@Scott Creg if you want a docking station that will power the system properly rather than requiring you to keep the system's power adapter connected separately or accept performance throttling from a dock that doesn't provide enough power, your list of options is short. The reason is that the XPS 15 is designed for a 130W power source, which is more than the official 100W max of the USB Power Delivery spec used by USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 docks -- and most USB-C/TB3 docks and power sources don't even provide the official 100W max. Dell did something proprietary on a handful on their USB-C/TB3 docks to stretch that to 130W in order to properly power some of their systems, like the XPS 15 models, but you won't find that available elsewhere, and not even all Dell docks can do that.
So basically, these are your options: - WD19TB (always comes with 180W power supply)
- WD19 w/ 180W power supply (not the 130W version it can also be ordered with and which can only pass 90W through to the attached system)
- TB16 w/ 240W power supply (not the 180W power supply it can also be ordered with, which on the TB16 isn't enough to pass 130W to the attached system. The TB16 is the predecessor of the WD19TB and I personally don't recommend it because it's had more than its fair share of complaints and the WD19TB doesn't seem to be generating nearly as many problems.)
- WD15 w/ 180W power supply (not the 130W power supply it can also be ordered with. This is the predecessor to the WD19.)
The main difference between those docks is that the WD19TB and TB16 are Thunderbolt 3 docks. As such, when paired with the XPS 15 7590 they can drive dual displays up to 4K 60 Hz each, and you can also connect another Thunderbolt 3 accessory to the dock, such as an external storage solution or external GPU. By comparison, the WD19 and WD15 are regular USB-C docks, and as such can only drive dual displays up to 1920x1200 and do not support attaching Thunderbolt peripherals -- and since the XPS 15 7590 only has a single USB-C/TB3 port (which is annoying in this day and age), if you ever wanted to connect a Thunderbolt 3 peripheral while also docked, that would become a problem.
@Jer2675 all of the dock options I mentioned above will power the XPS 15 7590. For three displays, you'd want a Thunderbolt dock, and I'd go with the WD19TB rather than the older TB16. But whether you can run three of them all from the dock depends on the resolutions of the displays in question, and that might also create restrictions around which combination of outputs you'll need to use. Grab the manual for the WD19TB on support.dell.com (direct link here for convenience) and check the Display Resolution Table. You'd want Table 6 for Thunderbolt systems, and the 7590 is an HBR2 system, not an HBR3 system.
Lastly, in order to run 3 external displays, you will need to disable the built-in display because the Intel GPU in that system only supports 3 simultaneous independent displays, regardless of how they're connected, and even if your system configuration includes the NVIDIA GPU, all displays would be physically wired to the Intel GPU and therefore subject to that limitation.
Thank you so much for the detailed information and the link! This dock will work for a few of us in supporting three external monitors @ 1920 x 1080, however we have one setup with two monitors one running 3840 x 2160 and the other 1920 x 1080. From the looks of the display resolution table it doesn't look like that configuration can be supported. I know you said the XPS 7590 is an HBR2 system not and HBR3 but I'm a little confused by that. On the product page for the laptop Dell states that it will support up to 2 4k displays. (here is the link )
Thunderbolt™ 3 multi-use port allows you to charge your laptop, connect to multiple devices (including support for up to two 4K displays)
That would lead me to think you can have two external monitors running @ 3840 x 2160 but I'm not seeing this in the display resolution table for the HBR2, I do see it's possible with the HBR3 though. Would you have a recommendation on a laptop that supports HBR3?
@Jer2675 a Thunderbolt-capable HBR2 system can run dual 4K displays, and that is indicated in Table 6 for Thunderbolt HBR2 systems -- but you have to scroll past the page break onto Page 23. The key with dual 4K on the WD19TB is that one of the 4K displays has to be connected to the "upstream" Thunderbolt port on the back of the dock (NOT the regular USB-C port near the HDMI port), using something like a USB-C to DisplayPort cable. That's why I said in my earlier post that depending on your display setup, there might be port restrictions depending on the bandwidth requirements of your proposed display setup. However, you can't run dual 4K + 1080p from a Thunderbolt HBR2 (DisplayPort 1.2) system
As for HBR3 (DisplayPort 1.3 and up), I've posted the gory detail below, but the short answer is that if you want an XPS 15 type of system (slim and light, fast CPU, discrete GPU), there's nothing in Dell's current lineup that would get you HBR3. You'd have to choose a model that would give you only 2 of those characteristics. So if you want to run a third external display, your best options are unfortunately to either connect the third display directly to the system's HDMI output or else to connect it through an adapter that uses "indirect display" technology like DisplayLink (not to be confused with DisplayPort). Those adapters plug into a regular USB port, so you could plug it into the dock, and they give you an HDMI or DisplayPort ouput. They would work because their display data would be compressed and transmitted as regular USB data, not native video data, so that display wouldn't "count" against your available GPU display bandwidth. However, DisplayLink technology has some significant drawbacks that I've written about in detail in this thread, specifically the post marked as the answer.
