ASUS ThunderboltEX 4 with Intel® Thunderbolt™ 4 JHL 8540 Controller, 2 USB Type-C Ports, up to 40Gb/s bi-Directional Bandwidth, DisplayPort 1.4 Support, up to 100W Quick Charge.

Installed into my Z690 TUF GAMING Z690-PLUS WIFI D4 motherboard, and works like a dream, two Thunderbolt 4 ports working solidly. Things to note: it is only for ASUS motherboards with the Thunderbolt 4 header connector (I think?) If using a bus powered Thunderbolt device (like a Blackmagic Ultrastudio Recorder 3G) you need to connect it before booting the computer. Self powered Thunderbolt devices (like the Sonnet PCIe expansion chassis, or OWC Thunderbolt 4 hub) are completely hot-swappable. You don’t need to connect the power supply connector unless you intend to charge devices like phones or laptops from one of the Thunderbolt 4 ports. To get Thunderbolt video out of the ports, you need to link a display port out of the graphics card to the “mini display port in” using the supplied cables….(bit of a faff…I won’t bother with this because my GPU has 3 display ports and an HDMI output) Needed a USB2 header on the motherboard, so I had to buy a cheap £2 USB2 header splitter from Amazon…..worked perfectly. Absolutely amazing when up and running, perfect for my corporate live streaming work station using multiple Thunderbolt 4 video capture enclosures.

This was a reliable install in my Windows 11 machine. I was using an ASUS motherboard which mentioned it as a compatible device, so it may not be so easy with other motherboards. I found the driver installation a challenge. The card appeared listed in the installation program and I selected it and clicked 'download and install'. It seemed to download and then fail. It turned out that this just set up the required process. There was another button to click to actually install the driver. Once installed, correctly, Windows detected my Thunderbolt 3 connected external M.2 SSD Enclosure and drive without problems.

Bought this card November 2022 with a Z690A Prime MB to build new Studio PC for use with UAD Apollo quad. Had problems after few months, where Thunderbolt devices not recognised. After many restarts it seemed to fix itself, but persistent issue. In December 2023 no devices recognised and error in device manager. All latest drivers installed, uninstalled and reinstalled. After research it appears it may be firmware related, but ASUS have not provide firmware updates for all cards. If the serial number of the card starts with "M" it looks like ASUS are not providing firmware updates. So my £120 card is useless after 13 months. NEVER TOUCHING ASUS PRODUCTS AGAIN!!

Double check you have the correct connections. No good to me, gonna save for next build.

Al inicio me dio problemas, no reconocía lo que conectaba. Marcaba mensaje de que no estaba activado el tunel de pcie o algo parecido. Le actualicé el firmware, actualicé el bios de mi placa (ROG STRIX Z690-E GAMING WIFI), reinstalé windows 11 y nada. Luego de tanto buscar y toparme con varios usuarios con problemas similares, vi que uno dijo que lo cambió de slot y funcionó. Así que lo cambié a otro slot y ya funciona bien. Lo tenía conectado en el último slot, lo pasé al penúltimo y funcionó. Ahora trabaja de maravilla. Tengo un hub que tiene dos M.2 dentro (uno SATA y otro PCIe) y logra transferencias de 500 - 550 MB/s para el SATA y de unos 1.5 - 2.0 GB/s para el PCIe.

Great for a thunderbolt studio setup. Be sure to check your motherboard manual to see if this will actually work (some only support the USB-4 version which is not this product). Tested with a UAD x16 & AVID MTRX

USB2 のピンヘッダーを使用するので、マザーによってはピンヘッダーが枯渇します。 私の場合はピンヘッダーを増設して切り抜けました。

Works great if you hook it up correctly! Using an ZikeDrive Model Z666 USB4 M.2 Nmve case (they claim the fastest M.2 Drive Case): and an Fanxiang S880 4TB M.2 Nmve I get the fastest speeds of 3050.32 MB/s read, 2689.04 using Crystal Disk Mark 8 speed test. Running the Orico TCM-U4 Thunderbolt4 USB4 case with an Fanxiang S880 4TB M.2 I get the speeds: 3049.98 MB/s read, 2689.04 MB/s write. The Orico TCM-U4 is cheaper, but has a cooling problem with its top installed - but works great with thermal strip and copper heat sink and no top installed - it is reliable. But the ZikeDrive Model Z666 USB4 M.2 is slightly faster, has excellent cooling so far - better heat sink metal case with plastic over it - but the ZikeDrive is not as reliable when running thru my Plugable TB4 USB4 Hub (cant boot computer with it hooked in w/o error - sometimes errors if it is plugged in after computer booted? Seems to be working ok now.) The above ZikeDrive Model Z66 with Fanxian S880 4TB when plugged into Plugable TB4 USB4 Hub to Asus ThunderboltEx4 will get 2977.65 MB/s read, 1893.94 MB/s write for anyone who is interested. This same Fanxian S880 4TB when plugged into my Asus Hyper M.2 X16 Gen 4 Card or my Asus X670E-E motherboard M.2 PCIe 5.0 slot runs at 7271.24 MB/s read, 6187.19 MB/s write. So you can see the bottle neck is not in the M.2 I am using. It is cable of this speed, but Thunderbol 3 or 4 or USB4 is not cable of that speed. (I can't wait for Thunderbolt 5! I hope it works with my motherboard!) I am running Windows 10 & Windows 11 dual boot. Tests were done in Windows 10 on a Asus X670E-E Motherboard with AMD Ryzen 7950X3D CPU and using the GPU: MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 3060 Ti 8GB OC Edition "BGB GDDRR6X". And 96 GB DDR5 RAM (GSkill) 5400Mhz. So this is a top notch AMD computer build and is quite fast. I boot from an XPG 4TB GAMMIX S70 Blade PCIe Gen4 M.2 2280 Internal Gaming SSD Up to 7,400 MB/s in the PCIe 4.0 internal M.2 slot on the Asus Motherboard. (It has 3 PCIe 5.0 M.2 slots too reserved for future Raid-0 for video recording/editing and audio, etc.) To get this to work properly you MUST plug it into the proper PCIe X4 slot, plug the included cable from the USB 2.0 port on it into the USB 2.0 header on your motherboard, and plug the included cable from Thunderbolt Header on it into the Thunderbolt Header on your motherboard. If you don't hook it up to the USB 2.0, USB Devices can work on it, but no Thunderbolt. I have an Orico TCM-U4 Thunderbolt4 USB4 case with an Fanxiang S880 4TB M.2 in it, it was running at 1063.91 MB/s read, 1057 MB/s write, when the ThunderboltEx4 was not hooked up from its USB 2.0 to the USB 2.0 header on the motherboard. But when the ThunboltEx4 was hooked up correctly (USB 2.0 on it to USB 2.0 header on motherboard) then it was running at 3049.98 MB/s read, 2689.04 MB/s write, using the Fanxiang S880 4TB M.2.

I use a Mac Pro for work but also game on PC so this allowed me to use all my peripherals like mouse, keyboard, monitor usb hub, headphone stand and sound card all be swapped between the two machines with a single cable. Before this I was using a usb 10GB hub which didn’t have enough bandwidth for all devices so was unplugging 7 cables from pc to Mac whenever I wanted to swap systems. I can even use my 5K Thunderbolt Display on my PC with this add in card. Just be sure to get the right version for your chipset. Mine is Z590 but I believe earlier chipsets use the thunderboltex tr but don’t quote me.