max resolution for dual monitors?

I found this link:

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln305150/some-systems-with-usb-type-c-port-lack-a-thunderbolt-3-controller

It says:

"Systems that have optional Thunderbolt 3 capability will have a USB/Thunderbolt configuration option listed in the BIOS regardless of having a Thunderbolt 3 option installed."

So, although the options are NOT greyed out in my BIOS (I haven't checked my wife's yet), that doesn't necessarily mean that the Thunderbolt 3 option is "installed". How can I tell if it is actually installed?

Also, this doesn't say anything about how to tell the difference between Thunderbolt 2 and 3.

Thunderbolt 3 aside, what about the E-Port Plus II dock? Again, I'm not sure if my wife's Latitude 7480 has a E-Port connector, but mine does. Regardless, I found the following:

https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln300546/e-port-plus-and-4k-displays?lang=en

This says:

"The DisplayPort Video ports will only display DUAL 4k x 2k resolution @ 30 Hz refresh rate on MST equipped systems.

If your system is equipped with Discrete NVidia or AMD graphics, then dual 4k x 2k displays @ 60 Hz can be achieved using the E-Port Plus dock."

My laptop has switchable AMD FirePro W5130M graphics, but I suspect my wife's only has Intel integrated (not sure which version). It is unclear whether or not the 2nd statement supersedes the 1st (i.e. does having Discrete AMD graphics allow 4k@60Hz regardless of whether or not the system has MST).

How can I even tell if our systems have MST or not?

Thanks!

What about my questions regarding the E-Port Plus II?

Actually, I suspect that my wife's Latitude 7480 DOES have an E-Port connector on the bottom because some of my work colleagues have 7470s which apparently DO have the connector. Unless of course they removed it for the 7480...

@TomLXXVIII, Thank you for the question.

For your 3510: Since your 3510 has the Thunderbolt logo you can use the TB16 Docking Station: https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-business-thunderbolt-dock-tb16-with-240w-adapter/apd/452-bcnu/p...

As you will see in the following link, the Dock Supports 2 Displays with 4k@60Hz: https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln301105/dell-thunderbolt-dock-tb16-information-and-s...

For your 7480: You can check in device manager, under Chipset, to see if you have Thunderbolt. You can also use this link to check for Thunderbolt: https://www.dell.com/support/article/us/en/04/sln305150/some-systems-with-usb-type-c-port-lack-a-thu...

Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 uses miniDP

Thunderbolt 3 uses USB Type-C connector

If your 7480 does not have the Thunderbolt logo, you'd be looking into the WD15 docking Station, which does support a single display @4k@30Hz, but not at 60Hz.

Here's a Specs link to the WD15:<ADMIN NOTE: Broken link has been removed from this post by Dell>

 You can find the WD15 here: https://www.dell.com/en-us/work/shop/dell-business-dock-wd15-with-180w-adapter-with-dib-mdp-to-dp-ca... Hope that helps you out.

@TomLXXVIII  you should definitely determine whether your systems have Thunderbolt 3, because Thunderbolt 3 makes 4x more display bandwidth available than USB-C with those systems.  With regular USB-C on those systems, you'd be limited to dual displays at 1920x1200 each, whereas Thunderbolt 3 allows dual displays up to 4K 60 Hz.  In terms of how to tell whether you have Thunderbolt 3, one way would be to go to the BIOS Setup interfaces of each system and check the Thunderbolt Configuration section.  If all of the options are grayed out, you don't have it.  If you can toggle options, you do.

If it turns out that one system has Thunderbolt and the other doesn't, your best dock option would arguably be the WD19TB, because that dock will take advantage of Thunderbolt 3 when connected to a system that supports it, but unlike most Thunderbolt peripherals on the market, it's also backward compatible with regular USB-C systems (at reduced functionality equivalent to the regular WD19).  That backward compatibility comes courtesy of the relatively new Intel Titan Ridge controller chip.  Otherwise, if you got a regular USB-C dock like the WD19, it wouldn't make full use of Thunderbolt systems, and if you got pretty much any other Thunderbolt dock on the market right now, including the older TB16, it wouldn't work at all with regular USB-C systems.

