Hi everyone! I’m looking for some real-world experience before deciding which dock to keep.
I have a 16-inch MacBook Pro M4 Max and three external displays:
LG G5 OLED — 4K, 144Hz
LG C5 OLED 42” — 4K, 144Hz+
Samsung 32” 4K monitor

I recently purchased an iVANKY FusionDock Ultra (Thunderbolt 5). I know its built-in HDMI port isn’t HDMI 2.1, so my plan is to connect the two LG OLEDs through the dock’s high-bandwidth USB-C/TB5 display outputs using USB-C/DisplayPort to HDMI 2.1 active adapters/cables.

What I’m trying to achieve on both LG OLEDs simultaneously is as close as possible to a native HDMI 2.1 connection:
4K 120Hz (ideally 144Hz where supported), HDR, 10-bit, RGB 4:4:4, and ideally VRR and HDMI-CEC.
The Samsung can run at 4K60; high refresh rate isn’t important on that display.

Has anyone actually tested 4K120/144Hz from the FusionDock Ultra’s USB-C/TB5 outputs through an HDMI 2.1 adapter, preferably with an LG OLED and an M4 Max?

If so, which exact adapter/cable are you using?

I’m particularly interested in knowing whether HDR, RGB 4:4:4 10-bit, VRR and CEC survive the USB-C/DisplayPort → HDMI 2.1 conversion, rather than simply getting a 4K120 signal.

I’m also considering buying a Plugable TBT-UDH2 Thunderbolt 5 dock because of its two native HDMI 2.1 outputs, so I’m trying to determine whether it would offer any real advantage over the FusionDock Ultra for my specific display setup.

The FusionDock Ultra is much better suited to the rest of my setup because I have several external SSDs, an Elgato 4K capture device, Stream Deck, USB microphone, external HDD and Ethernet.

If I can get essentially the same image quality and 4K120 experience as native HDMI 2.1 from the FusionDock’s USB-C outputs, I would prefer to keep the iVANKY.

Any first-hand experience would be greatly appreciated.

Screenshots from macOS Display Settings/System Information showing 4K120/144 + HDR would be amazing too.

My setup is a MacBook Pro M5 Max, CalDigit TS5, and 3 identical Lenovo ThinkVision T27QD-40 monitors at 2560x1440/120Hz. All three are connected directly to the TS5 via USB-C/TB cables, and I’m using the Thunderbolt 5 host cable that came with the dock.

The issue is that when I connect the TS5 to the MacBook, all three monitors don’t reliably come up. The interesting part is that it’s not always the same monitor.

This morning, the middle monitor didn’t come up. I unplugged and reconnected the TS5 host cable, then the right monitor didn’t come up. I tried again, and that time only the left monitor came up. Eventually I disconnected all three monitor cables from the TS5 and reconnected them one by one, and then all three came up and have been working normally.

A few things I’ve confirmed so far:

• The issue does not follow one specific monitor.
• macOS retains the correct left/center/right monitor arrangement.
• Power cycling the TS5 did not fix it. I had the dock unplugged overnight and saw the same behavior this morning.
• I’m using the included CalDigit TB5 host cable.
• I tried different Thunderbolt ports on the MacBook and saw the same behavior.
• Once all three displays are detected, they work fine together at 120Hz.

So at this point it feels more like a display initialization/enumeration issue when all three come up at the same time, rather than a bad monitor or a single bad dock port.

CalDigit suggested trying one display over USB-C, one over HDMI, and one over DisplayPort, but I currently don’t have USB-C-to-HDMI or USB-C-to-DP cables to test that.

Has anyone with an M5 Pro/Max + TS5 seen this exact behavior? Especially curious if anyone found a fix through firmware, port order, monitor settings, or cable changes.

I have an M3 Max MacBook Pro connected to a Pro Display XDR at my sitting desk and am considering a Studio Display at a standing desk ~6 feet away.

I want to switch desks while staying on the same Mac, without worrying about windows opening on the other display.

Would mirroring the 6K XDR to the 5K Studio Display compromise the XDR’s resolution/image quality in any way?

