The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC • Hacker News Board

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#61

Post by smarx007 » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:21 PM UTC

tomekowal wrote: post #12

I see standing desk and a monitor arm. My question is: does the arm wobble much when you adjust height? If not: what kind of arm are you using?

All arms will wobble a certain amount if you try adjusting the position with one hand. Just use two hands and there will be not much wobbling.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#62

Post by rektide » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:22 PM UTC

it's funny because in the modern era the northridge is now on CPU package and the south bridge/io-hub is not even in the box any more!

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#63

Post by gehwartzen » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:23 PM UTC

rmorey wrote: post #29

gehwartzen wrote: post #21

Thunderbolt 3 really is amazing. Im using a OWC Thunderbolt Dock to connect my MacBook to: an eGPU thats driving a 5K monitor, a 1TB TB3 SSD, and 24/96 USB audio to my stereo. All over one cable. BTW if your using TB3 as your main connection to your laptop I highly recommend a magnetic TB3 adapter. This has been working great in my setup for over a year and makes docking/undocking a snap. https://www.amazon.com/Magne…

what egpu do you have?

Right now it's a Radeon Vega 64 in a Sonnet Breakaway Box. My monitor is a HP Z27Q and its being driving over two Diplayport Cables to get 5K resolution.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#64

Post by gehwartzen » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:26 PM UTC

benfrain wrote: post #58

gehwartzen wrote: post #21

Thunderbolt 3 really is amazing. Im using a OWC Thunderbolt Dock to connect my MacBook to: an eGPU thats driving a 5K monitor, a 1TB TB3 SSD, and 24/96 USB audio to my stereo. All over one cable. BTW if your using TB3 as your main connection to your laptop I highly recommend a magnetic TB3 adapter. This has been working great in my setup for over a year and makes docking/undocking a snap. https://www.amazon.com/Magne…

Amazing, like MagSafe again. I'm thinking that may be the way forward to avoid a KVM. With TB — can you literally just unplug from one Laptop/PC and connect to another and everything is back up and running on the 2nd computer?

Yep! As long as each PC is setup with all the necessary drivers and such its all plug and play. No issues with just ripping the cable out of my MacBook without "undocking" anything. It just reverts to the internal display without issues.

I kind of wish there were manual/dumb TB3 switches for this sort of thing but I have not seen any.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#65

Post by nicolas_t » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:27 PM UTC

tutfbhuf wrote: post #36

gehwartzen wrote: post #21

Thunderbolt 3 really is amazing. Im using a OWC Thunderbolt Dock to connect my MacBook to: an eGPU thats driving a 5K monitor, a 1TB TB3 SSD, and 24/96 USB audio to my stereo. All over one cable. BTW if your using TB3 as your main connection to your laptop I highly recommend a magnetic TB3 adapter. This has been working great in my setup for over a year and makes docking/undocking a snap. https://www.amazon.com/Magne…

Is it possible to buy an PCIe to TB3 adapter cable and connect any modern graphics card to a laptop or mini atx board that has TB3?

Yes, it is. There's a few egpu enclosure. Take a look at egpu.info There's a small performance penalty and it's not always perfectly reliable but it works well enough and is very convenient.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#66

Post by gehwartzen » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:30 PM UTC

benfrain wrote: post #58

gehwartzen wrote: post #21

Thunderbolt 3 really is amazing. Im using a OWC Thunderbolt Dock to connect my MacBook to: an eGPU thats driving a 5K monitor, a 1TB TB3 SSD, and 24/96 USB audio to my stereo. All over one cable. BTW if your using TB3 as your main connection to your laptop I highly recommend a magnetic TB3 adapter. This has been working great in my setup for over a year and makes docking/undocking a snap. https://www.amazon.com/Magne…

Amazing, like MagSafe again. I'm thinking that may be the way forward to avoid a KVM. With TB — can you literally just unplug from one Laptop/PC and connect to another and everything is back up and running on the 2nd computer?

The one thing I would say about he magnetic connection is that it works great when its sitting on your desk but not an ideal solution if you want to have the laptop in your lap; the magnet isn't strong enough for a lot of wiggling around. Not a real issue anyway since most TB3 cables are 1M or less so you're forced to have your laptop on a desk anyway.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#67

Post by benfrain » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:33 PM UTC

gehwartzen wrote: post #64

benfrain wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amazing, like MagSafe again. I'm thinking that may be the way forward to avoid a KVM. With TB — can you literally just unplug from one Laptop/PC and connect to another and everything is back up and running on the 2nd computer?

Yep! As long as each PC is setup with all the necessary drivers and such its all plug and play. No issues with just ripping the cable out of my MacBook without "undocking" anything. It just reverts to the internal display without issues. I kind of wish there were manual/dumb TB3 switches for this sort of thing but I have not seen any.

Fantastic, thanks for the clarification. I'll be swapping Macbook Pro (work) for Mac Mini (personal) so this could be the way forward. Thanks.

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#68

Post by otterpro » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:38 PM UTC

I had to do a double-take on that PC case, as I thought I was seeing a NeXT cube. I'd love to get this on [Streacom DB4 FANLESS CHASSIS - Newegg.com](https://www.newegg.com/silver-streacom-db4-mini-itx-media-ce...), but it is $389 + $100 shipping!

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#69

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:39 PM UTC

nicolas_t wrote: post #45

I have the same motherboard and the same enclosure. The enclosure is really great, well designed and easy to use. For the heatsink, I actually bent some of the pipes and used the lh6 kit to use two sides of the enclosure for heat dissipation instead of one side only. The thunderbolt port on that mother board works great. I have an egpu that I'm sharing between my laptop and this computer and it works perfectly on win…

[deleted]

Re: The beautiful Silent ThunderBolt-3 PC

#70

Post by andjd » Wed, Dec 23, 2020, 3:40 PM UTC

tomekowal wrote: post #12

I see standing desk and a monitor arm. My question is: does the arm wobble much when you adjust height? If not: what kind of arm are you using?

I have a similar setup, using an Amazon Basics monitor arm. There's a slight jutter in the monitor when the movement stops and starts, but the monitor always ends up in the same place at the end of the move, and the connections to the desk and the monitor are solid enough that I don't worry about it.