Question Is there a Thunderbolt 3 card for my Motherboard?

[ShaneAnthony]

I'm not a computer guru, so I humbly ask for your help. I have a home studio, and I want to buy a converter (Lynx Aurora) that connects via Thunderbolt 3. I don't have Thunderbolt 3 on my PC.

My motherboard is a Gigabyte Z170X-GAMING 5. Is there a card I can buy for it to install Thunderbolt?

Could anyone point me in the right direction? I don't know how to figure this out.

Thanks, Shane

 

[Tech Junky]

I just ordered and installed a maple ridge TB card on my ASRock board. There's 3 aic options and the GB cards should work if you have the headers to plug into. I went with the GB card for the higher power output than the ASRock model. I picked the used option and it was $60 with tax and appeared to be brand new.

Amazon.com: GIGABYTE GC-MAPLE RIDGE (Intel/Thunderbolt 4/ JHL 8540 Controller/ 2x USB Type-C/ 1x DisplayPort 1.4/ 2x Mini DisplayPort/ Max Bandwidth 40GB/s/ PCle Card) : Electronics

Buy GIGABYTE GC-MAPLE RIDGE (Intel/Thunderbolt 4/ JHL 8540 Controller/ 2x USB Type-C/ 1x DisplayPort 1.4/ 2x Mini DisplayPort/ Max Bandwidth 40GB/s/ PCle Card): Network Cards - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

 

[ShaneAnthony]

I just ordered and installed a maple ridge TB card on my ASRock board. There's 3 aic options and the GB cards should work if you have the headers to plug into. I went with the GB card for the higher power output than the ASRock model. I picked the used option and it was $60 with tax and appeared to be brand new.

Amazon.com: GIGABYTE GC-MAPLE RIDGE (Intel/Thunderbolt 4/ JHL 8540 Controller/ 2x USB Type-C/ 1x DisplayPort 1.4/ 2x Mini DisplayPort/ Max Bandwidth 40GB/s/ PCle Card) : Electronics

Buy GIGABYTE GC-MAPLE RIDGE (Intel/Thunderbolt 4/ JHL 8540 Controller/ 2x USB Type-C/ 1x DisplayPort 1.4/ 2x Mini DisplayPort/ Max Bandwidth 40GB/s/ PCle Card): Network Cards - Amazon.com ✓ FREE DELIVERY possible on eligible purchases

www.amazon.com

Thank you!

I'm still not sure how to figure out if the card you recommended will work for me. Here is a screenshot of my system information, showing the BIOS info:

 

[Tech Junky]

You're going to have to dig deeper than sysinfo like look in the manual or look on the board for a 5 pin connector for thunderbolt.

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_ga-z170x-gaming5_e.pdf?v=7ea2f1b289dc55c5de6e62daecab8549

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Page 21

That's the best I can do to say you have the ability to add the card to your system as it has the connector needed it mentions TB3 The Maple Ridge (TB4) has an assortment of cables to be plugged in 5-pin to 5-pin+3-pin and a 3-pin only connector cable also comes with the mini-dp cables to bridge your GPU to the card if you're planning on TB monitors.

I dug into the 3-pin and couldn't find any info anywhere as to what it's being used for and skipped connecting it to anything and looking at your MOBO it doesn't have a 3-pin connector / header anyway. I would stick it in that bottom slot through since the connector is nearby and I think there might be something to do with a particular slot since on my ASRock IIRC it indicated using that particular slot adjacent to the header for some reason.

Boot the system after installing and then reboot and go into the BIOS to enable the features to enable the card to charge / data / etc. You might need to update the BIOS as well. Other than that it should be simple to get things hooked up. I added the PSU leads on mine for charging / USB-PD just because I might at a later date use them for that. Not needed though if you don't want to or don't have the connectors on your PSU to do it. The TB specs say you should be getting 7.5W from the ports or 15W with TB4. Adding the PSU connections though bump it to 100W for phones / tablets / laptops / etc.

 

[ShaneAnthony]

Here's a pic of my motherboard. It looks like the connection you're talking about is there. Does this look good?

 

[Tech Junky]

Matches the manual I posted for your specific board. I would go ahead with the maple ridge as it's the most recent and will be good until the next generation is released in a couple of years.

 

[ShaneAnthony]

Matches the manual I posted for your specific board. I would go ahead with the maple ridge as it's the most recent and will be good until the next generation is released in a couple of years.

OK, I picked up the last used one they had on the Amazon link you sent me. The price jumped down today. I got it for $49! Hopefully that will work great for me. Thanks so much for your help!

 

[Tech Junky]

You're welcome. Keep an eye on the shipping progress though. It took me 2 attempts to get one to show up. The first one was a 3rd party seller and the one that showed up was a Amazon Warehouse. I was a bit confused when Amazon cancelled the order on the first one.

Yeah, the used option tends to hover around $50 while I've been watching them and it's a deal compared to the retail price 3X more. First one I ordered with tax was $53 so, $60 on the 2nd wasn't too bad,