Reddit mentions of Gigabyte (Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Card Components Other GC-Alpine Ridge

Some mother boards, like my Gigabyte GA-Z170-Ultra Gaming supports an addon card like https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B0722SV69N/ref=ox_sc_saved_title_1?smid=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&psc=1 which is an Alpine Ridge TB3 chipset which is what Apple uses. Asus also has an Alpine Ridge addon card. This was the easiest way for me to get TB3 into my hack.

Feel free to argue this, but this plugs into a desktop, right? I can see the purpose on a laptop, but there are plenty of ways to achieve HDMI and USB over the USB C/thunderbolt connector. What makes this special?

It would almost certainly work if it works for the oculus... just failing to see how this is anything new.

Just so you get what I mean, this is an item that could be used to achieve this if one wanted it. Sure, the add in card is $60, and the adapters would add a bit more cost, but this would allow you to run both HDMI (in this case via the displayport) and USB 3 over the physical C/Thunderbolt interface without requiring a brand new Nvidia GPU to do so.

Edit: Found some previous discussion on this. This makes me excited to cut the current cable setup down to USB C form factor cables, honestly.

Something kind of cool, you can get a thunderbolt 3 PCIe card, and use your interface with what you have now, or any commodity board you buy in the future. https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-Alpine-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-Alpine/dp/B0722SV69N/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=thunderbolt+3+card&qid=1569991204&s=electronics&sr=1-3

As long as you're booting off of some kind of SSD now, I'd say go ahead with the GPU upgrade - the 5700XT is a good 2x bump from a 1060. (if not, budget $50 USD for a 500GB basic SSD of some reputable brand to tide you over - the difference is tremendous compared to a hard drive). The 4760k might hold the 5700XT back a BIT compared to newer CPUs in newer games which can utilize more than 4 threads, but you will still certainly notice a huge difference.

Thunderbolt 3? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0722SV69N

I'm not going to try and convince you to use Linux. Ultimately that's your choice and the only advice I can give is to try it. Dual boot at first until you get the hang of it, and if you think it's worth doing, try and live in Linux for a month without dual booting. Either you'll find you just can't make it work, or you'll figure out how to make it work. Only you can be the judge of whether it's worth making the switch.

But what I will do is try to convince you that you don't need to buy an Apple desktop computer.

A base model iMac Pro is ~$5k.

This system will let you install MacOS Mojave without having to do a bunch of hacky shit to get it to work, perform equal or better in all but the most heavily multithreaded tasks where it will only fall behind by a very small margin, for ~$2k less.

PCPartPicker part list / Price breakdown by merchant

Type|Item|Price

----|:----|:----
CPU | Intel - Core i7-8086K 4GHz 6-Core Processor | $439.89 @ B&H
CPU Cooler | Thermaltake - Water 3.0 Extreme S 99.0 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler | $79.99 @ Amazon
Motherboard | Gigabyte - Z370 AORUS Gaming 7 (rev. 1.0) ATX LGA1151 Motherboard | $218.50 @ OutletPC
Memory | Corsair - Vengeance LPX 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR4-3000 Memory | $279.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Samsung - 860 Evo 250GB 2.5" Solid State Drive | $55.99 @ Amazon
Storage | Samsung - 970 Pro 1.0TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive | $397.79 @ Amazon
Storage | Hitachi - Ultrastar 7K4000 4TB 3.5" 7200RPM Internal Hard Drive | $99.88 @ Amazon
Video Card | MSI - Radeon RX VEGA 56 8GB Air Boost 8G OC Video Card | $449.99 @ Amazon
Case | Phanteks - Enthoo Pro M Tempered Glass (Black) ATX Mid Tower Case | $99.99 @ Amazon
Power Supply | EVGA - SuperNOVA G3 650W 80+ Gold Certified Fully-Modular ATX Power Supply | $59.77 @ B&H
Other | Broadcom Bcm94360cs2 Bcm94360cs2ax Bcm4360 Bluetooth Bt Wireless Wifi Card Module for Apple Laptop A1465 A1466 653-0023 802.11ac | $34.49 @ Amazon
Other | Apple - Magic Keyboard with Numeric Keypad - Space Gray | $141.99 @ Amazon
Other | BenQ EW3270U 31.5 inch 4K HDR Monitor,FreeSync, True 10-Bit, 95% DCI-P3, 100% Rec.709, Eye-Care, USB Type-C, Built-in Speakers | $586.68 @ Newegg
Other | Magic Mouse 2 - Space Gray | $92.50 @ Adorama
| Prices include shipping, taxes, rebates, and discounts |
| Total (before mail-in rebates) | $3057.44
| Mail-in rebates | -$20.00
| Total | $3037.44
| Generated by PCPartPicker 2018-10-15 06:47 EDT-0400 |

The differences:

6 cores/12 threads instead of 8 cores/16 threads
4ghz clock speed with 5ghz boost instead of 3.2ghz clock speed with 4.2ghz boost
Doesn't use ECC RAM, which is unimportant for the vast majority of people.
You'll need an expansion card for Thunderbolt 3. ($60) It must go in the bottom PCI-E 16x slot and you won't be able to use the bottom M.2 slot as a result. It also can be a little tricky to set up according to the forums.
4k monitor instead of 5k display. You could buy the LG 5k display (same panel as iMac Pro) from Apple's store if it's really that important to you, although it's about $1300, lacks HDR support and is 5 inches smaller. Although if the display is really that important to you, you should probably just buy the iMac Pro.
ATX Mid Tower with proper cooling instead of wedging all this crap behind the monitor where it's choked for air and thermal throttles constantly.

