Which KVM should I buy, and will it solve all of my problems? MacBook Pro, Gaming PC, and Samsung Odyssey Neo G9

[r-ymond]

On weekdays, I work as a software engineer on my MacBook Pro (16” M1). On some evenings & weekends, I like to play video games on my PC. I have one set of all peripherals, and I’d like to share them all between two devices with as few wires and connectors as possible (i.e. I’d really prefer to avoid having to maintain a separate Thunderbolt dock if possible). I don’t need anything fancy like PIP/PBP; I will likely never work and game at the same time.

I’ve been researching this for what feels like months, and I think some of the L1T KBM switches seem like they may be a silver bullet for my use case, but I can’t decide which one I should buy. I’m sure this is one of the most common types of questions that gets asked here, and I’ve read through the FAQs, so I’m sorry to be redundant. I just really want to confirm that things will work for my setup before I commit.

Ideally, ALL of my peripherals would be connected to the KVM switch, which would connect to both my MBP and my PC directly. These peripherals include:

• 49” Samsung Odyssey Neo G9 → DisplayPort → KVM
• Keyboard (ZSA Moonlander) → USB-A → KVM
• Mouse (Logitech MX Vertical) → USB-A → KVM
• Speakers (not sure yet) → USB-A or 3.5mm audio → KVM
• Microphone (NZXT Capsule) → USB-A or 3.5mm audio → KVM
• Webcam (Opal C1) → USB-C → …
  • I can get a USB-C → USB-A converter or cable, but I think that this webcam may be special (read: it kinda sucks?), so it may have to be the one peripheral that I plug into my MBP directly. I’m OK with this for now; I may get a new one.

So far, I think this all seems possible with either of these options:

• USBc KVM Switch v2 (with USB Power Delivery / 70 watts)
• 1.4 Display Port KVM Switch - Single Monitor - Two Computer

The tradeoffs between these two aren’t super clear to me, though. It seems like either option requires a different converter for one of my computers:

• If I get the USB-C KVM, I’ll need a DP & USB to USB-C Combiner for my PC, right?
  • I’m not very savvy here. My GPU is the GeForce RTX™ 3070 VISION OC 8G (rev. 1.0); I have no idea whether that supports USB + DisplayPort.
  • If motherboard is even remotely relevant… it’s the ASRock X570 PHANTOM GAMING-ITX/TB3 Mini ITX Thunderbolt 3 AMD Motherboard. It says Thunderbolt. I don’t know what I’m talking about.
• If I get the DP KVM, I’ll need a Moshi USB-C to DP cable for my MBP.
  • Will I also need a DP & USB to USB-C Combiner for my PC?
  • IIUC, this KVM will NOT pass power to my MBP, so I would still need to connect a separate power source with this. This isn’t ideal, so I think I have a slight preference for the other one, but please correct me if I’m wrong.

As far as display performance goes: I don’t need absolutely cutting edge stuff. I’ve sort of accepted that I’ll probably hover around 90 FPS on high (but not ultra) presets for any sort of intensive games until I’m willing to upgrade my GPU, which may be a while. I think that means that 4k @ 90hz is more than good enough, but I would love any insight or input here in case I’m being short-sighted on anything.

A few ancillary questions, just to get it all out of my brain and into the æther:

• Will either/both KVM(s) support an ethernet connection? I’ve never tried an ethernet-to-USB adapter; if that would work, then that’d be awesome. I only have one ethernet port, and it’s always been plugged into my PC; it would be pretty awesome if I could trivially feed it into my MBP, too.
• Are there any simple solutions that might provide support for HDMI ARC or optical audio? I bought a Samsung soundbar (HW-S60B) with my monitor, and I’m planning to return it in favor of a speaker that can connect directly to the KVM.
• I’ve done a lot of reading on this website, so I’m now convinced that I’ll need high quality cables, but if I wanted to ball on a budget, which cables are the most important ones to prioritize? Would it basically be the ones that connect my monitor & computers into the KVM?
  • I had already picked up the Maxonar USB-C to DP cable before finding L1T; does anyone know whether it’s materially different from the Moshi USB-C to DP cable?

Thanks in advance. I’ve been struggling with this setup for weeks now, so I’m really, really hopeful that this will work. I’d appreciate any advice whatsoever!

[wendell]

Id probably get the regular dp since the neo is so fussy.

The combo kvm also works since it has both native DP and USBC combined.

If you get native DP you don’t need a combiner. You’d run Moshi USBC to dp to kvm and USBC to USBC for USB data from the MacBook

Desktop is USB a to USBC in to the kvm and dp to dp for the video. Done. The Mac needs either another USB charge cable or you can use the same USBC port for the data into the kvm with a passthrough USBc charge adapter.

[r-ymond]

Wow, I didn’t expect a reply so quickly, and especially not from WENDELL! Thanks so much — your videos convinced me that you’re the real deal, which brought me here in the first place.

I’m a little unclear on which KVM “combo” is referring to — is the “USBc KVM Switch v2 (with USB Power Delivery / 70 watts)” a “combo” KVM, or is “combo” only the ones with the word in the product name, e.g. “Combo USB-C Power Delivery & DisplayPort 1.4 KVM - Dual Monitor”? If the latter, is there a single monitor combo model that would help drive that price down a bit?

[wendell]

Combo means dual or triple monitor USBC plus dp kvm , so not applicable for single monitor kvm.

[r-ymond]

I see, I had totally missed the nuance there. It sounds like I’ll pick up the regular DP KVM.

Can you help me understand how the 3.5mm audio inputs work on the DP KVM? I see a headphone jack that I presumably would plug my speakers into in the Console section, and then there are two other audio jacks in either PC section. How are these other two jacks meant to be used? The USB-C model seems to have an explicit input for both headphones and microphone, which makes sense to me, but I don’t really understand if it’s different with the DP model.

I’m starting to realize that I won’t be able to avoid a second dock for the MacBook, if my goal is to be able to get everything in with one input. I think this means that I’ll be picking up a CalDigit dock, which is definitely a bit unfortunate, because that’s basically a 2x multiplier to my budget here. On the bright side, I think this means that I can avoid having to get a Moshi DP-to-USB-C cable, since the CalDigit accepts DP directly…