Caldigit TS4 Dock

[killawat]

What bandwidth constraint? USB goes up to 10 Gbps.

Good point. Seems like a couple of other people asked the same question on the TS4+ video linked above. Here is cal digit response in the comments.

10gb Ethernet generates an incredible amount of heat. Have you seen the size of our Connect 10G? The heatsink has to be pretty big to offset the heat enough to implement a passive cooling design. Plus, from a data perspective, it would take up a quarter of the entire data bandwidth under full load. Dual video is already capable of taking half the bandwidth, so it's just not really feasible at this point. You can always use a Connect 10G downstream with one of the additional TB4 ports

 

[WilliamG]

All Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs use the same Goshen Ridge chip so they all have the same capabilities.


Your 5K display is a dual link SST display (LG UltraFine 5K or Dell UP2715K or similar) which uses two DisplayPort 1.2 connections to get 5K so of course you can connect only one of those to a single Thunderbolt port with no other displays.
They do not have a single link SST mode, except for 4K.

The XDR display has a dual link SST mode (two HBR3 connections over Thunderbolt) and a single link SST mode (one HBR2 connection). If it's not using dual link SST mode then you should be able to connect two of them to a Thunderbolt port.
The single link SST mode can do 6K60 if it's using DSC otherwise it would be limited to 4K60. One thing strange about the XDR is that it doesn't appear to have a single link SST mode using HBR3 (to do something like 5K60 8bpc).

The TS4 solves this, though? I can use a 5K and 2.5K display through that single TB4 port?

 

[rickeames]

I am completely confused -- I don't see how a dock could make my 6K and 4K work over the same single wire running to the Mac M1 Max. I didn't think that was possible, yet that's what their site is claiming. Seems iffy.

 

[joevt]

I don't actually have a massive problem with that as I have been fine with the current dock's Gigabit Realtek Ethernet and have an 8125B PCIe card in my PC and that's been fine too, although clearly YMMV.

Which dock? I think the TS3+ uses an Intel Gigabit controller.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...able-thunderbolt-3-dock.2286171/post-29639488

Looking at the product page I realised that all USB ports are now 10Gb/s. That's a pretty nice upgrade - previously both front USB ports and most of the rear ones were 5Gb/s.

True, but 10 Gbps is also the total maximum for the TS4. The TS3+ had 4 separate USB controllers and could therefore do up to 22 Gbps USB total. The TS4 has either no USB controllers (uses USB tunnelling with USB4 capable hosts) or one USB controller (uses PCIe tunnelling with Thunderbolt 3 hosts). USB tunnelling uses the USB controller of the host instead of the USB controller of the Thunderbolt dock. The USB controller of M1 Macs has lower performance than the USB controller of the Thunderbolt dock.

You can also use both memory card readers at the same time - handy for copying between the two.

If they are the same USB device then you might get half the bandwidth of each memory card.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...microsd-real-life-speed.2305126/post-30208491
The SD Card reader might not support UASP.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...microsd-real-life-speed.2305126/post-30216710
These things will need to be tested.

The TS4 solves this, though? I can use a 5K and 2.5K display through that single TB4 port?

No. The TS4 has 2 downstream Thunderbolt ports and a DisplayPort port but the Goshen Ridge Thunderbolt controller that it uses only has two DisplayPort Out adapters just like the Thunderbolt 3 controllers (Alpine Ridge and Titan Ridge). Thunderbolt 2 and Thunderbolt 1 controllers only had one DisplayPort Out adapter. An adapter is a part of the Thunderbolt controller - other adapters in the controller include PCIe Up and Down adapters for PCIe tunnelling and USB Up and Down adapters (for USB tunnelling which is new for USB4 and Thunderbolt 4). An LG UltraFine 5K uses both DisplayPort Out adapters so there is none remaining for another display. On the host side, the Thunderbolt host controller has only two DisplayPort In adapters (for getting DisplayPort connections from the GPU). The Thunderbolt controllers in the Blackmagic eGPUs and the Sonnet eGPU Breakaway Puck 5500XT and 5700 have DisplayPort In adapters so they can connect an LG UltraFine 5K to their GPU instead of the host Mac's GPU (M1 Macs don't support eGPUs).