The manual for the WD19TB that you can find on support.dell.com will tell you the maximum available resolutions.  Note that both of your systems are HBR2/DisplayPort 1.2 systems.

@TomLXXVIII  yes, even systems that don’t have Thunderbolt will have that section of BIOS settings with those options visible — but as I said, those systems will have all of those options grayed out, whereas they will be configurable on systems that actually have Thunderbolt. I’m speaking from direct experience with both types of systems here.

Thunderbolt 1 and 2 only use a Mini-DisplayPort connector, and Thunderbolt 3 only uses USB-C. To my knowledge Dell never made any TB1 or TB2 systems. I think the only laptop systems that ever had that were Apple systems, and then there were some Mac and PC desktop systems/motherboards that had it.

The Latitude 7480 does not have an E-Port underside connector. The E7470 does. The key is the “E” prefix that exists in the latter’s model name and that’s missing on the former’s. That prefix was always used for Latitude systems to indicate the generation of underside docking station connector they used, so before the Latitude E series systems there were systems like the Latitude D820 that used a D-Port Dock. Some Precision systems also had D- and E-Dock connectors, but for some reason they never used that prefix system in their model names.

The resolution note you found applies to systems when sending video through an E-Dock connector. It does not apply to Thunderbolt 3 or even regular USB-C connections where the display setup limits that I mentioned above (and that are also listed in the manuals of those docking stations) would apply.

@DELL-Justin C  the Thunderbolt controller only appears in Device Manager when an actual Thunderbolt device is connected (not just a USB-C device) and at least on my Thunderbolt-equipped 7480, it appears in the System Devices section, not Chipset.

So, assuming both systems have Thunderbolt 3, the last question is whether or not the graphics controller on each laptop can actually drive dual 4k@60Hz monitors. Mine has Intel HD 530 AND AMD FirePro W5130M. Not sure exactly what she has, but I'm guessing it is Intel HD 620 since she has a gen 7 Intel CPU.

@TomLXXVIII  Intel GPUs since at least the HD 4600, included in Core 4th Gen CPUs and older than both of the Intel GPUs in your systems, have supported 3 simultaneous independent displays at up to 4K 60 Hz each as long as the necessary display outputs to actually run that setup have been present.  Dell's Thunderbolt 3 systems all have two DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces wired from the GPU to the Thunderbolt 3 controller, which allows dual 4K 60 Hz displays to be driven from that port.

And while it won't be relevant to your combination of systems, if you're curious, the MST limitation you referred to a while ago with E-Dock systems didn't refer to MST support within the system, which is a common and useful capability.  It referred to systems that have an Intel GPU and use an internal MST controller in order to drive dual dock displays from a single DisplayPort 1.2 interface coming off the GPU.  That's why you're limited to 4K 30 Hz when running two displays in such systems.  Basically, a 4K 60 Hz display requires almost an entire DisplayPort 1.2 interface of bandwidth.  In systems that have an E-Dock connector and a discrete GPU, the dGPU has two DisplayPort 1.2 interfaces wired to the dock, which is why they can run dual 4K 60 Hz displays.  But E-Dock systems that only have an Intel GPU run the entire dock from a single DisplayPort 1.2 interface.  DisplayPort MST is a technology that allows multiple independent displays to be driven from a single DisplayPort output.  So that means such systems can still run dual displays through an E-Dock, but there's still only one interface's worth of bandwidth, which means either a single 4K 60 Hz display or dual 4K 30 Hz displays.  But again, that's not relevant to your case because your 7480 doesn't even have that E-Dock connector and Thunderbolt 3 is wired differently.

Ok, real final questions...

