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Thunderbolt
It seems like a thunderbolt PCI card may be the way to go - I have too much crap sticking out the back of my PC at the moment.
(Rather than swapping out the TUF x570 plus that I have for the ProArt X570-CREATOR. which would be more expensive & waaaay more faff.)
NotThamesWater-
You should check whether it would work.
One of my gripes with the Intel gaming rig I had before was that it had USB-C but not Thunderbolt and worse was that Thunderbolt PCIE cards only work if the motherboard has the necessary chips to understand it. Not really sure what the limitation is, but this is why I overspent on the ProArt X570 to be absolutely sure the thing works.
Velocio
New computer up and running for a couple of days... it is a beast.
Compared to my various other computers, as a comparison point the time to start OBS with my profile of 2 high quality cameras and an overlay:
And this machine is like this across the board.
Fire up Dota... up and running in 1-2 seconds and very very smooth and at the highest possible graphics settings.
Similar for every other game I have installed: Elden Ring, Hell Let Loose, Life is Strange, Dota, Skyrim, Assassin's Creed II... it's all instant.
Approx 150 open tabs across Chrome and Firefox... no perceivable lag anywhere. Tabs in Google Docs that were idle used to take 10 seconds to render and become active after being asleep for a while... I now switch to them and they feel like they were always active.
Thunderbolt is indeed Thunderbolt... the CalDigit TS3+ is fully recognised.
In fact I only have 2 cables fully leaving my PC... the power cable, and a USB-C cable that goes to the CalDigit and then connects to about 15 devices through various USB connections. The PC is configured such that the GPU DisplayPort output loops into the motherboard and is sent over the Thunderbolt connection.
The machine is nuts.
Final build:
https://uk.pcpartpicker.com/user/buro9/saved/jpq3wP
CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5950X 3.4 GHz 16-Core Processor
CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D15 chromax.black 82.52 CFM CPU Cooler
Motherboard: Asus ProArt X570-CREATOR WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Memory: Corsair Vengeance RGB Pro 64 GB (2 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory
Storage: Seagate FireCuda 530 4 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive
Video Card: Asus GeForce RTX 3080 Ti 12 GB TUF GAMING OC Video Card
Case: Fractal Design Torrent RGB ATX Mid Tower Case
Power Supply: be quiet! Dark Power 12 1000 W 80+ Titanium Certified Fully Modular ATX PSU
Operating System: Microsoft Windows 11 Pro OEM 64-bit
Case Fan: Fractal Design Prisma AL 103.85 CFM 140 mm Fan
I do turn off all the RGB lights though... never liked that, and it's under my desk so fairly pointless.
I did a user benchmark score for a laugh, https://www.userbenchmark.com/UserRun/50984280 and was in some other tabs whilst it was running. It still reports it as being a UFO in every category. The only weak thing in the entire system is that the RAM isn't quite the fastest out there. But at this point I'm well into diminished returns as the spend for the lower timings couldn't yield a perceivable benefit... especially when I have so much RAM that less needs to be swapped out.