I have never seen that kind of 12v power connector used externally. The cable and connector might be interesting if they are different than the usual ones used inside modern PC.
It's fairly popular in the development board space to have "!! NOT PCIe POWER !!" 12V power supplies that use this connector. They're also obnoxious to RMA because it's a subcontracted kit component provided by the electronics distributor from the silicon company's outsourced design…
Well this type of device really shows that TB3/USB4 is becoming the new PCIe slots and expansion external.
Actually they are better, because they give you the switching capabilities the current fixed lane allocations are missing--at least up to the 4 lanes they support.
Of course it creates a cabling mess I'd really rather shove into a tower...
Somebody please solve this conflict between flexibility and tidyness at low cost and high quality!
Very interesting, especially with 10 GbE for that price.
But why only DisplayPort 1.2? If this was indeed "designed primarily for digital imaging professionals", can we at least get DisplayPort 1.4? And maybe an HDMI connector? Not to mention 100W power, because chances are you're running a computer that can draw more than 60W at full load?
And because OWC's target market is Apple users, and the only time a max spec MBP actually draws >60W is early in the charging process for an almost dead battery while also maxing out the CPU/GPU. Once it gets a bit of a charge in and things start to get hot the charging rate is reduced to maximize the number of available charge cycles.
Actually, Thunderbolt 3 can now carry a DisplayPort 1.4 signal, assuming your Thunderbolt-equipped machine has a Titan Ridge controller.
As a sidenote, it's *really* annoying that Intel improved the capabilities of Thunderbolt 3 that way without issuing any kind of version update to the Thunderbolt standard - at the bare minimum call it "Thunderbolt 3.1". That's the main reason why no one knew about this.
Also, and I realize this is just anecdotal, but I'm a hardcore Apple user who had to buy a separate Thunderbolt/USB-C to DisplayPort 1.4 cable because the DisplayPort port built into my Elgato Thunderbolt 3 dock was only DisplayPort 1.2.
As it's now been almost two years since the release of Titan Ridge, and every new Mac with Thunderbolt and a discrete GPU has the ability to output DisplayPort 1.4, there's absolutely positively no excuse for putting DisplayPort 1.2 on a *brand new* Thunderbolt 3 dock.
Aside from that very rare person that desperately needs eSATA pr Compact Flash I can't see why _anyone_ would buy this over the CalDigit TS3+ https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus (which I have and love).
60W power is laughable for a "Desktop dock". One free USB-C port is laughable. You're supposed to manually turn the fan on/off?!?!
CF Slot, but not XQD? Near term obsolescence built in for half the market that would find this een remotely interesting.
OWC has weird product designers... this seems to be a thing for them.
10GbE is a pretty good reason. That alone would be about $150-200. But if you don't need that, eSATA or CFast then the OWC/AKiTiO is obviously not a very good option. The set of ports on the CalDigit is great. For instance: there's 7 USB ports, of which 2 are USB-C!
Personally I'm looking for a TB3 dock and I would prefer to have 10GbE, at least two USB-A, one USB-C and one eSATA. The latter I actually find extreme useful for copying data from repurposed S-ATA hard drives, as well backing up to external drives. 10GbE is more of a deal-breaker though, considering the high cost of adding it separately and the possibility of using a somewhat slower USB dock for the HDDs. Does anyone know of other 10GbE dock options? (Other than OWC/AKiTiO I mean.)
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valinor89 - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
I have never seen that kind of 12v power connector used externally. The cable and connector might be interesting if they are different than the usual ones used inside modern PC.thomasrm - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
It's fairly popular in the development board space to have "!! NOT PCIe POWER !!" 12V power supplies that use this connector. They're also obnoxious to RMA because it's a subcontracted kit component provided by the electronics distributor from the silicon company's outsourced design…abufrejoval - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Well this type of device really shows that TB3/USB4 is becoming the new PCIe slots and expansion external.Actually they are better, because they give you the switching capabilities the current fixed lane allocations are missing--at least up to the 4 lanes they support.
