confuses Thunderbolt-3 and USB-v3.1 because they share a the USB-C port type.

However, if you can find the Thunderbolt interface-header on the motherboard, and the special Thunderbolt-card that goes into the machine, please let us know. I'm sure there are many Aurora-R7 owners that would love to know and buy one.