MSI Z170A SLI Plus and Thunderbolt 3?

[Chris_Hercules]

I have recently purchased a MSI motherboard that has the Thunderbolt connector on board and want to add thunderbolt to my rig. I can not seem to find a MSI branded Thunderbolt 3 add in card. Couple of basic newbie type questions here. I know for Thunderbolt 3 you must have PCI-E3.0 lanes, check, have that. I also know that you must have the on board Thunderbolt 5 pin connector. Mine is on there and marked JTBT1. Check, I have that too. For video I also know a pass through cable must be hooked up from my video cards DP output to the add in cards input, also no issue. What I don't know is that can I use any Thunderbolt 3 card on the market and just drop it in my machine and set it up? Also, is Thunderbolt 3 backwards compatible with other previous versions of Thunderbolt? One last question here.  When installing the card do I have to (or need to for best performance) need to use the PCI-E slot with lanes connected directly to the CPU? My board has a 16x slot that is wired for 4x driven off the chipset from what I can tell by the flow charts in my manual.

[Billy_Mays]

Yes thunderbolt is backwards compatible and any thunderbolt card should work

[Chris_Hercules]

On 6/14/2017 at 8:55 AM, Billy_Mays said:

Yes thunderbolt is backwards compatible and any thunderbolt card should work

Thank you, that still doesn't answer my other question about which PCI-E slot I should use or if it makes any difference. Right now I have a PCI-E hard drive in the slot that is connected directly to the processor lanes. I'm not worried about losing performance on that particular drive as it is where I store my games. So will I be better off leaving that drive in the processor connected lanes and running the Thunderbolt card off the chipset lanes or should I do it the other way around? In my mind it SEEMS that it would be wiser to run the Thunderbolt card directly attached to processor lanes.

[Billy_Mays]

I would just run it off of chipset lanes it would be easier in your case

[Chris_Hercules]

So Thunderbolt into the processor lanes and then my NVME drive on the chipset lanes is how I'm understanding your response. Correct, or did I misunderstand what you were suggesting?

10 minutes ago, Billy_Mays said:

I would just run it off of chipset lanes it would be easier in your case

 

[Billy_Mays]

13 minutes ago, Chris_Hercules said:

So Thunderbolt into the processor lanes and then my NVME drive on the chipset lanes is how I'm understanding your response. Correct, or did I misunderstand what you were suggesting?

 

It really doesn't matter it will be just a tiny bit slower but there is no difference

[Chris_Hercules]

Just now, Billy_Mays said:

It really doesn't matter it will be just a tiny bit slower but there is no difference

Sensible answer and makes sense. thank you.

[Billy_Mays]

Just now, Chris_Hercules said:

Sensible answer and makes sense. thank you.

You're welcome