Hi there,
I was disappointed to see that Thubderbolt is not supported. I am now trying to understand whether my requirements could still be fulfilled through the 3.2 Gen 2x1 port. I need a touchscreen device for note taking that also supports my 2x2K display setup and also has enough bandwidth to connect to my NAS via 1Gbit (as my current 2015 ThinkPad does via its prop dock). Can you help me find out if this is possible via one regular USB-C 3.2 dock like the Anker 565 USB-C 11-in-1 dock? If possible, how much bandwidth would be left? Would upgrading to 2x4k and 2Gb Ethernet be too much? I really would not want to plug in multiple docks.
I am struggling to figure out bandwidth limitations by the iGPU and by the motherboard implementation. What is the IGPU RAM limit? What is the display pipeline bandwidth limit? Does the motherboard limit the number of displays per port?
It is also really unclear what type of Displayport is being used. Is Displayport MST available? What kind of DP standard is used? Is it HBR1,2,… UHBR10, … ?
Also, is the USB port throttled to USB2 or some other lower speed when ALT mode is active?
I’m in the same boat, also disappointed that there isn’t Thunderbolt support. My current desk setup relies on a Thunderbolt hub for display, Ethernet, and other peripherals, so if I switch to the Framework Laptop 12, I’ll probably have to say goodbye to the single-cable setup.
I can’t speak to the maximum number of supported screens, but when I asked ChatGPT about my own setup, it explained that the USB-C 3.2 Gen 2 port will drop to USB 2.0 speeds once DisplayPort Alt Mode is active. For example, when using a monitor like my 5K Studio Display. So aside from plugging in a basic keyboard and mouse, ethernet could actually end up being slower than just using wifi. Also, features like built-in speakers and the webcam on displays like the Studio Display might not be supported through that dock.
In your case, using the Anker dock should work fine for dual 4K displays and Gigabit Ethernet. But upgrading to 2.5Gb Ethernet would likely exceed the available bandwidth and lead to performance issues.
I’d expect it to support at least HBR3 speeds along with DSC and MST. Possibly higher, but HBR3 is all I’d bet on.
That means it can either run 2x HBR3 (12.96 Gbps display data) + USB 10 Gbps or it can run 4x HBR3 (25.92 Gbps) + USB 2.0.
A 1080p 60 Hz display (assuming that’s what you mean by 2K, sometimes I see people use 2K for 1440p then though that’s closer to 2.5K) needs around ~3-4 Gbps without DSC and ~1-1.5 Gbps with DSC (depending on display timings and other factors).
So two of those would be well within the capabilities of 2x HBR3 even without DSC.
Dynamically adjusts, up to half of the total installed ram. (At least on my 12th gen Intel Framework mainboard, I assume the same is true for the 13th gen CPU in the FWL12)
To my knowledge the CPU does not (and I wouldn’t expect the CPU to). Through MST it can do several displays per port.
I’m pretty sure that 100% of USB related comments I’ve seen that say “I asked ChatGPT” are at least partially wrong.
USB-C has 4 superspeed data lanes (plus separate USB 2.0 pins).
USB 10 Gbps (which has the technical name of USB 3.2 Gen 2x1) uses 2 superspeed data lanes. Higher speeds (ie. 20 Gbps and above) use all 4.
DisplayPort can use 1, 2, or 4 (with more lanes equaling more bandwidth).
So USB-C can either use all 4 lanes for DisplayPort (leaving only USB 2.0), or it can use 2 lanes for DisplayPort and 2 for USB 10 Gbps. Most hubs will do the latter.
Hey, thanks for the feedback. I currently run two screens with QHD 2560 x 1440 on 75Hz. That is what I meant and I now found out that this isn’t 2k, it is 1440p. It would be great, however, to still have some bandwidth for future upgrades.
I really hope that they get to answer officially what happens to USB speeds during ALT mode.