Guitar Gear Forum

I'm thinking of buying a Thunderbolt interface. My PC does not have a Thunderbolt port so I will need to buy a Thunderbolt PCI card. Any recommendations?

man those turds are expensive just yet!

im curious to hear what folks say- but aren't they compatible with firewire?

newholland wrote:im curious to hear what folks say- but aren't they compatible with firewire?

No, they're compatible with USB-C.
If you have a firewire device, you can chain adapters together to use it on a TBolt port with no significant ill effects.
(Firewire device -> adapter -> ... -> adapter -> TBolt port)
You're limited by the slower device speed in that situation, but the port doesn't care because it's faster anyway.

Going the other direction is not taking any advantage of the faster device and isn't worth the upfront cost (unless you're going to upgrade your system in the future and this is just a temporary measure, but even then...)
(TBolt device -> adapter chain -> Firewire port)

As for Billy's question, I haven't done it yet. But, make sure your motherboard has a free Thunderbolt header (and some require an additional USB header for control).

jgreenwd wrote:

newholland wrote:im curious to hear what folks say- but aren't they compatible with firewire?

No, they're compatible with USB-C.
If you have a firewire device, you can chain adapters together to use it on a TBolt port with no significant ill effects.
(Firewire device -> adapter -> ... -> adapter -> TBolt port)
You're limited by the slower device speed in that situation, but the port doesn't care because it's faster anyway.

Going the other direction is not taking any advantage of the faster device and isn't worth the upfront cost (unless you're going to upgrade your system in the future and this is just a temporary measure, but even then...)
(TBolt device -> adapter chain -> Firewire port)

As for Billy's question, I haven't done it yet. But, make sure your motherboard has a free Thunderbolt header (and some require an additional USB header for control).

Yeah, that's the rub. If the system doesn't already have thunderbolt, chances are high you don't have a thunderbolt header available. I was digging around thinking of adding thunderbolt to my hand-me-down system from work and realized I'd be in for a brand new motherboard in order to pull it off. At that point it's more of a "wait for the next overall system upgrade" situation.

Billy,
PM me. I just went through this and it was a bitch but not terrible. I bought the Alpine ridge card but the Mobo did have to have the ability to support it. Works great. And no not always 100% USB C compatible.


GIGABYTE (Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt 3 PCIe Card)