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Comment by tn890 | Hacker News Reader

I'm in the market for a dock/hub for my 16" MBP and I'm completely baffled by the lack of decent options. I just want the following 3 capabilities:

- 100W PD

- 4k60Hz (preferably through USB-C)

- Gigabit ethernet

I have not been able to find a _single_ docking station or hub that can check these 3 boxes :(

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4k60 + gigabit is not possible without going up to Thunderbolt 3 - there isn't enough bandwidth otherwise. The best you can do is 4k60 + USB 2.0 (so a gigabit Ethernet connection would cap out at ~300mbps in practice.) See https://www.bigmessowires.com/2019/05/19/explaining-4k-60hz-...

DisplayPort 1.4 changes this, but everything seems to be stuck on 1.2

100W is, of course, possible.

I use a CalDigit USB-C Pro Dock with my MBP: https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B07VL675DT - it's TB3, but it can fall back to USC-C (with reduced capabilities, of course). It uses Intel's newer Titan Ridge chipset. The older and more common Alpine Ridge chipset is TB3 only.

How does the CalDigit TS3 Plus do it then?

Too bad about the 85W.

It uses Thunderbolt 3. Same connector, but different protocol with 2-4x the bandwidth.

I fail to see why you assumed I wouldn't want a thunderbolt 3 dock.

Because you said "preferably through USB-C".

I meant the actual physical connection?

Man this whole Type C thing is confusing. Wasn't it supposed to simplify USB?

Oh, I see. Sorry about that. This stuff is stupidly confusing.

For what it's worth, unless you're doing a constant full load on your CPU and GPU, 85 watts is probably enough.

Thunderbolt 3 is the same form factor as USB-C, but there's different hardware in the cables themselves to enable higher data throughput. If you want to use Thunderbolt 3, the devices on either end need to specifically support it.

Note that in the future, Thunderbolt 3 is getting de facto rebranded as USB4 (no space). https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/09/usb4-is-coming-soon-...

>>100W is, of course, possible.

I don't think it is. The dock itself uses quite a lot of power, that's why the highest you can find is about 85-90W. USB-C cables support max of 100W so I don't think it's physically possible to accept 100W and output 100W at the same time.

Well, with these power pass-through hubs like what the website has, you're correct.

I was thinking more of a proper dock that has its own power supply. My dock has a 150W power brick, and then it supplies 85W to my laptop. In theory, the numbers could be 165W and 100W.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07CZPV8DF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_.P... Is pretty close at 87W

I would've compromised for this dock if it were cheaper. A lot cheaper.

I'd pay $300 for a dock with 100W PD, 4k60 and gigabit. But this ain't it.

The power brick for the newest MacBook Pro delivers 96Ws and it will use all of it at high workloads. I've seen mine drain the battery (slowly) when plugged into the 87W power brick from the last-generation MBPs.

Personally I am CalDigit fan and if 85 W are good enough: https://www.caldigit.com/ts3-plus/

I'm reluctant to spend that much if it can't even fully power my laptop.

I was surprised how little difference using a 60W instead of 87W charger mattered for MBP15, at least according to this article the actual power draw and recharge rate were pretty close: https://9to5mac.com/2018/09/25/60w-usb-c-charger-good-for-al...

Even plugged to my 45W PD monitor, it's fine in practice.

The MBP16 gets so hot and loud when you draw this kind of power anyway, you probably don't want to do that for longer periods of time.

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