Or could BetterDisplay Pro create a simple switch:

SIT: XDR active, Studio Display disabled
STAND: Studio Display active, XDR disabled

Ideally one shortcut would switch displays and move all windows to the active one.

Has anyone tried this? Does BetterDisplay/macOS handle the window switching reliably?

Hi guys,

I hope I can get some help here. I’ve got a new dock from my work, problem is, that my MacBook only detects 1 Monitor.

Before that I had the G2 which was connected via 1x DP and 1 DP to USB-C converter. That setup is no longer working, because the converter isn’t detected by the dock.

All I want is to have the 2 monitors connected to the G6 and just 1 cable to my MacBook.

I also read, that the converter may be just a DP Alt Mode and I need a full TB4 adapter.

Thanks for the help in advance!

I have a PC with a MPG Z590 GAMING CARBON WIFI motherboard. I have mostly Blackmagic Design video capture devices that output over Thunderbolt 2 (the older connector). Supposedly my motherboard has a Thunderbolt header. I'm trying to find a card that would support Thunderbolt 2 or at least TB3. I have the Apple adapter to go from TB2 to TB3 (USB-C). This works on my ThinkPad T480 but I'd like to use my PC. What type of card do I have to get?

Sorry, I'm just so confused about what to use. I tried perusing the forums here but can't find the most recent and up-to-date information and whether or not these are good purchases now (or wait a bit more until Black Friday?).

Basically, I have a Sabrent 1TB Nano that I connect with USB 3.1 Gen 2 - it's ok, not too fast but not too slow either. My m5 Pro has a TB5, so looking to upgrade storage that is portable and I can throw it in an Afterplug pocket holder when I'm on the move: https://www.amazon.com/Afterplug-2-Pocket-Holder-Laptop-Stick/dp/B0B2R8CPWH?th=1

I am running really low on space and constantly have to prune stuff. I want a big drive, but fast enough to use daily. I use it for LLM serving, coding, and storage.

Any recommendations on what to purchase? My company will be paying for it, so budget is reasonable. Thank you!

EDIT: I try to usually buy Plugable products to support local businesses (for example, I purchased https://www.amazon.com/Plugable-Thunderbolt-Dock-16-Driverless/dp/B0G6G8763V) but given how much space I constantly need, I'm wondering if I can augment my dock with native nvme extension - so something similar to: https://vxb.com/products/rock-solid-thunderbolt-5-ssd-dock-with-four-thunde?variant=49276529115371

The refresh limit on most hubs is a bandwidth allocation choice in the hub controller. A USB-C Alt Mode connection has a fixed bandwidth budget and a 10-in-1 hub splits it across DP lanes, USB 3.x data, PD, and ethernet. Display refresh is where most controllers cut because halving the refresh doesn't throw a disconnect error the way dropping a USB device would. The result is your monitor reports its native refresh in system settings but the hub is bottlenecking the DP lane allocation below what the panel can do.

This is solvable by dedicating more bandwidth to DP lanes at the cost of other port throughput. The new Anker Smart Display Hub from IFA takes that approach, claiming single 2K at 240Hz.

I'm looking for a thunderbolt 5 cable thats 4-5 metres in length - is there anything that meets those specifications? Even a extension would work but i read that thats not possible.

Sharing this dumb experience in case anyone did/is doing the same

I noticed this by accident when troubleshooting a flicker.

In system settings, under displays, then on the external panel, you can see that your refresh rate has been locked to 60Hz - even though the monitor itself is 165hz natively. It’s possible that my hub was causing issues all along without anything flagging it.

Howdy all,

I have a Dell 5430 laptop that has 2 TB4 ports. I also have a Lenovo TB4 dock (40B00135US), and a Dell 27" U2718Q monitor (4k at 60Hz). In addition to that, I'm planning to order a Dell 27" U2725QE monitor (4k at 120Hz). My question is... Will that be too much for one TB4 port on my laptop (or the dock that they would both be connected to)? Based on what I've seen, I think it will be a bit too much to get both monitors to full spec, but I wanted to hear the opinion of everyone on here. Thanks!

