Thunderbolt?

[militant83]

Can you add a thunderbolt port to any motherboard?

[Unexas.]

Just now, militant83 said:

Can you add a thunderbolt port to any motherboard?

You could get a expansion card.

[militant83]

1 minute ago, Unexas. said:

You could get a expansion card.

Right, that's what I meant. Are they compatible will all motherboards?

[Unexas.]

Just now, militant83 said:

Right, that's what I meant. Are they compatible will all motherboards?

As long as you have the expansion slot fro it it will work.

[bgibbz]

7 minutes ago, militant83 said:

Right, that's what I meant. Are they compatible will all motherboards?

yes. A pcie expansion card will fit in any pcie expansion slot (so long as the bandwidth of the slot is at or above the bandwidth of the card)

[zMeul]

it is not as simple as adding the ThunderBolt card in

the mobo needs to have a TB header - Thunderbolt™ add-in card connector

 

you need to check your motherboard's manual

[Zyndo]

21 minutes ago, militant83 said:

Can you add a thunderbolt port to any motherboard?

Its not as simple as just having a PCIe extension card. There are two connections to be made with cards like those, 1 that goes into your PCIe slot, and 1 additional wire to be connected elsewhere on your motherboard to an additional thunderbolt specific header. A lot of the skylake boards have these on them (especially the Z series boards) but if you're running older components that may not be the case.

[militant83]

8 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

Its not as simple as just having a PCIe extension card. There are two connections to be made with cards like those, 1 that goes into your PCIe slot, and 1 additional wire to be connected elsewhere on your motherboard to an additional thunderbolt specific header. A lot of the skylake boards have these on them (especially the Z series boards) but if you're running older components that may not be the case.

I don't have a board yet. I'm in the planning phase of my build. I was looking at the MSI X99 Pro carbon board.

[Zyndo]

Just now, militant83 said:

I don't have a board yet. I'm in the planning phase of my build. I was looking at the MSI X99 Pro carbon board.

why not just buy a board that comes with built in thunderbolt then? like an X99-Designare?

[militant83]

2 minutes ago, Zyndo said:

why not just buy a board that comes with built in thunderbolt then? like an X99-Designare?

I had originally looked at that one...I was being picky and trying to do a red and black color theme...but I could always do blue and black if going that route

 

[Zyndo]

4 minutes ago, militant83 said:

I had originally looked at that one...I was being picky and trying to do a red and black color theme...but I could always do blue and black if going that route

 

nawh if you want black and red you should probably get black and red. I just don't see a thunderbolt on board connector for that motherboard.

 

black and red X99 with thunderbolt headers seem to be the territory of Asus for now.

https://www.asus.com/Motherboards/ROG-STRIX-X99-GAMING/overview/

http://pcpartpicker.com/product/L6rcCJ/asus-motherboard-rogstrixx99gaming

 

pretty much all gigabyte boards support thunderbolt in some way as well, but the only black/red ones seem to be from before the time of broadwell-E, so you may need a BIOS update in order to use them. but they're worth checking out as well.