Look on the right near the top of the SATA connectors. It looks like neglected solder points for a connector meant for a Thunderbolt header. Did Gigabyte abandon Thunderbolt support for this board at the last minute?
Looking at the Computex photos, the Thunderbolt header appears to be there in the photos, but is not present on review samples… The connector was also photoshopped out of official Gigabyte photos.
Asrock has gone full steam ahead with Thunderbolt, sad to see Gigabyte making a last minute decision to scrap Thunderbolt, when USB 4 is going to use Thunderbolt 3 down the line.
Edit: Apparently the Aorus Xtreme kept the Thunderbolt header on the cover, but once again, according to OC3D’s video and photos, it was also scrapped with the same unused solder points. So it was scrapped across the ENTIRE Gigabyte lineup.
In Buildzoid’s PCB breakdown of the Aorus Xtreme, the header IS THERE:
I’ll be getting an X570 Taichi soon (partly because of its official Thunderbolt support since I don’t want to wait for USB 4), the ASRock Thunderbolt add-in card seems to have an outdated Alpine Ridge TB controller chipset.
Is there any reason why the Gigabyte Titan Ridge add-in card would NOT work in the ASRock board?
I’m already using a DP 1.4 display so Titan Ridge would be welcome.
I also remember this same thing being talked about for previous gigabyte boards too.
… Okay had a look. It was x399 and the designare board that had the same THB_C header. So not mainstream but it has existed before, and the same story it is not mentioned at all in the marketing stuff but the boards came with it.
Since you did a lot of Thunderbolt 3 experimentation: Do you think it’s possible to use the Gigabyte Titan Ridge AIC in the ASRock X570 Taichi (that has that header properly) or is there something obvious preventing that?
What’s the truth then? Did some people that received their pre-orders get pre-production boards and that all the current production boards have the header? Kind of like the fiasco with the Strix RTX 2080 Ti missing fan headers?
If this is the case, why would Gigabyte go through the effort to photoshop out the header in the official photos?
The official photos are from preproduction boards which makes sense. As are many but not all review samples. And I’m sure pcpartpicker used early photos. Same with the taichi if you look close says 1.02 on the PCB by the ram but you actually buy 1.05. anything mass produced like this is qualified before being mass produced otherwise you can have an expensive mistake on your hands.
Well I just ordered a x570 Master we’ll see what it is all about when it gets here.
Update:
I suppose this was already known but I thought for sure it would have have it.
My board came in earlier this week and nope- No header just the solder nubs where it should be…
Goddamn - Since I coudn’t get answer if the Gigabyte Titan Ridge AIC could or couldn’t operate in an ASRock X570 Taichi I ordered an “in stock” unit to personally test it and today I get an email stating that the item is no longer available with no estimated future availability.
Is there an issue with the Gigabyte Titan Ridge AIC or somsething else? I hope it’s not EOL since it only has been on the market for less than a year and there seems to be no other manufacturer that offers a Dual Port Titan Ridge AIC
If I’m understanding it correctly the physical Thunderbolt Header on the motherboard is only the first half of the equation, the second one is UEFI support.
Do the Gigabyte X570 motherboards that physically have such a Thunderbolt Header also have the necessary UEFI option to enable Thunderbolt?
I’m asking since I can’t get the ASRock X570 Taichi to work with the GC-Titan Ridge AIC so it would be my next step to look at Gigabyte motherboards. These however do NOT mention Thunderbolt support in their official specifications - what’s up with that?