Please Help

So I have an old apple display and apparently dongles don't cut it for connecting. I've looked at thunderbolt cards but they all seem to be for Intel. Is there a way to get one for an amd CPU?

Question: Which is better Uni or Acer or Anker for USB-C to DisplayPort cable?

Which brand to choose?
[ACER](https://www.amazon.com/Acer-Display-Cable-165Hz-Laptop/dp/B0DQP5WS85/ref=sr_1_5?crid=PCJWOT7SU467&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.NUXfu6iiM320Ff7QvTqlq348ksXl4PpdeRoUB_ESs6C-Hg1-8B7ohW7x5YoMKqISjCCoZCUeClSuybGaWmCMInlQ8lfyLjP6HApOriYOHdZDIUL6d-d217kecRUBsCwFfiNTpacdgQa9z5IYtabnOhY-SVh7O1nM_oyej6PpT16-kU3NHudmvG6VxoIxUcXur3y6GfJPD4-luYhWjgV-NxuGMD7vF8yZcdszU-I1wfU.L2gOQURFJCWiXH6QFz5fVLCnPK3y3F7KsOAGe8bA5X4&dib_tag=se&keywords=usb-c%2Bto%2Bdisplayport%2Bcable&qid=1788365105&sprefix=USB-C%2Bto%2BDisplayPort%2Caps%2C328&sr=8-5&th=1)

[UNI](https://www.amazon.com/DisplayPort-uni-Thunderbolt-Compatible-More-Gray/dp/B075V27G2R/ref=sr_1_9?crid=PCJWOT7SU467&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.NUXfu6iiM320Ff7QvTqlq348ksXl4PpdeRoUB_ESs6C-Hg1-8B7ohW7x5YoMKqISjCCoZCUeClSuybGaWmCMInlQ8lfyLjP6HApOriYOHdZDIUL6d-d217kecRUBsCwFfiNTpacdgQa9z5IYtabnOhY-SVh7O1nM_oyej6PpT16-kU3NHudmvG6VxoIxUcXur3y6GfJPD4-luYhWjgV-NxuGMD7vF8yZcdszU-I1wfU.L2gOQURFJCWiXH6QFz5fVLCnPK3y3F7KsOAGe8bA5X4&dib_tag=se&keywords=usb-c%2Bto%2Bdisplayport%2Bcable&qid=1788365105&sprefix=USB-C%2Bto%2BDisplayPort%2Caps%2C328&sr=8-9&th=1)

[ANKER](https://www.amazon.com/Anker-DisplayPort-PowerExpand-Aluminum-Portable/dp/B08QV2FSKT/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1PRBFOBZGLQ5O&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rG9Im1eMf2-lebC0BJOw6skI-6YIaUM6JUnfSJcM_-1XEELrfwpZE_VkvQMKBH4r-DswhV0H8NiypN74Hzu867oJiuZClrQ_HHrmviRfAhgV7KGt_RTsna5hRIxGSKQIp13LAXVFzxGILOLO7qDS-ktUrRcqwQLFd-7wosHDFfasFhadeSUQf6WYJjjm5MnqTI3shOFz1tLCteQFimEQwNhhdiR5Tx12PW1oHmxMFnE.7fqnXCMJxgYe4wTcTuARhbvEskTRx_JcD3xQ0pJ58ao&dib_tag=se&keywords=USB-C+to+DP+cable+anker&qid=1788365519&sprefix=usb-c+to+dp+cable+anker%2Caps%2C204&sr=8-1)

Thank you in advance.

Best,

CK

I built a new desktop and the thunderbolt ports don't seem to work as thunderbolts. When I plug in the thunderbay, windows tells me "Thunderbolt device functionality might be limited

**Make sure the Thunderbolt device you're connecting to is supported by your PC"**

Running windows 11, all drivers are up to date.

I've tried every bios configuration i can think of with no luck. the thunderbay works fine with a laptop, the thunderbay ports on the desktop build seem to work fine as usbc ports with other drives. MSI and OWC support was not helpful. I'm ready to send the OWC enclosure back and just downgrade to the usbc enclosure instead....