If you're curious about HBR3, there are very few HBR3 systems on the market right now for the simple reason that until recently, Intel GPUs didn't support HBR3, and even now only the only ones that do are their "Ice Lake" CPUs, which are a complete architectural redesign and include a new "Gen 11" GPU that supports HBR3. The "Ice Lake" CPUs are SOME, but not ALL, of the new Core 10th Gen CPUs; other 10th Gen CPUs are just a minor refresh of an architecture they've been making small refreshes to since Core 5th Gen. So Intel has really made their processor naming even more confusing than it's been for the past several years, and that's really saying something. For example, the XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 has the new Ice Lake CPUs and can run HBR3, but the regular XPS 13 7390 uses non-Ice Lake 10th Gen CPUs that do not support HBR3. Making matters worse for XPS 15 users, Ice Lake right now is only available for CPUs meant for systems that would otherwise have used the low-power (15W) U Series CPUs, like the XPS 13 models. The XPS 15 models use higher performance (45W) H Series CPUs, and Intel isn't slated to give those a major architectural redesign that would presumably include Intel's new GPU until late 2020 or even 2021.
The only way to get HBR3 support other than that is to have a system that has its built-in display connectors wired directly to its discrete GPU (assuming that GPU supported HBR3), but for reasons I can go into if you really want to know, that wiring design is very uncommon to see even among systems that have a discrete GPU in the first place, at least within Dell's product line. If you find it at all, it's often on gaming systems or big workstation-grade laptops, since there are some use cases for giving the discrete GPU direct control of the display output that are relevant to those markets (other than running higher-end display setups). But even Dell's high-end Alienware gaming systems to my knowledge still have their USB-C/TB3 ports wired to the Intel GPU even though they sometimes have other display connectors wired to the discrete GPU. On the workstation side, Precision 7000 Series laptops from the 7x20 models onward have a BIOS option allowing you to choose which GPU controls the outputs, which they can offer because they have a more complex motherboard design to enable that, so they would support HBR3 if you gave control of those ports to the discrete GPU. But those are a whole other animal from the XPS 15.
I think I've learned more about laptop docking in the last 24 hours than I could of ever imagined... lol. Thanks again for all your help and taking the time to discuss this with me! From what I understand with all of this we should be able to then run the following configurations. With the Dell XPS 7590 and the WD19TD?
Setup 1
Dell XPS 7590 docked to WD19TD - Dock then going to 2 Display Port monitors @ 1920x1080 and 1 USB-C Monitor @ 1920x1080
Setup 2
Dell XPS 7590 docked to WD19TD - Dock then going to 2 Display Port monitors one @ 3840x2160 one @ 1920x1080
@Jer2675 happy to help! Sorry for the length of the posts, but this is one of those situations where the devil is in the details and there are quite a few. In terms of your proposed setups, Setup 1 will work fine, and fyi if all three displays are 1080p, then you can use any combination of ports if USB-C isn't convenient, e.g. two on DisplayPort and one on HDMI, for example. For Setup 2, one of the displays will need to be connected via the USB-C/Thunderbolt "upstream" port. The reason is that when the WD19TB being used with a Thunderbolt-capable HBR2 system, which provides two full DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces, one of the interfaces is allocated to the "upstream" port and the other is allocated to be split across the remaining ports. A 4K 60 Hz display requires essentially an entire DisplayPort 1.2 interface all to itself, so if you use one of the "core" display output ports for it, you wouldn't be able to put the 1080p display on that same bank. If you want to learn even more about docking stations and the WD19TB in particular, I wrote a long "Demystifying WD19TB Supported Resolutions" thread here that goes into detail theorizing why the supported display resolutions and port restrictions are they way they are. All of the pertinent info is in the first post, then the thread sort of went off-topic. But the bottom line is that if you need to support setups involving a 4K 60 Hz display and ANYTHING else, you should stock up on some USB-C to DisplayPort cables so that one of the displays can always be connected to that "upstream" Thunderbolt port -- and again, NOT the regular USB-C port near the HDMI port. It has to be the one on the far edge of the dock.
Is it confirmed that the New XPS 13 2-in-1 7390 supports DP 1.4/HBR3?
I want to run 2 QHD displays from a docked 2-in-1 7390, and I believe the WD19 should work for this application (whereas a TB dock would've been needed for an HBR2 machine). Am I correct?
Also, do the monitors have to support DP1.4, or would DP1.2 monitors work? I.e. would using DP1.2 monitors knock everything down to 1.2 and prevent me from running them at QHD, if that makes sense...
@nputer all CPUs available on the XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 -- not the regular XPS 13 7390 -- are the Ice Lake variety, whose GPU supports DP 1.4 over USB-C. I've seen no indication that it would be possible for a system to be designed in a way whereby the GPU could support DP 1.4 over USB-C but would be limited by some other component to DP 1.2 over USB-C. In addition, I read a post from someone a while ago saying that he was able to run a 4K 60 Hz display out of a DA300. That capability requires at least DP 1.3 over USB-C because the DA300 uses 2 USB-C high speed lanes for USB 3.x, which means only 2 DisplayPort lanes are available for video. The only way to get 4K 60 Hz out of USB-C using only 2 lanes is with DP 1.3 or better -- with a DP 1.2 system you can only run 4K 60 Hz over USB-C when the entire interface is dedicated to video -- but since no Intel GPU ever supported exactly DP 1.3, the logical conclusion is that it supports DP 1.4 as long as the device on the other end does. (But as it happens, DP 1.3 and DP 1.4 both have the same maximum bandwidth, called HBR3, so even DP 1.3 support would be enough to run dual QHD in a non-Thunderbolt dock setup.)
