USB C to Run Monitor

[ankapadi]

Hi,

I was wondering if someone could answer a question for me:

I've noticed USB 3.1 type C connectors starting to gain more notoriety, especially with the new Macbooks. My question is this:

If I purchase a USB C pci express card to put into my desktop, will I be able to run an external monitor through that port (much like the new macbook is able to run a monitor through it)? The question arises because I believe I'm missing a link here. thought I would need a graphics card to run an external monitor so I'm confused as to how the graphics card would come into play with connecting a monitor to the USB C port.

Sorry if this question is elementary. Newbie here. Thank you in advance.

 

[mnewsham]

It's irrelevant at the moment, I don't know of any USB type-C monitors besides the LG/Apple monitor that has had MAJOR hardware issues.

There are currently no desktop GPUs that provide a USB type-C connection.

USB type C has an alternate mode that allows it to be a DisplayPort connection, which is POTENTIALLY what we will see GPU and Monitor manufacturers do in the future, but currently, there are not any released products as far as I am aware.

 

[wantron]

What you're looking for is thunderbolt 3. It uses the type-c connector but is not the same as just a plain usb 3.1 port. There are motherboards that have thunderbolt ports built in and I assume they're driven by the IGP, not the discrete graphics card. I have not looked into that though so do your own research there.

As for the LG 5k monitors that connect via thunderbolt... I have purchased half a dozen so far and haven't had any issues with them.

 

[mnewsham]

As for the LG 5k monitors that connect via thunderbolt... I have purchased half a dozen so far and haven't had any issues with them.

Well if it was manufactured before ~Jan-Feb of 2017 you're eligible to get them sent in for free repairs, as LG and apple fully admitted to the manufacturing fault.

https://www.macrumors.com/2017/03/15/lg-ultrafine-5k-shielding-fixed/

 

[Valantar]

What you're looking for is thunderbolt 3. It uses the type-c connector but is not the same as just a plain usb 3.1 port. There are motherboards that have thunderbolt ports built in and I assume they're driven by the IGP, not the discrete graphics card. I have not looked into that though so do your own research there.

As for the LG 5k monitors that connect via thunderbolt... I have purchased half a dozen so far and haven't had any issues with them.

Regular usb-c is also fully able to transmit a DP signal, there's no requirement for it to be thunderbolt for this. However, this requires the port to be hooked up to a GPU somehow, which ports on add-in cards aren't. As such the only usb-c ports to support this are on laptops, NUCs (and similar PCs), on the motherboard directly, or possibly on some future GPU. I guess you could make an internal cars support this either through PCIe (expensive, difficult) or by adding a Displayport input on the card and running a short cable to the GPU, but again, the implementation would probably be expensive and difficult.