Which thunderbolt ports to use?

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jallen0

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Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostMon Dec 05, 2022 3:17 pm

I had to move my system and was putting it all back together and wanted to ask the group how they would reconnect my external monitors.

I have a 2019 MacPro system with Dual Radeon Pro W5700X 16GB graphic cards. This system has two thunderbolt ports in the rear, and two on top. Each Radeon Pro graphic card also has thunderbolt ports on them. I am connecting two LG UF 5k, 27" Tbolt Display monitors to it as well as a Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K Mini. Plus I have a thunderbolt external drive for backup purposes.This makes a total of four Thunderbolt ports.

I have been told that you want to keep your graphic cards free so all of their power goes to driving Resolve. I also cannot link the two LG 5K monitors together. Given that I would like to keep the two ports on top of the computer free, if possible, what's the best way to plug things in?

Option 1:
Plug in one LG 5K monitor to each graphic card
Plug in the US 4K Mini to an available thunderbolt port
Plug in the drive to the other thunderbolt port
Leave the top two ports open.

Option 2:
Plug in one LG 5K monitor to each available thunderbolt port
Plug in the US 4K Mini to the graphics card
Plug in the drive to the top thunderbolt port

Option 3:
Leave the graphics cards alone and use the 4 available thunderbolt ports

Thanks for your thoughts.
2019 MacPro OS 12.1, 3.2GHz 16 Core, 160GB Mem, 4TB Drive, 8TB Internal Sonnet Raid, Dual Radeon Pro W5700X 16GB
LG UF 5k, 27" Tbolt Display, 55" LG C8
Resolve Edit Keyboard, Mini Panel, US 4K Mini
Resolve Studio Ver. 17.4.3
Desktop Video 12.1
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mpetech

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostMon Dec 05, 2022 3:22 pm

jallen0 wrote:I had to move my system and was putting it all back together and wanted to ask the group how they would reconnect my external monitors.

I have a 2019 MacPro system with Dual Radeon Pro W5700X 16GB graphic cards. This system has two thunderbolt ports in the rear, and two on top. Each Radeon Pro graphic card also has thunderbolt ports on them. I am connecting two LG UF 5k, 27" Tbolt Display monitors to it as well as a Blackmagic UltraStudio 4K Mini. Plus I have a thunderbolt external drive for backup purposes.This makes a total of four Thunderbolt ports.

I have been told that you want to keep your graphic cards free so all of their power goes to driving Resolve. I also cannot link the two LG 5K monitors together. Given that I would like to keep the two ports on top of the computer free, if possible, what's the best way to plug things in?

Option 1:
Plug in one LG 5K monitor to each graphic card
Plug in the US 4K Mini to an available thunderbolt port
Plug in the drive to the other thunderbolt port
Leave the top two ports open.

Option 2:
Plug in one LG 5K monitor to each available thunderbolt port
Plug in the US 4K Mini to the graphics card
Plug in the drive to the top thunderbolt port

Option 3:
Leave the graphics cards alone and use the 4 available thunderbolt ports

Thanks for your thoughts.


Try not to use the TB port on the graphics card.
Use macOS' Expansion Slot Utility to see how many lanes have been allocated from pools A & B.
https://support.apple.com/en-by/HT210104
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jallen0

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostMon Dec 05, 2022 3:40 pm

mpetech. All of my thunderbolt devices are external so I don't need to use the utility. I did use it when putting in the graphic cards and the 8TB Sonnet card and extra memory however :)
2019 MacPro OS 12.1, 3.2GHz 16 Core, 160GB Mem, 4TB Drive, 8TB Internal Sonnet Raid, Dual Radeon Pro W5700X 16GB
LG UF 5k, 27" Tbolt Display, 55" LG C8
Resolve Edit Keyboard, Mini Panel, US 4K Mini
Resolve Studio Ver. 17.4.3
Desktop Video 12.1
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mpetech

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostMon Dec 05, 2022 3:45 pm

jallen0 wrote:mpetech. All of my thunderbolt devices are external so I don't need to use the utility. I did use it when putting in the graphic cards and the 8TB Sonnet card and extra memory however :)


TB uses PCIe lane. The point of the utility is to see how many PCIe lanes you are consuming as it is a finite resource. Normally, you don't want to take away from the GPU as it can slow it down.
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Uli Plank

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostTue Dec 06, 2022 3:33 am

I doubt the ports on those cards are real TB ports. Could they be just USB-C to connect a display?
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

Studio 18.6.5, MacOS 13.6.5
MacBook M1 Pro, 16 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM and iPhone 15 Pro
Speed Editor, UltraStudio Monitor 3G, iMac 2017, eGPU
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mpetech

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostTue Dec 06, 2022 3:55 am

Uli Plank wrote:I doubt the ports on those cards are real TB ports. Could they be just USB-C to connect a display?


They are real TB ports. When you add certain MPX based GPUs, you add additional TB ports.
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Uli Plank

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostTue Dec 06, 2022 4:42 am

Well, nevertheless, don't take throughput away from the GPUs.
No, an iGPU is not enough, and you can't use HEVC 10 bit 4:2:2 in the free version.

Studio 18.6.5, MacOS 13.6.5
MacBook M1 Pro, 16 GPU cores, 32 GB RAM and iPhone 15 Pro
Speed Editor, UltraStudio Monitor 3G, iMac 2017, eGPU
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jallen0

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Re: Which thunderbolt ports to use?

PostTue Dec 06, 2022 1:40 pm

Thanks everyone. I ended up using the 4 TB ports included and not using any on the graphic cards. I reached out to CalDigit to see if their TB4 Dock will handle both my LG 5K monitors. That will free up one port on the MacPro for me.
2019 MacPro OS 12.1, 3.2GHz 16 Core, 160GB Mem, 4TB Drive, 8TB Internal Sonnet Raid, Dual Radeon Pro W5700X 16GB
LG UF 5k, 27" Tbolt Display, 55" LG C8
Resolve Edit Keyboard, Mini Panel, US 4K Mini
Resolve Studio Ver. 17.4.3
Desktop Video 12.1

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