Why the TB16, and not a different Thunderbolt 3 dock like the TB18DC, or WD19TB? Or for that matter, why not a 3rd-party brand Thunderbolt 3 dock like any of these?

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-thunderbolt-dock/

Also, what about USB 3.x docks with DisplayLink technology? My understanding is that this allows multiple high-res displays over a relatively low bandwidth link by only sending the pixels that are changing during each frame.

@TomLXXVIIIthe TB18DC uses a system connector that plugs into two Thunderbolt 3 interfaces, so it only works with Dell systems that actually have two Thunderbolt 3 ports (and spaced the same way as the ports on the connector).  It's also only intended for systems that require up to 210W of power to be driven properly, which isn't the case for either of your systems.  The newer WD19DC uses a similar setup, except the two ports on the dual-port connector are attached to each other magnetically, which means that connector can be separated to make the dock usable with systems that only have a single port.  But again, you don't need that much power for either of your systems, so it doesn't deliver any benefit to you, and in fact when you use the WD19DC with only a single connection to the system, it operates as a regular WD19, with the same display setup limitations as that model (dual displays up to 1920x1200), NOT as a WD19TB that can run dual displays up to 4K 60 Hz.

The WD19TB is what I would (and did) recommend over the TB16 since the WD19TB is the TB16's successor.  But if you get the TB16, make sure you get the version with a 240W adapter, not the 180W adapter it can also be ordered with.  The reason is that your Precision 3510 requires 130W all on its own for normal performance, and the TB16 can only provide that when it is driven by a 240W adapter.  The WD19TB can provide 130W to an attached system from a 180W adapter, and therefore the WD19TB only has a 180W version.  Other than that, the key changes on the WD19TB compared to the TB16 are a slightly different port setup, the modular design (more relevant to businesses that have lots of these), backward compatibility with non-Thunderbolt devices, and support for DisplayPort 1.4 from attached systems rather than just 1.2.  Neither of your systems support DisplayPort 1.4 over USB-C/TB3, and that's admittedly more relevant to non-Thunderbolt systems for bandwidth reasons related to Thunderbolt 3, but that support can nonetheless be a useful bit of futureproofing.  And while it's admittedly a bit early, the WD19TB doesn't seem to be generating the same number of problem reports as the TB16, which seemed a bit hit or miss in terms of reliability.

As for third-party docks, none of them can provide 130W to the attached system as your Precision 3510 requires for optimal performance.  The reason is that the USB Power Delivery spec officially maxes out at 100W, so Dell is doing something proprietary to stretch that to 130W -- but that's only available with certain Dell docks.  And actually, most third-party docks don't even provide the full 100W allowed by the standard.  They usually max out at either 60W (the most that can be delivered without using special cables rated for 5 amps rather than the standard 3 amps) or 87W (to support the 15" MacBook Pro).  Of course you could use a third-party dock and then just keep your 3510's AC adapter also connected, but that's not as convenient.

As for DisplayLink docks like the D6000, first of all none of Dell's DisplayLink docks support 130W Power Delivery, and second of all DisplayLink's design comes with a whole raft of drawbacks that I wrote about in this thread, specifically the post marked as the answer.  The original question was about gaming, but my answer covered a lot more than that.  Those drawbacks may or may not be relevant to your use case, but they're worth knowing about.  And if you're "only" trying to run dual 4K 60 Hz displays and both of your systems have Thunderbolt, then you don't need DisplayLink to run your desired setup anyway.  There will still be plenty of bandwidth for Ethernet, USB 3.1, etc. on a Thunderbolt 3 link even while running dual 4K 60 Hz displays, especially when you remember that Thunderbolt 3 can run 40 Gbps in each direction simultaneously, and display traffic only goes one way.

@TomLXXVIII  in addition to my reply above addressing your questions about various dock models, since you seem to be interested in learning about the underlying technology rather than just getting answers, I figured I'd share a bit more if you're up for some reading.  The first thing I'd recommend reading is a technical post I wrote about the various operating modes of USB-C and Thunderbolt 3, including their impact on possible display setups, in this thread.  That will give you the foundation necessary for understanding how these concepts are implemented in various docks, which I'll explain below.