So while I haven't tested this myself, based on that information I would say that the 7390 2-in-1 supports DP 1.4 over USB-C, and therefore dual QHD from a regular WD19 will be possible. To the best of my knowledge, the displays would NOT need to support DP 1.4 themselves, because if they did then a) that requirement would severely limit the usefulness of the dock at this point because there are very few DP 1.4 displays on the market right now, and b) especially due to what I just said, I would expect a caveat like that to be mentioned in the WD19's documentation, but it only mentions the system's capabilities as an important factor. And from a technical standpoint, the reason I don't think the displays matter here is because the only bandwidth constraint is on the USB-C link between the system and the dock. Once all of the video data has been delivered to the dock, that gets split across two separate DisplayPort outputs, and a DisplayPort output can handle up to a single 4K 60 Hz display or dual QHD even in HBR2 (DP 1.2) mode, so there isn't a bandwidth concern on that side because each output is only carrying half the data that came in from the system. I seriously doubt that using an HBR2 display would force the link between the dock and the system down to HBR2 because the dock is operating as an active DisplayPort MST hub, not just a passthrough device, so it should be able to negotiate HBR3 on the input side from the system and HBR2 on the outputs.
All that said, given that the system comes standard with Thunderbolt 3, unless the WD19TB (Thunderbolt version) costs significantly more than the regular WD19, you might want to consider going with the WD19TB, just for futureproofing if nothing else. The WD19TB dock is even backward compatible with regular USB-C systems if needed, at a functionality level equivalent to the regular WD19. But otherwise, I believe the WD19 will be fine. Again, I can't speak from personal testing here, but that is my educated guess, and if I were in your position I would have no hesitation buying a WD19 to run a dual QHD setup from that system. Absolute worst case you can return it for a WD19TB of course, but I don't think that will be necessary at all.
I'd also imagine your are correct regarding the DP 1.2 displays working.
The WD19TB seems to generally be $100 more. I need 4 of them, so I'd rather save the money if the TB would not be beneficial to me currently. I'll only running the 2 QHD screens, gigabit ethernet, and keyboard/mouse through them. Do you think the WD19 would be able to handle that without throttling anything?
I guess the TB would allow me to add a third QHD or switch to 4k if I want to in the future. Something to consider...
@nputer thanks for the kind words, and happy to help!
Nice find on the Setup & Specs guide! I hadn't seen that particular note, and other areas of that guide only mention "DisplayPort" rather than a particular version. Same for the specs on the product page, at least last time I checked. That's certainly a nice additional confirmation to have.
I didn't realize the price difference between those docks was so high. Last I checked it was only about $30 more for the TB version. The larger price difference might also be because the WD19 can be ordered with either a 130W or 180W power supply, whereas the WD19TB is only available with a 180W power supply -- and the XPS 13 works fine with the 130W version of the WD19. At a $100 difference, I agree that's a pretty steep price unless you really think you'd want to add that third QHD display or go 4K, as you say. I personally don't recommend going 4K unless your work requires that specific resolution (e.g. video editing) or you'll be using 42" displays where you can use 4K without any scaling so that all of those pixels are used for real estate rather than a sharp picture. For anything in between, the math reveals that 4K basically creates enough pixel density that you'll have to enable display scaling to keep things readable -- and some Windows apps still don't work with that very well -- but not enough pixel density to give you that true "Retina display" experience. The only exception is if you drop all the way down to a 24" 4K display, where density will be high enough for the latter experience, but if you're already running QHD displays, which are typically 27", I'm guessing that moving to 24" displays won't be in the cards. I myself am running dual 27" QHD displays and specifically avoided going 4K for the reasons I just described.
But yes, the WD19 will absolutely run your proposed setup without any throttling. You could even add an external SSD or something because you'll have a USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) data path to the WD19, which is entirely independent of the display data path because in a non-Thunderbolt setup, USB data and video are carried across completely separate, dedicated channels. That will change with USB 4.0, but that's how it is today.
First off, I had the exact same reasoning in regards to not doing 4K for my 27s.
I ended up getting one WD19 and one WD19TB, and I'm encountering some strange behavior...
I just got the WD19 + 2x 27" QHD setup hooked up, and one of my 2-in-1 7390s is able to drive both screens at 2560x1440 without issue. The other one has one screen at 2560x1440 and the the other at 1920x1200. Both screens are connected with DP. Not sure what's up here besides the different specs of my 7390s -- the one that can drive both screens at full resolution has 4K screen and 32gb ram, and the the one that cannot has FHD screen and 16gb.
