How does a video card work with Thunderbolt?

[matrixalker2012]

I'm planning on building a PC later this year, and what I do want is a thunderbolt port on my motherboard because I have several thunderbolt devices that I would like to migrate over from my mac.

My question is, how does a discrete graphics card work with a thunderbolt port? If I have a discrete graphics card plugged in, can I still get the thunderbolt port to work with my Thunderbolt display using the discrete graphics? (I'm trying to re-purpose my Apple Thunderbolt display).

Thanks.

 

[blackened23]

No, this will not work. If you use a Thunderbolt display it will only work via the iGPU on whatever intel CPU you're using. There was mention of a workaround using Lucid's Virtu software - but that software is absolute garbage. I have tried it and it only causes your system to crash incessantly; Virtua was bundled with virtually every Z77 motherboard. Because it sucks so badly, nearly every motherboard manufacturer discontinued bundling it with the current Z87 platform (there is obviously a cost for licensing it to the mobo manufacturer). Further, nearly every actual game sans a very few is incompatible with Virtu's software. By incompatible that means that it will instantly crash on launch.

You need a traditional monitor connection if you want to use a dGPU. More frustrating is the fact that while thunderbolt is pin compatible with mini DP, the thunderbolt display does not work with mini DP (connected to a dGPU).

TL'DR: It won't work. You can't use your thunderbolt display except with intel's integrated GPU - and even then, it will only work within windows and you won't be able to see your BIOS, Windows loading screen, etc. You'll need a different monitor.