Of course it creates a cabling mess I'd really rather shove into a tower...
Somebody please solve this conflict between flexibility and tidyness at low cost and high quality!
jydurocher - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
A bit expensive, would be great at 199$. Still will consider it for ingest in a laptop.chaos215bar2 - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Very interesting, especially with 10 GbE for that price.But why only DisplayPort 1.2? If this was indeed "designed primarily for digital imaging professionals", can we at least get DisplayPort 1.4? And maybe an HDMI connector? Not to mention 100W power, because chances are you're running a computer that can draw more than 60W at full load?
DanNeely - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
because TB3 only supports DP1.2?And because OWC's target market is Apple users, and the only time a max spec MBP actually draws >60W is early in the charging process for an almost dead battery while also maxing out the CPU/GPU. Once it gets a bit of a charge in and things start to get hot the charging rate is reduced to maximize the number of available charge cycles.
Adam-James - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Actually, Thunderbolt 3 can now carry a DisplayPort 1.4 signal, assuming your Thunderbolt-equipped machine has a Titan Ridge controller.As a sidenote, it's *really* annoying that Intel improved the capabilities of Thunderbolt 3 that way without issuing any kind of version update to the Thunderbolt standard - at the bare minimum call it "Thunderbolt 3.1". That's the main reason why no one knew about this.
Adam-James - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Also, and I realize this is just anecdotal, but I'm a hardcore Apple user who had to buy a separate Thunderbolt/USB-C to DisplayPort 1.4 cable because the DisplayPort port built into my Elgato Thunderbolt 3 dock was only DisplayPort 1.2.As it's now been almost two years since the release of Titan Ridge, and every new Mac with Thunderbolt and a discrete GPU has the ability to output DisplayPort 1.4, there's absolutely positively no excuse for putting DisplayPort 1.2 on a *brand new* Thunderbolt 3 dock.
AdditionalPylons - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Isn't this just a rebrand of the AKiTiO Thunder3 Dock Pro? It looks identical in every way except the logo. https://www.akitio.com/adapters/thunder3-dock-proYou covered it a year ago. https://www.anandtech.com/show/13491/akitio-thunde...
Anyhow I would love to see more docks with multi-gigabit ethernet. The AKiTiO is $350 so at least this new OWC model is $10 cheaper. =)
edtasdf - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
It is a rebadge, it's the same dock just a new name (and OWC bought Akitio).FreckledTrout - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
I wonder if they ever thought to merge something like this dock and a kvm?jb510 - Thursday, November 7, 2019 - link
Aside from that very rare person that desperately needs eSATA pr Compact Flash I can't see why _anyone_ would buy this over the CalDigit TS3+ https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus (which I have and love).60W power is laughable for a "Desktop dock". One free USB-C port is laughable. You're supposed to manually turn the fan on/off?!?!
CF Slot, but not XQD? Near term obsolescence built in for half the market that would find this een remotely interesting.
OWC has weird product designers... this seems to be a thing for them.
AdditionalPylons - Friday, November 8, 2019 - link
10GbE is a pretty good reason. That alone would be about $150-200. But if you don't need that, eSATA or CFast then the OWC/AKiTiO is obviously not a very good option.The set of ports on the CalDigit is great. For instance: there's 7 USB ports, of which 2 are USB-C!
Personally I'm looking for a TB3 dock and I would prefer to have 10GbE, at least two USB-A, one USB-C and one eSATA. The latter I actually find extreme useful for copying data from repurposed S-ATA hard drives, as well backing up to external drives. 10GbE is more of a deal-breaker though, considering the high cost of adding it separately and the possibility of using a somewhat slower USB dock for the HDDs.
Does anyone know of other 10GbE dock options? (Other than OWC/AKiTiO I mean.)
umano - Thursday, March 26, 2020 - link
It looks exactly the same as the Akitio one which costs 60 dollars less but it has 2 USB gen1 ports.Even the layout is exactly the same