My WD19TB is at my office, so I cannot test if that produces different results right now (but I may go in tomorrow to see).
The other thing is the docking station integration isn't exactly seamless... First, the power button on the docking station doesn't seem to do anything. Second, when rebooting the computer, I have to log in with the laptop screen, shut the screen (putting the computer to sleep), and reconnect the docking station to get things back on the external displays. Not sure if the TB will yield different results with this either (hoping so).
@nputer is the 7390 that's running 2560x1440 and 1920x1200 a 7390 2-in-1 or a regular 7390? If it's the latter, that model's line of Core 10th Gen CPUs don't use the new "Ice Lake" architecture that includes the new and more capable Gen 11 GPU, unlike the 7390 2-in-1 that does use those CPUs. Dell will be rectifying this with the new XPS 13 (non-2-in-1) that should be releasing later this month. It will have Ice Lake CPUs, at the cost of giving up a 6-core CPU option that the regular XPS 13 7390 has as a result of using the older architecture. With Core 10th Gen Intel really managed to make their CPU lineup even more confusing than it was before, and that is really saying something!
If they're both 2-in-1s then I'm not sure what's going on there. Even the lowest-end CPU available for the XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 (the i3-1005G1) is Ice Lake and has the Gen 11 GPU. It's the "G1" variant so its performance won't be as high, but its display and output support is identical to the higher-end CPUs according to the specs on ark.intel.com. If this is somehow by design due to some technical limitation, I can't see what the source of that would be, and if it were something as drastic as the CPU only supporting DisplayPort 1.2 over USB-C rather than DisplayPort 1.4, then I'm pretty sure you'd only have enough bandwidth for a single 2560x1440 display and then some really tiny resolution on the second display, not something as high as 1920x1200. I'm wondering if it might be some sort of firmware or driver issue that shouldn't exist but does anyway. Have you already checked Intel Graphics Control/Command Center to see if it offers anything different from Windows Display Settings?
Also, are you sure it's 1920x1200 rather than 1920x1080? The reason I ask is that 1920x1200 is a 16:10 aspect ratio resolution, but if the panel's native resolution is 2560x1440, then that would be a 16:9 display, in which case sending it a 16:10 signal would result in either horizontal stretching or black bars on the left and right. Or are your displays 2560x1600, which is 16:10?
The WD19TB should be able to run both displays at 2560x1440 no problem at all because that only requires about half the total video bandwidth available over TB3. You could run dual QHD even on an older system that only supported DP 1.2 over USB-C as long as it supported TB3.
As for the power button, that should definitely work, and if you use the dock's Power button to start your system, you should be able to keep the lid closed from the start, and also wake the system back up if you close the lid while it's already docked. That too sounds like a firmware issue to me, either with the WD19 or the XPS 13 7390. As a side story, I recently used a WD19 that started blasting its internal fan at very high speed, with resulting very high noise levels, for no apparent reason. The room's ambient temperature was normal, the attached laptop was idling with a fully charged battery, and there was only a keyboard, mouse, USB hard drive, and display plugged into the dock, so it was hardly under load. I found a few other reports of this spontaneous loud fan behavior on this forum, so there may still be some firmware kinks to be worked out with that dock.
But as a workaround, one thing you could consider doing is changing the lid close behavior to "Do Nothing" in Windows, then you can still put the system to sleep manually by right-clicking the Start button (or pressing WinKey+X) and selecting "Shut down or sign out > Sleep". As a pro tip, that can be accomplished rapidly with the keyboard by pressing WinKey+X, Up arrow, Up arrow, Right arrow, and then an appropriate number of up/down arrow presses depending on whether you have Hibernation enabled. I actually prefer putting my system to sleep this way because having worked in IT for a while, I've seen multiple cases of users closing their laptop lid and stuffing it into their bag not realizing that their laptop didn't actually go to sleep, at which point the laptop went on to overheat in their bag and damage itself.
I purchased two WD19TB docks for my XPS 15 7590. After a failed attempt using a TB16. It worked but only intermittently. I'm on the phone with Dell Tech Support that (other than telling me to talk to sales) and they tell me this isn't compatible. How are you supposed to navigate the Dell dock quagmire to find something that works. This isn't my first computer or dock rodeo, but it is the most difficult to figure out.
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
4
November 7th, 2019 10:00
@Scott Creg if you want a docking station that will power the system properly rather than requiring you to keep the system's power adapter connected separately or accept performance throttling from a dock that doesn't provide enough power, your list of options is short. The reason is that the XPS 15 is designed for a 130W power source, which is more than the official 100W max of the USB Power Delivery spec used by USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 docks -- and most USB-C/TB3 docks and power sources don't even provide the official 100W max. Dell did something proprietary on a handful on their USB-C/TB3 docks to stretch that to 130W in order to properly power some of their systems, like the XPS 15 models, but you won't find that available elsewhere, and not even all Dell docks can do that.