TS4 now the entry page on caldigit.com... https://www.caldigit.com/

A few notes about their display compatibility chart:

- They show only single 6K60 support for the Intel Thunderbolt 3 Macs or PCs. However, the display must be using HBR2 + DSC, so it should be able to support two of them. Apple doesn't let you connect an XDR using dual HBR3 using a Thunderbolt dock or an optical Thunderbolt cable (unless something has changed?) - the display needs to be connected directly to a Mac using a normal Thunderbolt cable. I don't think PC's support dual HBR3 mode at all (Apple uses a special trick for that mode - it doesn't happen automatically because dual HBR3 can exceed 40 Gbps Thunderbolt limit). Lack of dual 6K60 support is not a problem with their docks - it's a macOS or Windows driver issue or the PC they tested doesn't support DSC or the GPU they tested doesn't have enough performance to do two 6K60 HBR2 + DSC displays.

- Lack of 8K60 support is not a problem with their dock - it's a macOS issue. They should have said it will work when Apple fixes their drivers.

- The USB-C 10Gb/s PC (DP 1.4) is for DisplayPort Alt Mode connection. I suppose it passes up to two lanes of HBR3 (since the other two lanes are for USB 3.x send and receive). It may be enough for 6K60 - the XDR doesn't support single link HBR3 so you need a DisplayPort MST hub to convert two lanes of HBR3 + DSC to four lanes of HB2 + DSC. I'm not sure that works. Normally the XDR uses DSC@12bpp but with only two lanes of HBR3 you need to reduce that to DSC@10bpp. I'm not sure if that would work with the XDR. The only way to get a similar DisplayPort Alt Mode port on a Mac is the MacBook (limited to DisplayPort 1.2) or the USB-C port of a HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 (which is actually provided by a port of an internal DisplayPort 1.4 MST hub). In macOS, there's a way to change the default DSC target bpp but I haven't tried it. Anyway, with the MST hub, dual 4K60 should also be doable (with DSC@12bpp). Remember that macOS doesn't support multiple displays using an MST hub but it should be able to use the DisplayPort conversion features of an MST hub.

I am completely confused -- I don't see how a dock could make my 6K and 4K work over the same single wire running to the Mac M1 Max. I didn't think that was possible, yet that's what their site is claiming. Seems iffy.

Thunderbolt can carry two HBR2 x4 DisplayPort signals (17.28 Gbps each). Or it can carry one HBR3 x4 (25.92 Gbps) connection with one HBR x4 connection (17.28 Gbps).
HBR2 is enough for 4K60 10bpc RGB. Pixel clock = 533.25MHz * 30bpp = 16 Gbps.
HBR2 is also enough for 6K60 12bpc RGB (using DSC@12bpp). Pixel clock = 1286MHz * 12bpp = 15.4 Gbps.
6K60 uses less bandwidth than 4K60!

Without DSC, two HBR3 x4 connections is required (using Apple's special dual HBR3 trick for Thunderbolt). 648.91MHz * 2 * 30bpp = 38.9 Gbps which leaves no room for a third DisplayPort connection and very little bandwidth for USB (at least for writes - I haven't seen anyone USB read speed of a USB NVMe drive connected to an XDR's USB 3.0 ports).

 

[macphoto861]

True, but 10 Gbps is also the total maximum for the TS4. The TS3+ had 4 separate USB controllers and could therefore do up to 22 Gbps USB total.

Interesting – so for some specific use case scenarios, the TS4 is actually a downgrade?

 

[rickeames]

- The USB-C 10Gb/s PC (DP 1.4) is for DisplayPort Alt Mode connection. I suppose it passes up to two lanes of HBR3 (since the other two lanes are for USB 3.x send and receive). It may be enough for 6K60 - the XDR doesn't support single link HBR3 so you need a DisplayPort MST hub to convert two lanes of HBR3 + DSC to four lanes of HB2 + DSC. I'm not sure that works. Normally the XDR uses DSC@12bpp but with only two lanes of HBR3 you need to reduce that to DSC@10bpp. I'm not sure if that would work with the XDR. The only way to get a similar DisplayPort Alt Mode port on a Mac is the MacBook (limited to DisplayPort 1.2) or the USB-C port of a HP Thunderbolt Dock G2 (which is actually provided by a port of an internal DisplayPort 1.4 MST hub). In macOS, there's a way to change the default DSC target bpp but I haven't tried it. Anyway, with the MST hub, dual 4K60 should also be doable (with DSC@12bpp). Remember that macOS doesn't support multiple displays using an MST hub but it should be able to use the DisplayPort conversion features of an MST hub.

