Tuesday, June 4th 2013
ASRock Thunderbolt Motherboards Feature DisplayPort Input
Premium socket LGA1150 motherboards shipping with Thunderbolt connectivity hardly surprise us, yet ASRock managed to do so, with a nifty little addition to its functionality. The company's Thunderbolt-equipped motherboards, namely Z87-Extreme4 TB4, Z87-Extreme9/ac and Z87-Extreme11/ac, feature a full-size DisplayPort input in addition to two Thunderbolt ports that each double up as mini-DisplayPort outputs wired to the processor's integrated graphics. This allows you to install a discrete graphics card of your choice, wire its DisplayPort output to the board's input, and get its digital display output relayed through the Thunderbolt ports, using which you can daisy-chain your high-resolution display with other high-bandwidth devices. On its specs sheets, ASRock is dubbing this implementation as an "experimental feature," and isn't making a song-and-dance about it. In any case, it sure gives ASRock a sharp edge over Thunderbolt-equipped motherboards from other brands, and in our opinion, is the best implementation of Thunderbolt to date.
8 Comments on ASRock Thunderbolt Motherboards Feature DisplayPort Input
ITX versions please!
the great thing about USB is backwards compatibility, until TB starts to show that it can do this with new iterations then its a no go for me, i don't want 6 different ports on my MoBo, i want 6 of the same port so that i know i have enough for my devices
Jesus, if Intel think they've figured out some kind of magic connectivity, why not forward it for future USB 4.0 drafts and such, otherwise TB is going to die just like any other form of wired connectivity before it (and it should). They don't call it UNIVERSAL Serial Bus for nothing.
I like its bandwidth, and the ability to daisy chain displays. If they ever release any tech that does that...
Wiki for just the facts.