So basically, these are your options:
- WD19TB (always comes with 180W power supply)
- WD19 w/ 180W power supply (not the 130W version it can also be ordered with and which can only pass 90W through to the attached system)
- TB16 w/ 240W power supply (not the 180W power supply it can also be ordered with, which on the TB16 isn't enough to pass 130W to the attached system. The TB16 is the predecessor of the WD19TB and I personally don't recommend it because it's had more than its fair share of complaints and the WD19TB doesn't seem to be generating nearly as many problems.)
- WD15 w/ 180W power supply (not the 130W power supply it can also be ordered with. This is the predecessor to the WD19.)
The main difference between those docks is that the WD19TB and TB16 are Thunderbolt 3 docks. As such, when paired with the XPS 15 7590 they can drive dual displays up to 4K 60 Hz each, and you can also connect another Thunderbolt 3 accessory to the dock, such as an external storage solution or external GPU. By comparison, the WD19 and WD15 are regular USB-C docks, and as such can only drive dual displays up to 1920x1200 and do not support attaching Thunderbolt peripherals -- and since the XPS 15 7590 only has a single USB-C/TB3 port (which is annoying in this day and age), if you ever wanted to connect a Thunderbolt 3 peripheral while also docked, that would become a problem.
Hopefully this helps!
Michael_DM
1 Message
0
November 28th, 2019 07:00
THANK YOU! This was very helpful!
Michael D.
Jer2675
3 Posts
0
December 4th, 2019 12:00
Is there a docking station for the XPS 7590 that will support 3 monitors and power the laptop while it's docked as well?
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
1
December 4th, 2019 13:00
@Jer2675 all of the dock options I mentioned above will power the XPS 15 7590. For three displays, you'd want a Thunderbolt dock, and I'd go with the WD19TB rather than the older TB16. But whether you can run three of them all from the dock depends on the resolutions of the displays in question, and that might also create restrictions around which combination of outputs you'll need to use. Grab the manual for the WD19TB on support.dell.com (direct link here for convenience) and check the Display Resolution Table. You'd want Table 6 for Thunderbolt systems, and the 7590 is an HBR2 system, not an HBR3 system.
Lastly, in order to run 3 external displays, you will need to disable the built-in display because the Intel GPU in that system only supports 3 simultaneous independent displays, regardless of how they're connected, and even if your system configuration includes the NVIDIA GPU, all displays would be physically wired to the Intel GPU and therefore subject to that limitation.
Jer2675
3 Posts
0
December 5th, 2019 05:00
Thank you so much for the detailed information and the link! This dock will work for a few of us in supporting three external monitors @ 1920 x 1080, however we have one setup with two monitors one running 3840 x 2160 and the other 1920 x 1080. From the looks of the display resolution table it doesn't look like that configuration can be supported. I know you said the XPS 7590 is an HBR2 system not and HBR3 but I'm a little confused by that. On the product page for the laptop Dell states that it will support up to 2 4k displays. (here is the link )
Thunderbolt™ 3 multi-use port allows you to charge your laptop, connect to multiple devices (including support for up to two 4K displays)
That would lead me to think you can have two external monitors running @ 3840 x 2160 but I'm not seeing this in the display resolution table for the HBR2, I do see it's possible with the HBR3 though. Would you have a recommendation on a laptop that supports HBR3?
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
2
December 5th, 2019 08:00
@Jer2675 a Thunderbolt-capable HBR2 system can run dual 4K displays, and that is indicated in Table 6 for Thunderbolt HBR2 systems -- but you have to scroll past the page break onto Page 23. The key with dual 4K on the WD19TB is that one of the 4K displays has to be connected to the "upstream" Thunderbolt port on the back of the dock (NOT the regular USB-C port near the HDMI port), using something like a USB-C to DisplayPort cable. That's why I said in my earlier post that depending on your display setup, there might be port restrictions depending on the bandwidth requirements of your proposed display setup. However, you can't run dual 4K + 1080p from a Thunderbolt HBR2 (DisplayPort 1.2) system
As for HBR3 (DisplayPort 1.3 and up), I've posted the gory detail below, but the short answer is that if you want an XPS 15 type of system (slim and light, fast CPU, discrete GPU), there's nothing in Dell's current lineup that would get you HBR3. You'd have to choose a model that would give you only 2 of those characteristics. So if you want to run a third external display, your best options are unfortunately to either connect the third display directly to the system's HDMI output or else to connect it through an adapter that uses "indirect display" technology like DisplayLink (not to be confused with DisplayPort). Those adapters plug into a regular USB port, so you could plug it into the dock, and they give you an HDMI or DisplayPort ouput. They would work because their display data would be compressed and transmitted as regular USB data, not native video data, so that display wouldn't "count" against your available GPU display bandwidth. However, DisplayLink technology has some significant drawbacks that I've written about in detail in this thread, specifically the post marked as the answer.
