Display and USB signal over 5 meters?

Gustav83 · June 4, 2022

Hi,

I'm moving in a month or so and will have my TV in a separate room to my gaming PC. In the living room I'd like to use the TV to play sim racing on my rig as the TV is pretty large and has 120 Hz with G-Sync. However, I'm trying to find a solution that allows me to pass the signals between the PC room and the living room. At first, I thought of running a Thunderbolt cable between them, putting a thunderbolt extension card in the PC and a dock at the TV end to be able to get display and USB signals there. However, as I read up on the matter it seems Thunderbolt maxes out at 2 meters. I do not know exactly the length since I haven't moved in yet, but it is for sure longer than that. My guess would be 4-6 meters (13-20 feet).

I looked at Linus's video of the optical Thunderbolt cable which seems perfect, except that it costs 500 dollars. I wasn't able to find any other cheaper optical alternatives so at the moment I am kind of stuck. I really like the Thunderbolt alternative as it allows me to run a single cable and be able to extract everything I need at the other end, both display signal for the TV as well as USB connectivity for my steering wheel, keyboard, mouse etc. At the moment it seems like I'll have to run an HDMI cable and USB in parallell which isn't as flexible or clean, unless there is a good alternative out there?

Relevant information:
* The TV is the OLED65CX6LA which supports 4K @ 120Hz (and G-Sync which I would like to have activated). It does not have any DisplayPort, only HDMI 2.1.

* My main computer in the computer room has an AMD 5950X and Asus 3080 Strix, but I will also have a computer in there with a Threadripper 2950X and EVGA 2080 Ti if that would matter.

* Based in Sweden.

* Guesstimated length of cable that needs to be run: 4-6 meters (13-20 feet).

manikyath · June 4, 2022

you can "extend" USB by having (powered) hubs in between. not perfect, but it's at least "a" solution.

as for display.. you're not gonna get 4k120Hz over a long distance without some sort of active cable.

Gustav83 · June 5, 2022

19 hours ago, manikyath said:

you can "extend" USB by having (powered) hubs in between. not perfect, but it's at least "a" solution.

as for display.. you're not gonna get 4k120Hz over a long distance without some sort of active cable.

Yes but that takes me back to my "HDMI with USB in parallell" solution that I'm not too happy about.

I found an active DP to HDMI adapter that had good reviews if I need to run DP instead, for example with DP over Thunderbolt. But that brings me back to the pricing issue of the optical Thunderbolt cable. Are there any cheaper ones or do you feel that it is worth paying the 500 dollars for that cable?