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Docks that work on Thunderbolt 3 AND USB-C (Titan Ridge JHL7440)

Writer: goldenstateservicesj
goldenstateservicesj
Dec 2, 2019
2 min read

[Updated 2020/05/06 with more product info]

Introduction

Suppose you are an IT admin responsible for building out a fleet of laptops for your company in 2020. Some users prefer MacBooks, some prefer Dell/HP/Lenovo, and others prefer Surface. Many of your users use multiple high-resolution monitors. Or suppose you have a Surface and your partner/spouse has a MacBook Pro and you share a desk/workstation. What docking station should you get?

A ThunderBolt 3 (TB3) dock will work best on a modern MacBook, but most of the features won’t work on PCs that only have USB-C. A regular USB-C dock will work for most newer PC’s but you don’t get the best performance (transfer speeds and high resolution multi-monitor support) on more capable systems like MacBook Pros. The proprietary Microsoft dock works great on Surface, but won’t work on anything else.

Thankfully, there is a new generation of docks that support both TB3 and the very latest USB-C capabilities shipping on newer laptops such as the Surface Pro 7 and Surface Laptop 3 so that you can have feature parity across MacBooks and PCs with the same dock. The key advances in this latest docking generation are:

  • inclusion of the Intel Titan Ridge JHL7440 chipset (or equivalent) which allows cross-compatibility between TB3 and USB-C host laptops

  • up to 100 watt power delivery for full rate charging and top performance on the most demanding laptops

  • availability of DisplayPort 1.4 support for 1x 5K60 or 2x 4K60 monitors on both USB-C and TB3 laptops

List of TB3 / USB-C cross-compatible docks:

Docks below are based on the Intel Titan Ridge JHL7440 chipset (or equivalent) and are cross compatible between TB3 and USB-C laptops. TB3 connections generally allow 2x 4K60 monitors alongside USB 3.x transfer speeds of 5Gb/s+. Support on USB-C connections vary depending on the specific implementation in each dock but are usually subsets of the available features on TB3 laptops. Outlined below are the key features delivered with USB-C connections. Maximum screen resolution/refresh support assumes USB ports are running at 5GB/s or more (not USB 2.0 480Mbps).

Docks with high-resolution and/or high charge-rate capabilities:

Docks with 60W PD and 2x 1080p / 1x 4k30 capabilities via USB-C:

Launching Q2 2020:

 
 
 

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