If you're curious about HBR3, there are very few HBR3 systems on the market right now for the simple reason that until recently, Intel GPUs didn't support HBR3, and even now only the only ones that do are their "Ice Lake" CPUs, which are a complete architectural redesign and include a new "Gen 11" GPU that supports HBR3. The "Ice Lake" CPUs are SOME, but not ALL, of the new Core 10th Gen CPUs; other 10th Gen CPUs are just a minor refresh of an architecture they've been making small refreshes to since Core 5th Gen. So Intel has really made their processor naming even more confusing than it's been for the past several years, and that's really saying something. For example, the XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 has the new Ice Lake CPUs and can run HBR3, but the regular XPS 13 7390 uses non-Ice Lake 10th Gen CPUs that do not support HBR3. Making matters worse for XPS 15 users, Ice Lake right now is only available for CPUs meant for systems that would otherwise have used the low-power (15W) U Series CPUs, like the XPS 13 models. The XPS 15 models use higher performance (45W) H Series CPUs, and Intel isn't slated to give those a major architectural redesign that would presumably include Intel's new GPU until late 2020 or even 2021.
The only way to get HBR3 support other than that is to have a system that has its built-in display connectors wired directly to its discrete GPU (assuming that GPU supported HBR3), but for reasons I can go into if you really want to know, that wiring design is very uncommon to see even among systems that have a discrete GPU in the first place, at least within Dell's product line. If you find it at all, it's often on gaming systems or big workstation-grade laptops, since there are some use cases for giving the discrete GPU direct control of the display output that are relevant to those markets (other than running higher-end display setups). But even Dell's high-end Alienware gaming systems to my knowledge still have their USB-C/TB3 ports wired to the Intel GPU even though they sometimes have other display connectors wired to the discrete GPU. On the workstation side, Precision 7000 Series laptops from the 7x20 models onward have a BIOS option allowing you to choose which GPU controls the outputs, which they can offer because they have a more complex motherboard design to enable that, so they would support HBR3 if you gave control of those ports to the discrete GPU. But those are a whole other animal from the XPS 15.
Sorry I don't have better news for you!
Jer2675
3 Posts
0
December 5th, 2019 09:00
I think I've learned more about laptop docking in the last 24 hours than I could of ever imagined... lol. Thanks again for all your help and taking the time to discuss this with me! From what I understand with all of this we should be able to then run the following configurations. With the Dell XPS 7590 and the WD19TD?
Setup 1
Dell XPS 7590 docked to WD19TD - Dock then going to 2 Display Port monitors @ 1920x1080 and 1 USB-C Monitor @ 1920x1080
Setup 2
Dell XPS 7590 docked to WD19TD - Dock then going to 2 Display Port monitors one @ 3840x2160 one @ 1920x1080
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
1
December 5th, 2019 11:00
@Jer2675 happy to help! Sorry for the length of the posts, but this is one of those situations where the devil is in the details and there are quite a few. In terms of your proposed setups, Setup 1 will work fine, and fyi if all three displays are 1080p, then you can use any combination of ports if USB-C isn't convenient, e.g. two on DisplayPort and one on HDMI, for example. For Setup 2, one of the displays will need to be connected via the USB-C/Thunderbolt "upstream" port. The reason is that when the WD19TB being used with a Thunderbolt-capable HBR2 system, which provides two full DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces, one of the interfaces is allocated to the "upstream" port and the other is allocated to be split across the remaining ports. A 4K 60 Hz display requires essentially an entire DisplayPort 1.2 interface all to itself, so if you use one of the "core" display output ports for it, you wouldn't be able to put the 1080p display on that same bank. If you want to learn even more about docking stations and the WD19TB in particular, I wrote a long "Demystifying WD19TB Supported Resolutions" thread here that goes into detail theorizing why the supported display resolutions and port restrictions are they way they are. All of the pertinent info is in the first post, then the thread sort of went off-topic. But the bottom line is that if you need to support setups involving a 4K 60 Hz display and ANYTHING else, you should stock up on some USB-C to DisplayPort cables so that one of the displays can always be connected to that "upstream" Thunderbolt port -- and again, NOT the regular USB-C port near the HDMI port. It has to be the one on the far edge of the dock.
nputer
8 Posts
0
December 11th, 2019 09:00
Hi jphughan,
Is it confirmed that the New XPS 13 2-in-1 7390 supports DP 1.4/HBR3?
I want to run 2 QHD displays from a docked 2-in-1 7390, and I believe the WD19 should work for this application (whereas a TB dock would've been needed for an HBR2 machine). Am I correct?
Also, do the monitors have to support DP1.4, or would DP1.2 monitors work? I.e. would using DP1.2 monitors knock everything down to 1.2 and prevent me from running them at QHD, if that makes sense...
Thanks!
