TB3 on RECOIL II, OPTIMUS IX or DEFIANCE XS II ??

[Unre4L]

Hi PCS

Thanks for releasing new laptops. They look awesome but it seems you went out of your way to make sure high end external monitors and TVs won't be supported...or am I missing something?

Asus/Acer 4k 144Hz monitors and Samsung's new 4k 120Hz TVs will probably require TB3 or mDP 1.4 (DSC) at the minimum.

From the specs, these laptops come with mDP 1.3 (without DSC) and no mention of TB3...

In comparison the Aero 15x has mDP 1.4 and TB3. Fair enough, with a much higher price tag but at least it's ready for the high end monitors that we know are coming in second half of this year.

Are there any plans to have TB3 on the 15 inch range???

 

[SpyderTracks]

Hi PCS

Thanks for releasing new laptops. They look awesome but it seems you went out of your way to make sure high end external monitors and TVs won't be supported...or am I missing something?

Asus/Acer 4k 144Hz monitors and Samsung's new 4k 120Hz TVs will probably require TB3 or mDP 1.4 (DSC) at the minimum.

From the specs, these laptops come with mDP 1.3 (without DSC) and no mention of TB3...

In comparison the Aero 15x has mDP 1.4 and TB3. Fair enough, with a much higher price tag but at least it's ready for the high end monitors that we know are coming in second half of this year.

Are there any plans to have TB3 on the 15 inch range???

PCS don’t monitor these forums, if you want sales advice you’ll have to contact them directly, would suggest phoning, they’re open TIL 8.

Thunderbolt never really took off in PC world, they’re more aimed at Macs and High end design workstations. It’s highly unlikely new monitors will require TB as there’s very little PC hardware that would support it.

Plus you realise how expensive high refresh 4K monitors are going to be??? They won’t be accessible for some time unless you’re willing to spend 2k on one.

 

[Unre4L]

Thanks Spyder. I will give them a call tomorrow.

Though I have to disagree with your view on Thunderbolt. Most new ultraportable gaming/high end laptops now feature TB3 (Razer, Gigabyte Aero, MSI GS65, Dell XPS, Asus ZEPHYRUS and even PCS 17 inch Defiance 5 range, not to mention Macbooks). In terms of monitors, LG also released their ultrawide 4k (34WK95U) that uses TB3 because clearly there are no alternatives once you go past 4k 60Hz.
It's a big deal if you want to futureproof or upgrade a laptop with an external GPU or fast/mass storage. Vendors are ditching proprietary interfaces for docking stations in favour of TB3 and currently no other port has bandwidth enough to run 4K/5k/HDR at higher refresh rates. HDMI 2.1 and DP 1.5 are still far off and now that Intel dropped the royalties and are working on integrating the TB3 chip with the CPU, it's only going to become more popular imo.

I agree that it doesn't make much sense for Desktops, but for a high end laptop that I plan on using 5+ years, its a must-have. I probably wouldn't even be buying a new laptop if my 5 year old optimus featured Thunderbolt.

 

[Oussebon]

I haven't been following them closely but there seems to have been an upsurge in eGPU boxes of late. The reviews I've seen generally showed them getting bottlenecked by laptop CPUs, including 8th Gen i5/i7 ULVs. One might say ofc a GTX 1070's going to be bottlenecked by an i5 ULV, but one might also say that about an H series 8th Gen CPU and a GTX 3070, 4070 etc.

Not disputing for a second whether a lot of other models have thunderbolt or whether there isn't actually some merit to having eGPU as an option even if bottlenecked to some degree, or having TB for other uses - such as certain storage solutions as you say. I'm just not sold on eGPUs as being the future life-enhancers of laptop gaming.

Also, DP 1.3 and 1.4 can do 5k 60hz apparently:

Although 5K 60 Hz over a single cable was only made possible in 2016 with the launch of the GeForce 1000 series and Radeon RX 400 series, monitors which predate DisplayPort 1.3 such as the Dell UltraSharp UP2715K offer the ability to run at 5K 60 Hz by using two DisplayPort 1.2 connections concurrently in a specialized picture-by-picture mode.[17]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/5K_resolution

And according to the DP page on wiki, DP 1.3 and 1.4 can both do 4k 120hz (though not necessarily 144hz).

Can't say I've any knowledge of the issue, it's just what I read up a moment ago for the first time.

It's quite possible they have a model with TB in the pipes. Let us know what you hear