Thunderbolt motherboard headers 2023 vs Sonnet Allegro Pro USB-C 8-Port PCIe Card

Hardware Hub
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Hi Folks,
I’m new here. But, I’ve been reading past closed threads on Thunderbolt for a few days, and decided to create an account, and ask if any of you are still working with Thunderbolt motherboard headers?

I had to kind of go backwards to go forward with my build. What I mean is, to build a machine I could afford that has enough PCIe slots for me, I bought a new (but it was first released in 2019) Asus x299 SAGE/10G in March 2023. It’s running great with most of my old and new components. But, the Thunderbolt has been tricky. I bought, tried, and returned the Asus ThunderboltEX 3 card. I think they stopped supporting it early on.

I now have the Titan Ridge 2.0 installed.

But, the SAGE/10G doesn’t have any USB 2.0 headers to hook the card to. I’m on firmware 50 on the Titan Ridge. I used to run the following on my Mac Mini and now need to run them on my x299 SAGE:

  1. CalDigit TS3
  2. CalDigit TS4

Before wiring the CalDigits to the SAGE/G10 via original CalDigit Thunderbolt cables, the CalDigits were doing great–just moments earlier on my Mac Mini.
On the Mac, all USB Gens worked fine plugged into the CalDigits USB ports. But…

When wired to the Titan Ridge 2.0, USB 2.0 has stopped working. I’ve been troubleshooting that, because I want to run all my simple stuff off the CalDigits and connect my serious studio gear directly to the ports on the front and back of my SAGE’s case. Interestingly, the Caldigit TS4 does run my external harddrive, but that seems to be all it will run. I haven’t tested my Blackmagic USB 3.1 device, yet–because I have tons of USB 2.0 stuff I’d like to hook up. So, I’ve been trying to get USB 2.0 working. So, first question…

Is USB 2.0 not working because the x299 SAGE/G10 motherboard doesn’t have any USB 2.0 headers for me to wire the Titan’s USB 2.0 connector to the motherboard?

Today I’m going to run down this checklist. I know I’ve done most of it from a different checklist. But there are somethings I don’t recognize that I’d like to try. I got this from Rangulicon’s April '21 LEVELONETECHS entry:

  • The only difference should be that on Intel motherboards IOMMU is named VT-d, everything else should be the same.

BIOS Settings

  • TB Support - Enabled
  • TB Security Mode - No Security
  • CMS - Disabled
  • Above 4G Decoding - Enabled
  • Re-Size Bar Support - Enabled
  • SR-IOV Support - Enabled
  • Fast Boot - Disabled
  • XMP Profile - Enabled
  • PCIE DEvices Power On - Enabled
  • IOMMU - Enabled (VT-d - Enabled on Intel)
  • DMA Protection - Enabled

I’ll update this with my results :slight_smile:
PS: Here’s the environment I’ve been integrating:
Asus X299 Sage/20G
Titan Ridge 2.0 Thunderbolt PCIe card
* I put the card in Slot-2 in compliance with the Sage/10G manual
* 5-pin attached
* Both power connectors attached
* No USB 2.0 header to attach to
* Firmware 50
One Thunderbolt C port to CalDigit TS3
One Thunderbolt C port to CalDigit TS4
Intel 10980XE
256GB RAM
MSI Suprim Liquid RTX 4090
2 PCIe Gen 3 Blackmagic Quad Recorder capture cards
vMix
1 Sony, 4 GoPros, and a PTZ webcam. These are all pointing at me from different angles in my video studio.

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Can’t say for sure whether or not that’s the case

If it is you can get 30 pin to 9 pin adapters

Maybe don’t get that one but an idea for what to look for

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Thank you GigaBusterEXE. You got me thinking: “Do I really need my CalDigit TS3 & TS4?” Then I went about trying to prove that I don’t need them–and could find a solid replacement for Thunderbolt altogether.

They provide me with 20 USB ports or so. I don’t use any of their other ample port types. All I need, is a ton of USB ports for my video recording studio. So, I looked around for a good front panel on Amazon. That inspired me to start looking at PCIe USB port cards on Amazon. The cards were around $20 to $40. But they rarely had good average reviews. Four stars were almost never above 60%. It just looked like more headaches.

So then I started searching for pro level cards and found the 8-port Sonnet Tech Pro USB 3.2 gen 2 card for $399.99. I jumped on it. I’ll be selling my Titan Ridge, and probably my CalDigit TS4 and TS3, now. This card, if it works, and Sonnet tech has good stuff that “Just works”, will result in 16 USB ports total between my case front and back plus the card. That’s plenty for what I’m doing now. The only scare-point is that I have 48 PCIe lanes available on my CPU/Motherboard. And this card put me right up to 48 lanes in use!!! Hopefully, I haven’t missed any lanes that I’ve committed. I tracked them in a spreadsheet. So, hopefully I’ve got this…

Thanks again GigaBusterEXE. I know you weren’t trying to get me to blow off Thunderbolt–entirely. But frankly, I’m relieved. This situation was too hacky for a solid production environment. Hopefully this Sonnet PCIe card WILL ‘Just-work’.