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
December 11th, 2019 12:00
@nputer all CPUs available on the XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 -- not the regular XPS 13 7390 -- are the Ice Lake variety, whose GPU supports DP 1.4 over USB-C. I've seen no indication that it would be possible for a system to be designed in a way whereby the GPU could support DP 1.4 over USB-C but would be limited by some other component to DP 1.2 over USB-C. In addition, I read a post from someone a while ago saying that he was able to run a 4K 60 Hz display out of a DA300. That capability requires at least DP 1.3 over USB-C because the DA300 uses 2 USB-C high speed lanes for USB 3.x, which means only 2 DisplayPort lanes are available for video. The only way to get 4K 60 Hz out of USB-C using only 2 lanes is with DP 1.3 or better -- with a DP 1.2 system you can only run 4K 60 Hz over USB-C when the entire interface is dedicated to video -- but since no Intel GPU ever supported exactly DP 1.3, the logical conclusion is that it supports DP 1.4 as long as the device on the other end does. (But as it happens, DP 1.3 and DP 1.4 both have the same maximum bandwidth, called HBR3, so even DP 1.3 support would be enough to run dual QHD in a non-Thunderbolt dock setup.)
So while I haven't tested this myself, based on that information I would say that the 7390 2-in-1 supports DP 1.4 over USB-C, and therefore dual QHD from a regular WD19 will be possible. To the best of my knowledge, the displays would NOT need to support DP 1.4 themselves, because if they did then a) that requirement would severely limit the usefulness of the dock at this point because there are very few DP 1.4 displays on the market right now, and b) especially due to what I just said, I would expect a caveat like that to be mentioned in the WD19's documentation, but it only mentions the system's capabilities as an important factor. And from a technical standpoint, the reason I don't think the displays matter here is because the only bandwidth constraint is on the USB-C link between the system and the dock. Once all of the video data has been delivered to the dock, that gets split across two separate DisplayPort outputs, and a DisplayPort output can handle up to a single 4K 60 Hz display or dual QHD even in HBR2 (DP 1.2) mode, so there isn't a bandwidth concern on that side because each output is only carrying half the data that came in from the system. I seriously doubt that using an HBR2 display would force the link between the dock and the system down to HBR2 because the dock is operating as an active DisplayPort MST hub, not just a passthrough device, so it should be able to negotiate HBR3 on the input side from the system and HBR2 on the outputs.
All that said, given that the system comes standard with Thunderbolt 3, unless the WD19TB (Thunderbolt version) costs significantly more than the regular WD19, you might want to consider going with the WD19TB, just for futureproofing if nothing else. The WD19TB dock is even backward compatible with regular USB-C systems if needed, at a functionality level equivalent to the regular WD19. But otherwise, I believe the WD19 will be fine. Again, I can't speak from personal testing here, but that is my educated guess, and if I were in your position I would have no hesitation buying a WD19 to run a dual QHD setup from that system. Absolute worst case you can return it for a WD19TB of course, but I don't think that will be necessary at all.
nputer
8 Posts
0
December 12th, 2019 07:00
@jphughan I really appreciate your detailed reply, and all the time you've taken with your posts relating to dock functionality.
Have you seen the 7390 2-in-1 setup and specs guide? It seems to suggest DP 1.4 support as well on page 6: https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/xps-13-7390-2-in-1-laptop_setup-guide_en-us.pdf
I'd also imagine your are correct regarding the DP 1.2 displays working.
The WD19TB seems to generally be $100 more. I need 4 of them, so I'd rather save the money if the TB would not be beneficial to me currently. I'll only running the 2 QHD screens, gigabit ethernet, and keyboard/mouse through them. Do you think the WD19 would be able to handle that without throttling anything?
I guess the TB would allow me to add a third QHD or switch to 4k if I want to in the future. Something to consider...
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
1
December 12th, 2019 10:00
@nputer thanks for the kind words, and happy to help!
Nice find on the Setup & Specs guide! I hadn't seen that particular note, and other areas of that guide only mention "DisplayPort" rather than a particular version. Same for the specs on the product page, at least last time I checked. That's certainly a nice additional confirmation to have.
I didn't realize the price difference between those docks was so high. Last I checked it was only about $30 more for the TB version. The larger price difference might also be because the WD19 can be ordered with either a 130W or 180W power supply, whereas the WD19TB is only available with a 180W power supply -- and the XPS 13 works fine with the 130W version of the WD19. At a $100 difference, I agree that's a pretty steep price unless you really think you'd want to add that third QHD display or go 4K, as you say. I personally don't recommend going 4K unless your work requires that specific resolution (e.g. video editing) or you'll be using 42" displays where you can use 4K without any scaling so that all of those pixels are used for real estate rather than a sharp picture. For anything in between, the math reveals that 4K basically creates enough pixel density that you'll have to enable display scaling to keep things readable -- and some Windows apps still don't work with that very well -- but not enough pixel density to give you that true "Retina display" experience. The only exception is if you drop all the way down to a 24" 4K display, where density will be high enough for the latter experience, but if you're already running QHD displays, which are typically 27", I'm guessing that moving to 24" displays won't be in the cards. I myself am running dual 27" QHD displays and specifically avoided going 4K for the reasons I just described.
But yes, the WD19 will absolutely run your proposed setup without any throttling. You could even add an external SSD or something because you'll have a USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) data path to the WD19, which is entirely independent of the display data path because in a non-Thunderbolt setup, USB data and video are carried across completely separate, dedicated channels. That will change with USB 4.0, but that's how it is today.
nputer
8 Posts
1
January 4th, 2020 17:00
@jphughan
First off, I had the exact same reasoning in regards to not doing 4K for my 27s.
