Thunderbolt add in card.

Yes we do have a Dell Precision Thunderbolt 2 Add-in card customer installation kit available. Unfortunately it is not showing up on any website that I am aware of. I am talking to the internal sales team to get that fix. I will update this response once i hear back form them.

Hi SpeedStep,

Dell does have a Precision Thunderbolt 2 add-in card that mechanically and electrically plugs in to a PCIe slot. You are correct that it is not a standard PCIe bus, but only with a minor modification. Our Tower 5810, Tower 7810 and Tower 7910, T1700SFF and T1700MT all have the modification needed to support this Dell Precision Thunderbolt add-in card.

We do not support any other vendors Thunderbolt add-in card.

Thanks

Thunderbolt isn't really and add in card.  There are no thunderbolt upgrades.  They are also not universal aka Dell Card is for Dell ASUS card is for ASUS.  The Thunderbolt header goes to a header on the motherboard.

They use the card to hold a bracket but there is no PCI-E specification for thunderbolt card because it does not exist.

A Dell card not one from ASUS. This is not a card that just requires PCI-E bus to EXPAND your system to Thunderbolt.  Therefore it is NOT an expansion card but rather a bracket to hold the thunderbolt port and provide power to the Thunderbolt Transceiver.  The card is essentially a mounting bracket for the thunderbolt port. "Asus is about to release a new Thunderbolt3 adapter card " This will not work in a DELL.

Its NOT an expansion card that will go into any machine.  And such cards are not interchangeable between vendors.

Thunderbolt goes to the card and Display port wraps into the card via cables.  Without these cables and POWER from the PCI-E bus these cards do not work and therefore are not interchangeable or applicable to ANY other system.  You can't use the ASUS card in a dell and you cant use the DELL card in an ASUS for example.

People see this card and think that if they have a PCI-E bus they can upgrade to thunderbolt.  This is not the case.

..

That was not my question. The VIDEO you posted shows the ADD IN CARD clearly!  WHERE DO I GET the add in card SHOWN IN YOUR VIDEO?  What is the DELL PART NUMBER?  

Thanks very much!

A complete Kit has 3 pieces its not ronco plug in card set it and forget it.  There is 1 AND ONLY 1 slot that it works in.  

There are 2 cables just like with the Asus Card.  ONE INTERNAL AND ONE EXTERNAL.  I am not dell spare parts and I am not dell engineering so I have NO IDEA what the part number is.

http://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/04/campaigns/chat-splitter-usbusiness?~ck=pn

Each vendor makes their own cables and card.

Sorry, that last card is only 3.0.  Here's and example of 3.1 type A and C!  My bad..

www.ebay.com/.../131755503161

Thanks to everyone who replied.  Sorry, I double posted the same response but people had already answered before my post passed moderation. And my question was late to the answers.

Still wondering about the part number though?  From what I understand third parties are now making units that will likely work, and it's USB type A and C. Not "thunderbolt 3" per say but same specs.

No, not ASUS proprietary cards, but cards that actually work in any PC with 4x pcie socket.

Here's a very affordable example:  2 x 3.1 A and 1X 3.1 C  plugs.  So yes it's now possible.

www.newegg.com/.../Product.aspx  Would still be helpful to get the part number for the dell model as well. Thanks everyone!

Well "thunderbolt" and usb 3.1 GEN 2 are both 10GB's per second, so I think that's what most people want anyway, same super fast transfer rates?   Just don't get the asus cards obviously.

Just google USB 3.1 Gen 2 and you will find many cards that meet that standard and have same exact port connection as thunderbolt 3.  

Not sure what the difference is going to be as far as real world performance?  Perhaps it's latency?  Certified thunderbolt 3 is supposed super low latency for connecting to external pro audio devices..

Maybe that's not the case with usb 3.1 Gen 2?  Otherwise does not matter, same throughput rates.

Anyway, thanks for your comments everyone!

USB 3 is not thunderbolt and vice versa.  There ARE NO THUNDERBOLT PCI-E cards because thunderbolt comes from the motherboard via GPIO connection.  There are no standards for GPIO thunderbolt from the motherboard.

I am guessing this is the card, HP version but probably same thing?

www.ebay.com/.../302261940578

More than I want to invest though. : )   So I guess that settles it.

Theoretical vs. Actual Bandwidth: PCI Express , USB 3.1 and Thunderbolt

Adding USB 3 or 3.1 X1 card to a machine does not in fact give you Thunderbolt 3 thruput on a Vaccuum tube motherboard with PCI-E 1.0 or 2.0 chipset.

This card is X4 because of that limitation.

https://www.amazon.com/Mediasonic-Ports-10Gbps-Express-Card/dp/B015JYYZNY

USB C (3.1)  and Thunderbolt 3 are chipset specific.  Adding a USB 3.1 card to the PCI-E bus DOES NOT add Thunderbolt of any version.  There is also the Giga Bits vs Giga Bytes difference as in 8x slower.    The 3rd "issue" is PCI-E X1  vs X4 or X8  and version 1.1 or 2.1 or 3.1

This is why PCI-E  X1  version 1.1 cannot even do SATA 3 speed because X1 is not enough bandwidth.

A single PCIe 1.0 (or 1.1) lane can carry up to 2.5 Gigatransfers per second (GT/s) in each direction simultaneously. For PCIe 2.0, that increases to 5GT/s, and a single PCIe 3.0 lane can carry 8GT/s.

People say that PCIe 3.0 is twice the speed of PCI 2.0, but as stated above, its per-lane theoretical throughput is 8GT/s, which is only 60 percent more than PCIe 2.0's 5GT/s.   With SLI Nvidia GeForce GTX Titans on both PCIe 3.0 and 2.0, there is, at best, a seven percent performance improvement at 5760 x 1200.  And this is with X16 slots.

Thunderbolt is a data transfer interface that can pass through both PCI Express and DisplayPort signals, depending on what it is plugged into. A Thunderbolt controller consists of two bidirectional data channels, with each channel containing an input and an output lane. The Thunderbolt chips on each end of the cable take in both DisplayPort 1.1a and a four-lane PCIe 2.0 bus. Each channel is independent, and can either carry DisplayPort or PCIe, but not both. Each direction in each channel has a theoretical maximum throughput of 10Gbps--the same as two PCIe 2.0 lanes.

Despite the limitations of first-gen Thunderbolt, it's still a far better external storage interface than USB 3.0, which at best is only half the speed of a first-gen Thunderbolt connection (5Gbps maximum).

Interesting, In that case then it would still be helpful to figure out where to find the dell card then works with the 7810, given it's true TB 2.0 specs.

What I am really wanting is low latency connection, but my audio device is firewire anyways so probably won't make any difference even with a thunderbolt/firewire adapter?  

The entire point of all this is to get as low of a latency setting possible to a Firewire 800 pro audio device so there is no lag in real time recording input.. : )

Thanks for that info!

Did you make any progress on this Yimin?  Just checking.  My latest call to Dell spare part the service person claimed the could sell me an ASUS TB3 card for my T7810, but we got cut off before he could verify if this could actually work! (which I highly doubt). Thanks for your time.