I’d like to clarify something for folks surrounding USB4 & TB3/TB4.
USB4 does not explicitly equal TB3. It can be TB3, but isn’t always. It’s kind of like what’s happening around HDMI 2.1, but more confusing like the entire USB naming conventions with things like USB 3.1 Gen2 vs. 3.2 Gen1 and it’s mess.
Thunderbolt, no matter the version, is an Intel proprietary spec. USB is a consortium, with input from many, many manufacturers. With the introduction of USB4, Intel opened much of the TB3 spec to be usable by anyone, and USB adopted it as part of the USB4 spec. However, like everything USB4, much of it’s “spec” is optional inclusion. The allusion I made previously to HDMI 2.1 is probably easier to understand. HDMI 2.1 allows for 4k@120Hz with HDR due to the increased bandwidth, but manufacturers are not required to support those features while still being allowed to call something HDMI 2.1. There was even a moment (I believe they backpedaled on this but it might still be a thing) where the HDMI consortium was actually going to require basically anything that meets HDMI 2.0 spec to be called HDMI 2.1 even if it doesn’t support any of the new features/higher bandwidth of HDMI 2.1. In much the same way, USB4 can support TB3 and it’s features, but manufacturers are allowed to sell products as USB4 without supporting those TB3 featuresets.
Prior to the USB4 TB3 inclusion, devices needed to have specific hardware to meet TB3 spec. These were Intel chipsets, some of which was in the CPU but much was a separate chip, to do what TB3 does. The same is true for TB4. Most desktop motherboards don’t have Thunderbolt because the advantage of TB (adding more IO) is meaningless, but some companies sell PCIe cards that add TB ports for those edge cases where it’s useful, which is how you can have an AMD Ryzen desktop with a Thunderbolt add in card. This is also why Framework was able to make a laptop that can use Thunderbolt even though they hadn’t yet met the TB spec. You may recall having seen this: Framework | Framework Laptops now have 4 Thunderbolt 4 ports (this was shared previously in this thread) Nirav went into more detail, but the gist of it is that you can have the hardware inside a laptop to do Thunderbolt, but to actually guarantee functional Thunderbolt support you need to meet the spec and pass certification with Intel.
That certification is include in the 12th gen 3.06 BIOS, which is still beta. Now, Thunderbolt devices like docks absolutely can work laptops that aren’t certified, but they won’t be guaranteed to work. Heck, even when the dock and laptop have been certified they might not work well together. I had a Caldigit TB3 dock that refused to play nice with my old Dell XPS 13.
Beyond the concern over the CVE’s that we’re still missing via stable releases of the BIOS, I’m personally also pretty annoyed that in November of 2022 the CEO of Framework said this:
We’ve worked with our manufacturing partner and chip suppliers over the last two years to address each test failure through firmware modifications, and now have fully compliant firmware and hardware!
It’s been 8 months since that post, and we the consumer do not have the fully compliant firmware that was promised. Again, most of us using TB docks are likely working just fine, but I’m curious how many “Oh wow this dock doesn’t work?” questions would be solved if the firmware was properly updated. To my understanding the certs can be part of the Thunderbolt handshake process, and if a dock is particular strict… that might be why it doesn’t work.
So, yeah, I’ll repeat myself again: I really want to like my Framework laptop, and I really want to keep it around and upgrade my motherboard again, but the issues surrounding the BIOS release schedule are disheartening. I’m hoping the 3.07 BIOS doesn’t have significantly longer to go under internal testing, but if it has another 6+ month beta period I’ll feel forced to jump ship back to the big manufacturers.