I ended up getting one WD19 and one WD19TB, and I'm encountering some strange behavior...
I just got the WD19 + 2x 27" QHD setup hooked up, and one of my 2-in-1 7390s is able to drive both screens at 2560x1440 without issue. The other one has one screen at 2560x1440 and the the other at 1920x1200. Both screens are connected with DP. Not sure what's up here besides the different specs of my 7390s -- the one that can drive both screens at full resolution has 4K screen and 32gb ram, and the the one that cannot has FHD screen and 16gb.
My WD19TB is at my office, so I cannot test if that produces different results right now (but I may go in tomorrow to see).
The other thing is the docking station integration isn't exactly seamless... First, the power button on the docking station doesn't seem to do anything. Second, when rebooting the computer, I have to log in with the laptop screen, shut the screen (putting the computer to sleep), and reconnect the docking station to get things back on the external displays. Not sure if the TB will yield different results with this either (hoping so).
Any insight would be appreciated! Thanks!
jphughan
9 Legend
9 Legend
•
14K Posts
0
January 4th, 2020 21:00
@nputer is the 7390 that's running 2560x1440 and 1920x1200 a 7390 2-in-1 or a regular 7390? If it's the latter, that model's line of Core 10th Gen CPUs don't use the new "Ice Lake" architecture that includes the new and more capable Gen 11 GPU, unlike the 7390 2-in-1 that does use those CPUs. Dell will be rectifying this with the new XPS 13 (non-2-in-1) that should be releasing later this month. It will have Ice Lake CPUs, at the cost of giving up a 6-core CPU option that the regular XPS 13 7390 has as a result of using the older architecture. With Core 10th Gen Intel really managed to make their CPU lineup even more confusing than it was before, and that is really saying something!
If they're both 2-in-1s then I'm not sure what's going on there. Even the lowest-end CPU available for the XPS 13 7390 2-in-1 (the i3-1005G1) is Ice Lake and has the Gen 11 GPU. It's the "G1" variant so its performance won't be as high, but its display and output support is identical to the higher-end CPUs according to the specs on ark.intel.com. If this is somehow by design due to some technical limitation, I can't see what the source of that would be, and if it were something as drastic as the CPU only supporting DisplayPort 1.2 over USB-C rather than DisplayPort 1.4, then I'm pretty sure you'd only have enough bandwidth for a single 2560x1440 display and then some really tiny resolution on the second display, not something as high as 1920x1200. I'm wondering if it might be some sort of firmware or driver issue that shouldn't exist but does anyway. Have you already checked Intel Graphics Control/Command Center to see if it offers anything different from Windows Display Settings?
Also, are you sure it's 1920x1200 rather than 1920x1080? The reason I ask is that 1920x1200 is a 16:10 aspect ratio resolution, but if the panel's native resolution is 2560x1440, then that would be a 16:9 display, in which case sending it a 16:10 signal would result in either horizontal stretching or black bars on the left and right. Or are your displays 2560x1600, which is 16:10?
The WD19TB should be able to run both displays at 2560x1440 no problem at all because that only requires about half the total video bandwidth available over TB3. You could run dual QHD even on an older system that only supported DP 1.2 over USB-C as long as it supported TB3.
As for the power button, that should definitely work, and if you use the dock's Power button to start your system, you should be able to keep the lid closed from the start, and also wake the system back up if you close the lid while it's already docked. That too sounds like a firmware issue to me, either with the WD19 or the XPS 13 7390. As a side story, I recently used a WD19 that started blasting its internal fan at very high speed, with resulting very high noise levels, for no apparent reason. The room's ambient temperature was normal, the attached laptop was idling with a fully charged battery, and there was only a keyboard, mouse, USB hard drive, and display plugged into the dock, so it was hardly under load. I found a few other reports of this spontaneous loud fan behavior on this forum, so there may still be some firmware kinks to be worked out with that dock.
But as a workaround, one thing you could consider doing is changing the lid close behavior to "Do Nothing" in Windows, then you can still put the system to sleep manually by right-clicking the Start button (or pressing WinKey+X) and selecting "Shut down or sign out > Sleep". As a pro tip, that can be accomplished rapidly with the keyboard by pressing WinKey+X, Up arrow, Up arrow, Right arrow, and then an appropriate number of up/down arrow presses depending on whether you have Hibernation enabled. I actually prefer putting my system to sleep this way because having worked in IT for a while, I've seen multiple cases of users closing their laptop lid and stuffing it into their bag not realizing that their laptop didn't actually go to sleep, at which point the laptop went on to overheat in their bag and damage itself.
Mike_WI
4 Posts
0
January 6th, 2020 14:00
I purchased two WD19TB docks for my XPS 15 7590. After a failed attempt using a TB16. It worked but only intermittently. I'm on the phone with Dell Tech Support that (other than telling me to talk to sales) and they tell me this isn't compatible. How are you supposed to navigate the Dell dock quagmire to find something that works. This isn't my first computer or dock rodeo, but it is the most difficult to figure out.