Why have a crippled JHL6240 Thunderbolt 3 port in the GL502VM?

[link626]

The skylake and kabylake GL502VM have the JHL6240 thunderbolt controller.

the 6240 is a crippled half speed version, having 20gbps or lower bandwidth. pcie 3.0 x 2 lanes.

The 6340 thunderbolt controller has the full 40gbps bandwidth. pcie 3.0 x 4 lanes.

So our GL502VM is gimped, and putting a beefy graphics card in an eGPU box would result in a big performance penalty running at pcie 3.0 x2.
A GTX1080 in the XG Station will only be a slight improvement, and a super high cost.
Anything less than a gtx1080 egpu would probably have worse performance than the built-in gtx1060 of this laptop.


Thunderbolt sounds useless on the 502VM.

[andvoy]

Oh WOW.... That's a big disappointment.
I just got my XG Station last week... I have the Skylake GL502VM. I haven't had a chance to try it out with a graphics card tho.
I can't believe they didn't even update it for the Kabylake 😞

[U2Desire]

This is very disappointing I just checked my GL702VM Skylake model and it also uses the JHL6240 controller.
I can't really find anything definitive on what the performance hit will be between the 2 controllers but it sounds like it could be around 7% of course that will depend on what GPU you put in at the game being played.
ASUS needs to correct the https://www.asus.com/ca-en/Notebooks/ROG-GL702VM/ site because it lists it as 40Gbits/s but based on PCI ID PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_15bf it is the JHL6240 and is Alpine Ridge. According to the Thunderbolt 3 wiki alpine ridge is 40Gbits.
I don't know. Maybe it is 40 Gbit/s.

[andvoy]

U2Desire wrote:
This is very disappointing I just checked my GL702VM Skylake model and it also uses the JHL6240 controller.

Yeah, it's one thing with the GL502VM model, where it wasn't really marketed as having thunderbolt, yet it does.
But going out and having a splash page with for the 702VM where they claim it has thunderbolt 3 with "up to 40Gb/s". That's just flat out wrong.
I mean why bother evenclaiming that the laptops are compatible with the XG Station if ou can't get a performance boost.

I bought an XG Station a week ago.... before finding all of this out. I haven't bought a graphics card yet.... now that I don't know if it will be a boost of any kind.

[Odysseus_]

What's up guys. Trying to learn more about the Thunderbolt world. I have a G752VL with a Type -C connection that is referred to in the manual as a USB 3.1/Thunderbolt 3 combo port. The markings factory etched beside this connection reads “SS 10.” I believe that this means 3.1 Super Speed 10Gbps. Can anyone confirm the throughput of this connection on the G752VL or relay a good way to find out?

Many thanks

Odysseus

[U2Desire]

According to the specs for your laptop from ASUS the Thunderbolt is 20Gbits/s when used with a Thunderbolt 3 device and when it is used with a USB 3.1 device it will be up to 10Gbit/s.

[Odysseus_]

Thanks U2Desire for the info. 20Gbps from just one available port will be more than enough for my needs. Could you please direct me to where this information is in print?
It is unreal the degree of total confusion that exists over all things thunderbolt: firmware, cables, devices, identification, misuse of terminology, etc...

Thank You again for you help.

Odysseus

[U2Desire]

Sure the https://www.asus.com/ca-en/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-G752VL/ page lists it as 20 Gbit/s but I noticed https://www.asus.com/ROG-Republic-Of-Gamers/ROG-G752VL/ shows it as 40 Gbit/s. What you need to determine is the chip used. Go into Device Manager and under View select show hidden devices it should be listed under System Devices than right click on it and select properties, Details and from drop down menu choose Hardware devices and search google for the device. Mine is PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_15bf which is the JHL6240 Thunderbolt 3 NHI (Low Power) [Alpine Ridge LP 2016] controller which is only pcie 3x2 if yours shows PCI\VEN_8086&DEV_1575 or something to that effect than you will have the DSL6340 chip which is 40 Gbit/s.
If like mine right now for some reason the Thunderbolt controller isn't showing in Device Manager than go to Start/Thunderbolt Software and run it than from the icon in bottom of taskbar right click on it choose settings than click on Details and under Thunderbolt generation is should in brackets show either 15BF or 1575. Hopefully you will be lucky to have the DSL6340 chip.

[U2Desire]

Weird neither my Thunderbolt controller or USB 3.1 controller showed up in Device Manager. I had to reflash Thunderbolt firmware to fix this.

[link626]

yeah, for some reason, Asus cut corners on the GL series thunderbolt.

On the G501VW and UX501VW, the thunderbolt controller is 1575 40gbps version.


Oh well. I don't expect to buy an egpu box in this lifetime, since the gtx1060 is fast enough, and by the time the 1060 is too slow, newer laptops will have gpu's that are faster than what you can get from egpu.

However, the extra displayport built into the thunderbolt port is a bonus, allowing me to run 4 displays.



GL502VMK ....