The WD15 operates in the USB-C docking station mode I described in the thread linked above, with two DisplayPort lanes available for display traffic.  The WD15 only supports DisplayPort 1.2/HBR2.

The TB16 operates in the Thunderbolt mode I described in the thread linked above, with 8 DisplayPort lanes available (assuming the system has two full 4-lane DisplayPort interfaces wired to the TB3 controller, which all Dell systems equipped with TB3 do, to my knowledge.)  The TB16 also only supports HBR2, and it only supports Thunderbolt 3 systems.

The TB18DC works just like the TB16 except the second connector carries additional power, allowing it to deliver up to 210W rather than the 130W max of the TB16.

The WD19 operates in the same mode as the WD15, except it can support DisplayPort 1.4/HBR3 if the system provides it, in which case higher-end display setups are possible because even though there are still only 2 lanes, there's more bandwidth available per lane.  When used with an HBR2 system, it works just like a WD15.  The WD19 manual on support.dell.com has separate tables to indicate what setups are possible with HBR2 vs. HBR3 systems, although at the moment there are very few HBR3 systems on the market, mostly because current Intel GPUs only support HBR2 and the overwhelming majority of systems that include discrete GPUs still have the Intel GPU directly wired to the USB-C/TB3 output for reasons not relevant to this discussion.  Anyhow, that limitation will disappear soon with Intel's upcoming "Ice Lake" CPUs that will include a new Gen 11 GPU that will support DisplayPort 1.4/HBR3 over USB-C/TB3.  That's expected to arrive by the end of the year, initially in systems like the XPS 13.

The WD19TB when used with a non-Thunderbolt system works just like a WD19.  When used with a Thunderbolt system that supports HBR2, it works just like the TB16.  When used with a Thunderbolt system that supports HBR3, you get 5 DisplayPort lanes because carrying more HBR3 lanes than that would exceed the overall 40 Gbps bandwidth limit of Thunderbolt 3 itself.  The WD19TB also works a bit differently in terms of how it allocates those lanes across its display outputs, which means that running certain display setups requires you to connect the displays to specific outputs.  I wrote another detailed thread about that here if you're really curious.

The WD19DC does NOT work quite like the TB18DC, because it doesn't support Thunderbolt 3, although it makes better use of the additional connector.  When used with a single-port system, the WD19DC operates just like the WD19.  But when used with a dual-port system, the second connector carries additional power and an additional 4 DisplayPort lanes of either HBR2 or HBR3, whichever the system supports, bringing the total display bandwidth to 6 DisplayPort lanes across the two connections.

So, even though my Precision 3510 apparently has Thunderbolt 3 support, the 3510 is NOT on the list of compatible modes for the WD19TB according to this:

https://topics-cdn.dell.com/pdf/dell-wd19tb-dock_Users-Guide3_en-us.pdf

Comments?

@TomLXXVIII  this is still going on?  Unfortunately it's not uncommon for Dell's compatibility lists to be incomplete, which can make it tough to determine whether a given product isn't on the list simply because Dell didn't test it or because it's known NOT to be compatible.  Systems not being on the list for the former reason is especially common with systems that launched either significantly before the accessory in question or even slightly after the accessory in question, and there are many examples of accessories that work with those systems despite not listing them in their compatibility list.  If I were in your position I'd buy a WD19TB, especially because worst case I could simply return it.  But if it bothers you, go buy the older TB16 instead.  If you go with the latter, make sure you get one with a 240W power supply rather than the 180W it's also available with, since the TB16 requires a 240W supply to be able to provide 130W to the attached system, as is required for the Precision 3510.  The WD19TB only comes with a 180W power supply, but that's enough for that model to supply up to 130W to the attached system.