i5's and Thunderbolt

Hi all,

I may be missing something here, but it looks like it's impossible to build a custom i5 7490 with Thunderbolt 3? A year ago this was an option on the 7480's, but now it looks like they're only offering Thunderbolt with i7 procs.

I get that the adoption of Thunderbolt has been less than stellar in PC land, but I just did a quick check and it appears to be standard on the T series Thinkpads. Anyone know if there is some technical reason behind this, or maybe I'm missing something on the custom build setup?

Thanks!

 

I read in another thread that a dGPU is required. If you try i5 w/dGPU, does that let you configure TB?

 

The processor was the key... looks like the i5-8250U isn't compatible, but the i5-8350U IS compatible (which is a bit odd, since I think the only major difference between the two is vPro).

Thanks for the reply!

 

Dell does funny things to keep the number of SKUs down, now that the processors are all soldererd.

 

Given the vPro version probably has a different Ethernet IC (part of enabling vPro functionality), it's likely Dell decided to simplify the configurations (as already noted above). Even before BGA, we often got ridiculous configuration limitations. But nowadays, we cannot do anything about it.

Lenovo does something similar on the T480 lineup. Only the vPro versions get the MX150 GPU.

 

without vpro and gpu is available on DE/EU iirc

 

My recollection was that vPro was actually not a separate SKU -- any system with a vPro capable CPU can be made vPro; if you look under the bottom lid of most Latitudes back to (at least) the E6x20 series, there will be a numeric sticker on the inside. This corresponds to the vPro option (vPro, regular, or OOB management totally disabled), and when they're replacing the motherboard it needs to be set on first boot -- I've seen technicians on a field replacement do it enough times.

dGPU or not is definitely a different SKU; there's no way they'd be sending non-dGPU systems out with a disabled chip at that level of expense. There's almost always some change in motherboard layout and cooling, as well.

I assume Thunderbolt is a separate SKU, although I haven't looked at a with-Thunderbolt and USB-C-only motherboard to tell if there's an added controller chip. If the controller is cheap enough, it's possibly that it (like vPro) is just a software unlock, but it seems unlikely.

 

NBC was griping that it wasn't (especially for their limited configurations). Though their complaint may have been for American audiences, and not fully reflective of Germany/EU.



@mr_handy

There is an added controller chip for TB3. TB3 only recently got a more integrated solution. Power, TB3, and USB-C all need separate ICs for full TB3 functionality.

EDIT: I'm wrong, the new Titan Ridge chip will still require a separate PD and USBC IC.