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Comment by zajio1am | Hacker News Reader

From the performance PoV, PCIe/Thunderbolt dock is clearly better than USB-C, but there are also other factors:

1) Thunderbolt dock requires Thunderbolt port, while USB-C dock works with just much more common USB-C + DP alternate mode port.

2) USB-C docks just work, while Thunderbolt docks often require magic steps to enable them (like changing options in BIOS).

3) USB-C is relatively secure, while PCIe is just a gaping security hole unless IOMMU is used and configured. I am not sure how common that is.

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On the other hand, USB hubs/docks in my experience are much more likely to be flaky, presumably due to less adherence to specs, and this can be exacerbated by connecting the hub/dock with third party USB cables (which also often don’t adhere to the spec).

Personally speaking I’ve had terrible luck with USB hubs ever since USB 3 appeared, long before any of the newer Type C higher capability stuff came about. Almost invariably USB 3 hubs are a pain in the the butt.

Thunderbolt also comes with licensing, those docks aren't cheap.

IMO, 20% of folks using thunderbolt for the bandwidth actually need it, the other 80% are flexing. If you want to take advantage of those speeds, you also need to drop money on fast drives. It adds up quick.

No, it doesn't. Intel stopped charging licensing fees a while back:

https://bit-tech.net/news/tech/peripherals/intel-thunderbolt...

If you needed 4K/60Hz you need thunderbolt not USBC until recently. It is hardly flexing, they aren't that much more expensive - and provide significantly more bandwidth.

I call it flexing specifically because most folks don't need that bandwidth.

Thunderbolt docks are way, way overpriced if there's no licensing fees anymore.

Modern UIs with all the bloated animations are painful to use with the 30Hz limit imposed on by most USB(-C) to HDMI or DisplayPort adapters. The USB-C alt modes except Thunderbolt just lack the raw bandwidth for 4K@60Hz.

AFAIK for 4K/60Hz you can just use USB 3.2 with DP 1.4 alternate mode with 2 lanes for DP and 2 lanes for USB.

Yes, in the newer spec, but it does only leave you with 10Gbps for everything else on your dock.

_only_ 10Gbps

I mean... if you're doing some video editing at work using remote storage on a 10G NIC or have an external SSD plugged in, you're easily going to find yourself in a contention scenario that would just be solved by using Thunderbolt.

A modern SSD will easily pump out 5GB/s reads/writes (40Gbps).

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