Thunderbolt can carry two HBR2 x4 DisplayPort signals (17.28 Gbps each). Or it can carry one HBR3 x4 (25.92 Gbps) connection with one HBR x4 connection (17.28 Gbps).
HBR2 is enough for 4K60 10bpc RGB. Pixel clock = 533.25MHz * 30bpp = 16 Gbps.
HBR2 is also enough for 6K60 12bpc RGB (using DSC@12bpp). Pixel clock = 1286MHz * 12bpp = 15.4 Gbps.
6K60 uses less bandwidth than 4K60!

Without DSC, two HBR3 x4 connections is required (using Apple's special dual HBR3 trick for Thunderbolt). 648.91MHz * 2 * 30bpp = 38.9 Gbps which leaves no room for a third DisplayPort connection and very little bandwidth for USB (at least for writes - I haven't seen anyone USB read speed of a USB NVMe drive connected to an XDR's USB 3.0 ports).

Okay, so I guess their website is misleading. If you have the XDR, "dual display support" is not supported, and from what you are saying, we can't even run the XDR through the dock, so I'm *still* going to have two wires going into my Mac.

 

[macphoto861]

Maybe the TS4 uses a PCIe 2.5 GbE Ethernet controller but probably it's just a USB adapter.

I did see that Caldigit posted on Twitter that it's PCIe... "Intel I225".

 

[joevt]

Interesting – so for some specific use case scenarios, the TS4 is actually a downgrade?

Some very specific use cases that probably don't exist. And by very specific, maybe contrived is a better term.

Okay, so I guess their website is misleading. If you have the XDR, "dual display support" is not supported, and from what you are saying, we can't even run the XDR through the dock, so I'm *still* going to have two wires going into my Mac.

You can run the XDR through the dock only if your GPU and macOS support DSC and choose DSC. And in that case you should be able to connect two XDR displays (again, if the GPU and macOS allow it).
If the GPU and macOS don't support DSC, then the XDR won't work, or it will be limited to 4K60 - I'm not sure which - I would hope 4K60. I'm not sure why Apple doesn't do the dual HBR3 connection trick when there is a Thunderbolt device between the XDR and the host - I don't think the extra hop would increase the bandwidth required too much?

I did see that Caldigit posted on Twitter that it's PCIe... "Intel I225".

Based on that comment, I rechecked the product page and it says "2.5GbE performance requires a Thunderbolt host". Basically, PCIe devices in a Thunderbolt 3 or Thunderbolt 4 dock cannot be used if the host connection is USB instead of Thunderbolt.

The ACASIS USB4 NVMe enclosure gets around this by switching the PCIe of the NVMe from the Thunderbolt controller (for full 22Gbps PCIe tunnelling over Thunderbolt) to a USB to NVMe bridge chip (for 10 Gbps USB) when it is connected to a USB host. The ACASIS isn't really USB4 though - it uses a Thunderbolt 3 controller or a USB bridge chip depending on the host. If it were connected to a USB4 host that does not support Thunderbolt then it would be limited to USB 10 Gbps speed.

For an Ethernet device you would have to include a USB Ethernet adapter with the PCIe Ethernet controller if you wanted Ethernet for a USB host while having a PCIe Ethernet controller for a Thunderbolt host. This would also require an extra USB hub port for the USB Ethernet adapter. Other Thunderbolt 4 docks (or Titan Ridge based Thunderbolt 3 docks) just use a USB Ethernet adapter and leave the PCIe lane(s) unused so that the Ethernet port works for both USB and Thunderbolt hosts.

 

[likegadgets]

All Thunderbolt 4 docks/hubs use the same Goshen Ridge chip so they all have the same capabilities.


Your 5K display is a dual link SST display (LG UltraFine 5K or Dell UP2715K or similar) which uses two DisplayPort 1.2 connections to get 5K so of course you can connect only one of those to a single Thunderbolt port with no other displays.
They do not have a single link SST mode, except for 4K.

The XDR display has a dual link SST mode (two HBR3 connections over Thunderbolt) and a single link SST mode (one HBR2 connection). If it's not using dual link SST mode then you should be able to connect two of them to a Thunderbolt port.
The single link SST mode can do 6K60 if it's using DSC otherwise it would be limited to 4K60. One thing strange about the XDR is that it doesn't appear to have a single link SST mode using HBR3 (to do something like 5K60 8bpc).