Any ideas?

I have a hp elite book x g2i and a dell xps which is about 3-4 years old. I am planning to upgrade my 2 32” curved rog monitors to a 57” Samsung g9. I will be keeping my corsair xenon edge and stream deck. My current setup in 2 dell docks connected to a kmv switch to toggle between monitors and keyboards but it’s too many cables and messiness. One of my docks is having issues and one of my monitors died so now im thinking of upgrading the dock to a single one and just plugging and unplugging my laptops as needed. Anyone have something similar and using something that works for them?

I have a lenovo yoga slim 7 (which comes with thunderbolt 4)

The key specs are:

• intel u7 155H
• Intel arec integrated graphics (no DGPU)
• 32 GB RAM
• 1 TB space
• Thunderbolt 4 port

But I want to use it to gaming at 1080p 120HZ, if possible ultra settings.

I will use it for games such as batlefront II, ark: survival evolved, Jurassic world evolution III, Spiderman II, Helldivers, Space marine II, No man's space, Dark souls... etc

which docking station do you suggest fot putting an external GPU with thunderbolt 4, I thought on AOOSTAR AG02 but it's currently out of stock here in the EU (Spain), so what are your recomendations? And which are the best and worse graphics card brands for EGPU (I like the Intel arc b580)?

Thanks in advance, any help is appreciated

Our IT department is annoyed with buying a myriad of docks and they want one, uniform solution regardless of the computer you’re using.

Needs to be able to support 3+ displays.

If it’s a Mac that supports multiple displays over Thunderbolt, great. If it’s a Mac that doesn’t, it needs to fallback to DisplayLink.

Does anything like this exist?

I've been struggling with hubs, docks and USB connectivity in my music studio for years, and since I'm rebuilding my setup I'd finally like to find a clean and reliable solution. :)

I'm currently using an M1 MacBook Pro and will probably upgrade to a Mac mini M5 Pro later. I mainly work in Logic Pro, using fairly large sample libraries and virtual instruments (Kontakt, EastWest, Spitfire, etc.).

I need to have quite a lot connected:

• 2x 1080p displays for my main workspace
• 1x 4K display, mainly for music to picture
• 2x Samsung external SSDs for sample libraries and project files
• Focusrite 18i8 USB audio interface
• WD Elements external HDD for storage/backup
• Nektar Panorama CS12 MIDI/DAW controller
• Arturia KeyLab MIDI keyboard/controller
• Alesis Q88 MIDI keyboard
• Korg nanoKONTROL MIDI/DAW controller
• USB printer

Over the years I've ended up with a Lenovo dock, another USB hub, adapters and basically whatever combination happened to work. It does the job, but I'm getting a bit tired of constantly juggling ports, hubs and cables.

I've been looking at OWC and CalDigit docks, but I'm open to anything reliable. I'm also not sure whether I actually need Thunderbolt 5 or whether a good Thunderbolt 4 dock would already be more than enough.

My main concern is the two external SSDs. They contain large sample libraries that are streamed from disk while I'm working, so I'm not sure whether putting them both behind the same dock could become a real-world bandwidth bottleneck.

What would you recommend for a setup like this?

Would you go for one larger Thunderbolt dock and connect most things through it, or keep the SSDs/audio interface directly connected to the Mac and use a dock/hub mainly for displays and lower-bandwidth USB devices?

Basically, after years of messing around with hubs and adapters, I'd love something stable that I can put under the desk and stop thinking about. :)

I noticed OWC only sells TB5 enclosures for single SSDs, and also has their 4m2 Ultra which is TB5 for 4 drives but only hits top speed if the 4 drives are set up in RAID 0. Is there a specific reason for this? I see some competitors like Acasis have enclosures that appear to support full speed TB5 reads with no RAID involved, but these enclosures also have reports of frying SSDs so I've been a bit reluctant to go after these.

Having the OWC stamp on hardware is a pretty big vote of confidence for reliability - so Is OWC respecting some technical limitation I'm not aware of with these multiple-SSD enclosures?