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Used TB in the Windows environment for almost a decade then finally gave up. It always becomes a bit of a mess,

With 25Gbps networking, we found it simpler to go TrueNAS Scale and high speed NICs and give up on the headache that was Windows-based TB.

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Yeah man. Bumperdoo!

It seems like Intel is just not putting enough energy and time into this, and like the motherboard companies are very wary of Intel Thunderbolt.

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And the licensing Intel imposes on those MOBOs including their tech.

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I’ve got a SAGE 10G as well as the Titan Ridge 2.0 card.

I purchased this NZXT hub to get extra USB 2.0 internal connections for my Titan Ridge, Corsair AIO and Commander Pro accessories.

@ned.zeppelin When you reboot or shutdown your computer, on the next boot-up, do your Thunderbolt devices wakeup properly?
My OWC Thunderbolt DAS doesn’t, so I’m wondering if there’s a BIOS setting somewhere that I’m missing?

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Hi Blackbox514,
I’m sorry to get back to you late. I failed to get this operating with all the recommended settings I could find. More details in the thread. I did, however, get it working with my external SATA standard spinning disk harddrive. But, my settings are lost because I disabled Thunderbolt in my BIOS and pulled the card. The harddrive always worked. But, I never checked transfer rates to make sure it was really going the fastest it could via thunderbolt, or if it was going through at a lower USB speed.

It almost always turned on after reboots because the TS4 almost always got a connection to the Titan Ridge. The TS3 never got a good connect, and I’d have to pull and reinsert the TB cable.

But, I don’t care about the storage. I needed thunderbolt for lots of USB ports on CalDigit TS4 & TS3’s.

Solution, so I switched to this instead. It arrives tomorrow. https://www.amazon.com/Sonnet-Allegro-USB-C-8-Port-PCIe/dp/B09XMCY4C6/ref=sr_1_3?crid=1LSHX0PS7H1YY&keywords=Sonnet+USB+3.2+USB+C+8-port+pcie&qid=1682813719&sprefix=sonnet+usb+3.2+usb+c+8-port+pcie%2Caps%2C134&sr=8-3
I bought it directly from their site, not from Amazon, so they could get a bigger cut.
Thanks, Ned :slightly_smiling_face:

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The Allegro Pro USB-C 8-Port PCIe Card (Pro Series USB 3.2 PCIe Card with Four USB 3.2 Controllers and x8 PCIe 3.0 Bridge Chip to Deliver Full 10Gbps Per Port) card ($399.99) arrives, tomorrow.

If it’s tough to get going I’ll hop on here and request your help :slight_smile:

I mention this card, because it took me a long time to find something like this that seemed server production / workstation class, that I might be able to depend on. The other stuff I found was all getting low scores on Amazon, and cheap. So, hopefully this will just work.

At any rate I’ll report on the install in hopes that can help others :slight_smile:

–Ned

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I’m interested in your impressions of that Sonnet card either way. I was eyeing it for a project, but didn’t end up needing the connectivity, so haven’t had a chance to try it myself.

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It’s supposed to arrive any minute, today. So, I will definitely have something for you by tomorrow. Meanwhile, what USB solution did you end up using instead your project?

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The board I ultimately chose has a second controller, and some of my original plans scaled back (lack of time), so I ended up with enough ports to start with. Short term I’ll just use a hub if needed, and re-evaluate an additional controller later.

My USB use is fairly intermittent, I don’t keep a lot of devices connected at once, which helps. Part of the reason I was eyeing the Sonnet was for the virtualization support, which I might need in the future, just not at this particular moment.

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The documentation claimed that I’d need no drivers if I have any Windows versions other than Win 7. It’s a cool looking card, kind of a double decker with a smaller card for the second level.

I installed the card in the PCIe slot. Booted up. With no fanfare, it just started working LOL. I tested my:

  1. Rodecaster Pro 2. Sounds fine.
  2. Streamdeck XL
  3. Streamdeck (15 button)
  4. Streamdeck (6 buttons)
  5. Streamdeck (Footpedal–3 buttons)
  6. Mouse & Keyboard
  7. Focusrite Scarlett
  8. 16TB external drive

Everything is working, but the Stream Deck XL. Which is not working on any of the case USB ports, either. It seems to me that the Sonnet card is working well. I don’t know how to benchmark it, so I’m really just guessing. Any suggestions for benchmarking?

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Glad to hear it just works!

As for benchmarking, good question. Ignoring the industrial testing gear, I’ve seen people test latency with professional audio gear, and bandwidth with high speed SSDs, but can’t think of any practical standardized test. Especially for all ports at once, which is what would be really interesting here.

You could use something like hwinfo64 to make sure it’s negotiating the rates you expect with various things plugged in, which would at least make sure it’s functioning on a protocol level, but aside from that… good question!

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