USB-C Dock for Desktop

[Nirizmo]

I currently have my computer in a 4RU rack case on one side of my room and my displays, keyboard, mouse and boom mic which uses USB on the other side.

 

Instead of running multiple long cables across the room I wanted to just run one USB-C cable from my computer to a dock where I can plug in all my peripherals. Note: I have 2 x DisplayPort monitors which run at 144hz.

 

Firstly, is there such a thing? I know Linus does this using fibre. Secondly, what product is recommended to achieve this set up?

[Alvin853]

In general it is possible, your best option is to get a mainboard with DisplayPort-In and thunderbolt output. Then you connect your GPU to the mainboards DP-in, and the mainboard combines all signals into a single thunderbolt connection. Mainboards like this are expensive, but they should be able to handle all your needs.

 

I'm a little bit worried about the 2x144Hz monitors. I don't know what the maximum resolution and refresh rate is a single DP signal can carry. My current solution is limited to 60 Hz when trying to use 2 monitors on a single cable, but I'm also on a DP 1.2 or 1.3 setup, DP 1.4 provides higher bandwidth, but that requires all parts of your setup to be DP 1.4 compatible. 

 

For the dock itself, you can probably go with some generic thunderbolt dock, they're pretty universal, you don't need to spend large sums on a brand one from Dell, Lenovo or similar. Maybe look in the MacBook accessoires categories, that's the most common use case for thunderbolt docks.