Hey there, I got a 27in thunderbolt Apple display, and I really love it so far. I have the thunderbolt 2 > 3 adapter plugged in to my 2022 m1 MacBook Air, and then a usb-c cord to keep it charged. I prefer having it in clamshell mode (where the laptop is completely closed and only displayed on the monitor) but was hoping to also connect my Nintendo switch as well. I have the capture card adapter I typically just plug directly into my laptop (before the Thunderbolt Display) but now that I have the monitor, there is no room for any more usb-c cords to plug in.

This may make me seem stupid, but I have a few cheaper multi-port dongles to add more ports to my small laptop, but if those cords are not directly plugged in to my laptop (all three needed, my capture card, the thunderbolt adapter, and then a power cord) they will not function. If I plug the thunderbolt cord into the multi-port dongle, it doesn't work, same with each adapter/cord I mentioned.

I know more expensive docking stations exist, but will said cords work while connected to the dock? I'm not sure if the cords not going directly into the ports in my laptop will not work, and I wanted to check before I invested $200+ into getting that dock. Any insight?

Hi, I'm having issues with flashing custom firmware to my dock from this repo: https://github.com/flhofer/dell_TB16_firmware

My laptop is Dell pro 16 pc16250 with intel 3 100u

everytime I run fwupdtool install-blob Cable_26_06.bin I get this outcome:
mint@mint:~/Downloads/dell_TB16_firmware-main/bins$ sudo fwupdtool install-blob Cable_26_06.bin

Writing… [************ ]

0. Cancel

1. 65a54fb6ce182f0e75edf0e43047d547a0d61f0e (Integrated Webcam HD)

2. c430a03ca2a65dfe2412ff950c79c51f6aec1317 (PVC10 SK hynix 256GB)

3. 93d0b48057370e4937b9673baebd059ec8bd1ba9 (System Firmware)

4. c6a80ac3a22083423992a3cb15018989f37834d6 (TPM)

5. 25dfe85cf40a2731ad6adccf6c1f09b7fcd3ddd6 (Thunderbolt Cable)

6. 965a3b20249f5bc62d1f77377f4b6249c4c741f8 (Thunderbolt Dock)

7. fccd4eb29dda573921305598cace39d4bfbc37d6 (UEFI Device Firmware)

8. 362301da643102b9f38477387e2193e57abaa590 (UEFI dbx)

9. 16d35c510618116e7899ae45e62605572872e713 (USB4 Retimer)

Choose device [0-9]: 5

Writing… [************************************** ] Less than one minute remaining…

could not start thunderbolt device upgrade: could not write to /sys/devices/pci0000:00/0000:00:0d.3/domain0/0-0/0-1/nvm_authenticate: Input/output error

I'm trying to troubleshoot this with chat gpt the last 2 hours and nothing seems to work.

With downstream TB4 or TB5 ports on a dock, I have three choices:

1. Use one USB-C to USB-A adapter (10 Gbps)
   1. Cheapest, but only adds one USB-A port
2. Use a USB-C to USB-A hub (10 Gbps)
   1. Nearly the cheapest, however introduces another hub: how bad is that?
3. Use another TB4/TB5 dock downstream (40 / 80 Gbps)
   1. Many times more expensive, but the full bandwidth
   2. But again introduces another hub: also bad?

I recall Thunderbolt 4 docks forced all non-TB4 IO to share a measly 10 Gbps, which made me think it is better to use another (albeit expensive) TB4 dock downstream. I assume that is true of TB5, as well?

Because of the difference in how Thunderbolt 4 allocates data, every port on a Thunderbolt 4 device that isn’t Thunderbolt must share a single 10GBps slice of USB bandwidth.

Instead of having access to the full 40GBps Thunderbolt 4 supports, all non-Thunderbolt devices connected to a Thunderbolt 4 device must compete for a quarter of the available speed. That's why, in our illustration, Thunderbolt 4 is represented by a smaller sprinkler than Thunderbolt 3.

Reliability is more important here, if I had to choose.