Given this explanation, Do you think the TS4 will be able to handle an XDR 6K and an LG 5K ultrafine via one cable solution with a MBP M1 MAX? Looks like it will do two XDRs 6Ks however as you said the 5K uses two display ports connected to each TB port

 

[joevt]

Given this explanation, Do you think the TS4 will be able to handle an XDR 6K and an LG 5K ultrafine via one cable solution with a MBP M1 MAX? Looks like it will do two XDRs 6Ks however as you said the 5K uses two display ports connected to each TB port

Correction: the 5K uses both DisplayPort connections from a Thunderbolt port. A Thunderbolt controller/bus only has two DisplayPort inputs from the GPU. The LG UltraFine 5K has, internally, two DisplayPort outputs from its Thunderbolt controller - one for the left half and one for the right half of the display. This means no other display can be connected to the same Thunderbolt port and also to any other Thunderbolt ports of the same Thunderbolt bus (usually two ports per bus).

For a one cable solution, if you connect the 6K first, then the 5K, then the 5K will work at 4K60 (since it will be limited to a single DisplayPort 1.2 connection as the XDR used the first DisplayPort connection of the Thunderbolt bus). On an Intel Mac, you can create a custom timing 5K39 which may work on the LG UltraFine 5K so it can do 5K with a single DisplayPort connection.

 

[likegadgets]

Correction: the 5K uses both DisplayPort connections from a Thunderbolt port. A Thunderbolt controller/bus only has two DisplayPort inputs from the GPU. The LG UltraFine 5K has, internally, two DisplayPort outputs from its Thunderbolt controller - one for the left half and one for the right half of the display. This means no other display can be connected to the same Thunderbolt port and also to any other Thunderbolt ports of the same Thunderbolt bus (usually two ports per bus).

For a one cable solution, if you connect the 6K first, then the 5K, then the 5K will work at 4K60 (since it will be limited to a single DisplayPort 1.2 connection as the XDR used the first DisplayPort connection of the Thunderbolt bus). On an Intel Mac, you can create a custom timing 5K39 which may work on the LG UltraFine 5K so it can do 5K with a single DisplayPort connection.

A bit technical for me, but it seems the answer is NO, I cannot connect both the XDR and the LG5K to the TS4 which then connects to the M1 MAX. I can continue to have one monitor on the TS4 but the other on a different TB4 port on the M1 MAX, that is until I replace the LG 5K with another XDR. Thanks

 

[rickeames]

You can run the XDR through the dock only if your GPU and macOS support DSC and choose DSC. And in that case you should be able to connect two XDR displays (again, if the GPU and macOS allow it).
If the GPU and macOS don't support DSC, then the XDR won't work, or it will be limited to 4K60 - I'm not sure which - I would hope 4K60. I'm not sure why Apple doesn't do the dual HBR3 connection trick when there is a Thunderbolt device between the XDR and the host - I don't think the extra hop would increase the bandwidth required too much?

Well, I have the maxed out M1 Pro Max with all the GPU's, so I have no idea if that meets the above or not.

 

[Freeangel1]

not worth it. $100 too much. Maybe if it had a 10GB ethernet port. but it does not.

also slower SD card transfer rates.

 

[joevt]

A bit technical for me, but it seems the answer is NO, I cannot connect both the XDR and the LG5K to the TS4 which then connects to the M1 MAX. I can continue to have one monitor on the TS4 but the other on a different TB4 port on the M1 MAX, that is until I replace the LG 5K with another XDR. Thanks

True for 5K60 + 6K60 on M1 Max or M1 Pro or Mac with DSC support. For M1 Macs, it needs to support two external displays (the LG uses two DisplayPort connections but counts as a single display on M1 Macs) and have at least two Thunderbolt ports (because 5K60 takes all the bandwidth and DisplayPort connections of a single Thunderbolt port). For Intel Macs, it needs to support three external displays since each tile of the LG is counted as a separate display (but it appears as one display to the user).

You could get 4K60 or 5K39 for the LG5K with 6K60 for the XDR on Intel Mac with DSC support if you don't mind reconnecting the 5K display every time your computer boots or wakes (in case the 5K takes two DisplayPort connections - you need to have the XDR recognized first so that it takes the first DisplayPort connection, then when the 5K is connected, there will only be one DisplayPort connection available to take).

Well, I have the maxed out M1 Pro Max with all the GPU's, so I have no idea if that meets the above or not.

M1 Pro Max GPUs support DSC and has 3 thunderbolt 4 ports so it should work. The only reason it wouldn't work is bad cable or bad drivers.

One thing strange about the M1 Max specs is that it says it can support 3 XDR displays and one HDMI display. But I don't know if Apple is only counting direct connections to the M1 Max (it has 3 Thunderbolt ports and one HDMI port) or if there is a limit on total pixels per second. What should be possible is connecting 4 XDR displays (at least two of them requires a Thunderbolt dock connection). It is known that the M1 Max can connect 3 LG UltraFine 5K displays and an HDMI display - that's 8 total DisplayPort connections (one for the built-in display, 6 for the 3 LG UltraFine 5K displays, and one for the HDMI display). That's two more connections than an AMD GPU and twice as many as an Nvidia GPU - but three of those extra DisplayPort connections can only be used by a tiled display like the LG UltraFine 5K - The M1 Max is limited to 4 displays.