I based the parts off of this build while trying to match the specs of the iMac Pro as closely as possible. You could start cutting costs and easily bring this price down by quite a bit.

If you don't care about having Mac peripherals, you can cut the keyboard and mouse and replace them with something cheaper and save about $150-200. If you don't need an RX Vega 56, you could go with an RX 470 and save about $250. If you don't need a 4ghz processor or all those cores, you could go with something a bit cheaper and save some money there. If you don't care about watercooling or a little fan noise, you could go for cheaper air cooling and save 30 or 40 bucks. None of those changes would introduce problems with installing MacOS.

And with the included 250gb SSD, you can install a Linux distro of your choice to that drive and use the Boot Menu to dual boot. Or install Windows if you like. Or install Linux and then run MacOS Mojave as a VM with KVM/QEMU. Whatever tickles your fancy.

Apple makes some great stuff, but given their price premium, their hostility to right-of-repair and how bloody easy it is to install MacOS on off the shelf components I don't see why anyone would spend more for Apple hardware.

You're right, he's using a better processor. I guarantee you a 1 gbps Ethernet port won't be a bottleneck until long after your computer's obsolete but if you need 10 for some reason you can get a PCIe one. Same thing with Thunderbolt.

If you really need ECC RAM in your personal computer for whatever reason you can you can replace that motherboard and RAM with this and two of these.

We're still under the iMac Pro in price after all these changes btw.

Not sure where to get one from a canadian retailers but you can buy thunderbolt 3 pcie cards from amazon.com although it is expensive.
https://www.amazon.com/gp/offer-listing/B0722SV69N/ref=dp_olp_0?ie=UTF8&condition=all

NVME ssd for the same price.

[Thunderbolt 3 is included, but if you would like to add more]
(https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-ALPINE-RIDGE/dp/B0722SV69N/ref=sr_1_3?s=electronics&ie=UTF8&qid=1527355155&sr=1-3&keywords=Thunderbolt+3+card)

10Gb Nic

ECC is only included because of the processor Apple uses. It will literally give you no benefit unless you want to use your IMac Pro as a server (God forbid).

5k display was included at the bottom.

I'm still $900+ cheaper.

I don't think USB3 to thunderbolt adapters are a thing. You need a computer with a thunderbolt port (or the ability to add a thunderbolt card via PCIe card), or an interface with USB3.

https://www.uaudio.com/audio-interfaces/apollo-twin-usb.html

https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-Alpine-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-Alpine/dp/B0722SV69N?th=1

Seriously!?!? Y tho!?

Appreciate your assistance but this just baffles me... I mean it seems like most modern laptops you can buy have thunderbolt support, but not custom pcs? Gaaah! This obstacle alone might have me rethink if I should build a pc or just buy something with friggin thunderbolt support...

Does the mobo necessarily have to support thunderbolt 3 right off the bat? Couldn't you just buy something like this to make it compatible?:

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Alpine-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-Alpine/dp/B0722SV69N#customerReviews

I've only ever seen this done on a pci card, never an external adapter/cable. For newer PCs I'd recommend using a TB3 card like https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Alpine-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-Alpine/dp/B0722SV69N (this is the one I use) but those HP boxes don't support it. The Dell might work but check that the TB3 header is actually present on your motherboard first. You'll also probably need a BIOS update.

For older motherboards that don't support TB3 addon cards, something like this one should work: https://www.amazon.com/Dual-USB-C-Express-Alternate-Mode-UPD2018/dp/B01MY4WRBU

Both cards work by looping the DP output of your video card back in using a short jumper cable.

Looks like they are EOL now.


Amazon UK sell them via the US store which will come in a week and you pay income charges upfront.

I guess this

You can grab a regular motherboard as I’m not sure if many have thunderbolt 3 ports. You can always grab something like this for tb3 access if you have an available slot on the motherboard.
https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-Alpine-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-Alpine/dp/B0722SV69N

No motherboards have thunderbolt. Period. If they exist on consumer boards, I haven't seen it. Some have an internal Thunderbolt port. COuple that with a $100 thunderbolt PCIe card and you can get it.

motherboard and card

You won't be able to do it over USB-C. You will need Thunderbolt 3. A certified PCIe to Thunderbolt 3 card will cost about $60 on Amazon.

Personally, spending $60 to eliminate one cable isn't worth it. Just run the DisplayPort cable from your GPU to the Wacom and a USB 3.0 from your PC to the Wacom. It comes with both cables, so you don't need to spend more money than necessary.

would you consider buying a thunderbolt PCIE card?

https://www.amazon.ca/Gigabyte-Alpine-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-Alpine/dp/B0722SV69N

Would something like this work?

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-ALPINE-RIDGE/dp/B0722SV69N

OFC PCIe cards for that exist. Not exactly cheap, but they exist.

https://www.amazon.com/Gigabyte-Thunderbolt-Components-GC-ALPINE-RIDGE/dp/B0722SV69N