I’m looking to build or upgrade a PC to have it sit in another room. Actually it would perform many functions, only one of which would be a desktop. I’d have an UnRAID server and would passthrough my GPU to the desktop VM. What I’m looking for is solutions to having that server in a different room entirely. Around 10 meters of distance, cable wise. Intel has Thunderbolt (which is still not ideal, a Thunderbolt 2 10m optical cable is over 300 euro), but Ryzen, which I would like to go with, doesn’t have it as of yet. What are my options? Are there DP cables that go that far and are there any implications with using such long cables in general? Maybe someone here tried doing something like this already?
Wait for x470. I’ve heard rumors that there might be thunderbolt on some of those boards.
I’m sure he could get a thunderbolt 3 PCIe card. They’re basically the same thing anyway.
I’m not sure I want to wait for Thunderbolt. To date only one motherboard announced suport for it, and then they backed out because of some incompatibility with current Ryzen CPUs. They might or might not enable it in the future.
@stenstorp I’m pretty sure you need a Thunderbolt header on the motherboard for these cards to work.
Seriously? For a PCIe card? Isn’t thunderbolt 3 just a PCIe x8 connection?
Yes you need a header on the board and the board needs to have a ‘certification’ as Thunderbolt 3 needs tight integration with the hardware. And afaik even needs an iGPU.
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DP 1.3 cable can carry 4k 10m
You’ll need an active repeater USB cable + a hub for peripherals
http://www.yourcablestore.com/USB-Cable-Length-Limitations-And-How-To-Break-Them_ep_42-1.html
HDMI over CAT6 could be an option perhaps?
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That’s actually not a bad idea, that pointed me to the HDBaseT extenders, which differs from regular HDMI over IP with the fact that video is not compressed and the unit itself adds very little latency. I found one from Monoprice for $100 which isn’t that terrible. Only supports one screen though which is a bummer. I’ll have to compare that with plain HDMI cables, they can supposedly transfer on distances >10m but that depends on the resolution and refresh rate.
Yes i have the same setup. My PC is in the basement. Cables have to go at least 7.5m in length.
- A nice quality USB3.0 Hub with a quality 10M cable can handle surprisingly a lot. I have a mouse, keyboard, DAC, 3d printer, flash drives plugged it at the same time. I have this one:
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If you don’t hate HDMI a 7-8m HDMI cable can carry a 3440x1440@95Hz tested right now writing on it. As far as i know DP over 5M drops the signal.
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Audio cables can go many meters…
I setup something similar recently (20m run) using:
-USB over ethernet extender
-super long hdmi cable (with built in power booster)
going to a giant touchscreen, worked flawlessly, highly recommend
although i believe the boosted hdmi cables can’t handle decent refresh rates above 1080p
I have this setup. My gaming rig is mounted in the rack along with my lab servers in the next room, but its more like 5 meters away ( i have a small house). HDMI cables can be made to run up to ten or so meters without any kind of powered repeater, DVI cables can be made to run that long too but you need a power injector at the source end, and even with that i get random pixel misfires (or at least it does with me, certain colors make the random pixels on the screen flicker green. Its not really noticeable but its there). As for display port i’m not sure that a DP signal can be sent that far.
I just have 2 USB 2.0 extension cables running from my desk to the rack for peripherals. One attaches to a powered hub for kb/mouse/soundcard and the other is strictly for my Vive. Unless youre doing something really fancy i don’t think you’d need thunderbolt for peripheral connectivity.
In short DP cable up to 5m. If more (active, ethernet, repeaters…) only 1080p60
HDMI up to 10m. For 4K60 i would stay under 8m.
Depending on what you want you could look at something like a thin client or remote desktop solution or see what HDBaseT adapters/solutions would be your best fit.
Wow, didn’t expect so many people to actually have done something like this.
So anything that compresses the video is basically out of the picture as that would introduce noticeable latency and I intend to occasionally play on this setup and work everyday. I would have to check if HDMI cables would work on my distance with the resolution I’m using (3440x1440 100Hz), if not, I’ll probably go with something HDBaseT based.
@alphazero1990 could you link the cable you’re using?
Well i didn’t link any cables cuz i am still not sure if mine is good. Every now and then i get red dots on my screen. I can eliminate them with turning off and on the monitor though.
But i have this one if you are curious:
Better go and find one to amazon and check user reviews to be sure.