 

[playtech1]

Which dock? I think the TS3+ uses an Intel Gigabit controller.
https://forums.macrumors.com/thread...able-thunderbolt-3-dock.2286171/post-29639488

I just checked and you were absolutely right - I mixed it up with a different Caldigit USB-C device.

 

[dstyp]

It has arrived. In meetings and todos all day so no time to try it out yet. Gotta keep the TS3+ running all day.

First thing of note that I was not expecting - the TS4 volume/footprint is quite a bit larger than TS3+. Will need to reorg slightly on the desktop I think...

Regardless, looks nice!

 

[Ifti]

I use the CalDigit 10G ethernet adapter all the time - would have loved for the dock to include 10GBe but appreciate the constraints.
OWC have their Pro Dick with 10GBe ethernet, but because of that we have cooling fans built in to the dock - a noise I, and most users, do not want (although not recommended by OWC, the fan can be switched off when 10GBe isn't being used).

Hence I can always plug my 10GBe CalDigit adapter into one of the TB ports on the rear of the dock I guess......

 

[macphoto861]

First thing of note that I was not expecting - the TS4 volume/footprint is quite a bit larger than TS3+.

Interesting. Won't affect me, but I wonder if some folks might be upset about that... the image for the pre-announcement post they made on Twitter implied it was the same size:

Anyway, mine should be arriving today as well!

 

[dstyp]

Interesting. Won't affect me, but I wonder if some folks might be upset about that... the image for the pre-announcement post they made on Twitter implied it was the same size:

View attachment 1957375


Anyway, mine should be arriving today as well!

Hmm, good find. I honestly just assumed it was the same size but I'm sure it's clear when reading the product description which any good prosumer should do of course . That image certainly is a bit deceptive though.

Meeting ended early. More comparison pics.

 

[killawat]

probably needed a little extra length for the extra thunderbolt port. a fair trade imo.

 

[dstyp]

Was able to get it up and running in between work. Off to a rocky start, came back to the Macbook Pro M1 Max having restarted after grabbing coffee. Report metions Thunderbolt driver.

Hopefully nothing. Had 0 problems like this with the TS3+ though so it's a bit concerning as I've read reports about this also regarding the TS3+ previously.

edit: happened again. Seems to be related to sleep/wakeup. Will wait until 3rd time and then report. Hopefully something that can be fixed with firmware. Looking forward to read more reports as these units begin to ship.

 

[dingobiatch]

Was able to get it up and running in between work. Off to a rocky start, came back to the Macbook Pro M1 Max having restarted after grabbing coffee. Report metions Thunderbolt driver.

Hopefully nothing. Had 0 problems like this with the TS3+ though so it's a bit concerning as I've read reports about this also regarding the TS3+ previously.

edit: happened again. Seems to be related to sleep/wakeup. Will wait until 3rd time and then report. Hopefully something that can be fixed with firmware. Looking forward to read more reports as these units begin to ship.

This happens constantly to me with my M1 Max MBP and TS3+. Pretty widely discussed online.

I do hope that the TS4 fixes the USB power issues I've had with my TS3+... I had to get a second standalone USB-C hub to spread my devices across, otherwise I would get drive disconnects and/or messages about too much USB power being used (even though everything I'm using is powered, including hubs).

 

[rickeames]

Really wanting to see if XDR+4K monitor actually works from one wire as they claim, or are they leaving XDR out of the 6K definition (in which case they should have said so in the marketing).

 

[macphoto861]

Just a quick heads-up to anyone having ethernet problems. I had no connectivity – my router was assigning me an IP address, but I couldn't go to any websites nor see any local network devices. Tried removing and re-adding the network interface, restarting my router and switch, rebooting computer, power-cycling TS4, etc.

Eventually tracked it down to a default setting of "full-duplex, energy-efficient-ethernet". Switching to manual, and changing this setting to just regular "full duplex" solved it.

(edit: also changed to jumbo frames after making these screen shots )

 

[macphoto861]

Seeing a bit of an anomaly with a Thunderbolt 3 NVMe SSD. Directly connected to my MBP vs. connected through the TS4, read speeds are in the same ballpark, but write speeds are noticeably lower through the dock: