LG UltraFine 5K Build

[joevt]

Yes and Yes.

I have confirmed that a Thunderbolt add-in card can be used without the add-in card header connection to enable conversion of one or two DisplayPort inputs to USB-C DisplayPort alt mode or Thunderbolt display stream.

I bought a couple GC ALPINE RIDGE cards from Frys.com for $60 each. Got them shipped to Canada using Borderlinx.com.

I placed them in a Mac Pro 2008 and a Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 (rev. 1.0) motherboard.

In the Mac Pro 2008, I tested using the DisplayPort of a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2048 MB through a Pluggable.com USB-C to VGA adapter which uses USB-C DisplayPort alt mode. I used a spare PCIe 1.0 slot.

With the Gaming 7, I testing using two DisplayPorts of a NVIDIA GeForce Titan X (Maxwell) through a Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 to Dual Display Port adapter to a Dell 5K display.

This means that you could use an LG UltraFine 5K display with any Mac or PC at 5K@60Hz resolution (if the Mac or PC supports two 4K@60 Hz displays).

However, the add-in card will not enable it's PCIe devices without the add-in card header connection. This means that you can't use the USB controller and you can't use any PCIe devices over Thunderbolt. The LG Ultrafine 5K requires PCIe over Thunderbolt for it's USB controller that controls its USB ports, and also its built in audio out, camera, and display controls.

It might be possible that the Thunderbolt 3 add-in card might be useable even without a computer as in this example with the Sunix UPD2018:

 

[blueshadow869]

Would you be willing to post some photos and/or video of the setup and components with the Gaming 7 board, I have almost the identical setup and I want to make sure I get everything correct and plugged in right before I purchase the add-on cards. Thank you for the awesome testing!

I have confirmed that a Thunderbolt add-in card can be used without the add-in card header connection to enable conversion of one or two DisplayPort inputs to USB-C DisplayPort alt mode or Thunderbolt display stream.

I bought a couple GC ALPINE RIDGE cards from Frys.com for $60 each. Got them shipped to Canada using Borderlinx.com.

I placed them in a Mac Pro 2008 and a Gigabyte GA-Z170X-Gaming 7 (rev. 1.0) motherboard.

In the Mac Pro 2008, I tested using the DisplayPort of a NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2048 MB through a Pluggable.com USB-C to VGA adapter which uses USB-C DisplayPort alt mode. I used a spare PCIe 1.0 slot.

With the Gaming 7, I testing using two DisplayPorts of a NVIDIA GeForce Titan X (Maxwell) through a Startech.com Thunderbolt 3 to Dual Display Port adapter to a Dell 5K display.

This means that you could use an LG UltraFine 5K display with any Mac or PC at 5K@60Hz resolution (if the Mac or PC supports two 4K@60 Hz displays).

However, the add-in card will not enable it's PCIe devices without the add-in card header connection. This means that you can't use the USB controller and you can't use any PCIe devices over Thunderbolt. The LG Ultrafine 5K requires PCIe over Thunderbolt for it's USB controller that controls its USB ports, and also its built in audio out, camera, and display controls.

It might be possible that the Thunderbolt 3 add-in card might be useable even without a computer as in this example with the Sunix UPD2018:

 

[joevt]

Would you be willing to post some photos and/or video of the setup and components with the Gaming 7 board, I have almost the identical setup and I want to make sure I get everything correct and plugged in right before I purchase the add-on cards. Thank you for the awesome testing!

There's nothing special about the setup.

The GC ALPINE RIDGE works in the slot next to the graphics card. This causes the graphics card to run at x8 instead of x16.

The GC ALPINE RIDGE also works in the PCIEX4 slot. The PCIEX4 slot can't be used for PCIe devices while the second NVME slot is occupied, but that doesn't matter because the PCIe devices of the card don't work anyway without a header connection.

Also, remember that you probably won't have brightness control for the LG UltraFine 5K display, the USB ports won't work, neither will the camera/microphone or speakers. I don't have an LG UltraFine 5K display to test myself so you have to ask dnetcrawler about those issues.

Now we need someone with an oscilloscope or data logger, the add-in card, and compatible motherboard to read the signal from the add-in card header. The header cable has a Y connection which could be used to access the signal probably...

 

[joevt]

Would you be willing to post some photos and/or video of the setup and components with the Gaming 7 board, I have almost the identical setup and I want to make sure I get everything correct and plugged in right before I purchase the add-on cards. Thank you for the awesome testing!

Also, I believe no one has been able to get 5K to work from an Nvidia card with the LG UltraFine 5K in macOS. Only AMD so far.
Post #26 has screenshot of someone getting it to work in Windows with a GTX 1080.

The only thing I can think to do besides trying to hack the Nvidia driver is the following:

With computer powered on, and no video connections, try connecting the cables in these orders:
1) DisplayPort 1, DisplayPort 2, Thunderbolt 3
2) DisplayPort 2, DisplayPort 1, Thunderbolt 3
3) Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort 1, DisplayPort 2
4) Thunderbolt 3, DisplayPort 2, DisplayPort 1

 

[joevt]

Also, remember that you probably won't have brightness control for the LG UltraFine 5K display, the USB ports won't work, neither will the camera/microphone or speakers. I don't have an LG UltraFine 5K display to test myself so you have to ask dnetcrawler about those issues.

The LG UltraFine 5K display also has brightness controls via DDC/CI
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Display_Data_Channel
#92

 

[joevt]

The main display, running GC-Alpine Ridge on the MB assigned thunderbolt PCI-E slot, did not have the GPIO header at all, yet I had full audio, camera (video), and brightness!

To get audio, camera (video), and brightness on my secondary display, I went into the BIOS and changed the PCI-E card on the TB configurations and selected the secondary GC-Alpine Ridge. I had to unplug the computer from the power, but when I booted, I had full controls on the secondary display. I changed the brightness under this configuration for the secondary display.

Also, remember that you probably won't have brightness control for the LG UltraFine 5K display, the USB ports won't work, neither will the camera/microphone or speakers. I don't have an LG UltraFine 5K display to test myself so you have to ask dnetcrawler about those issues.

I might be wrong about that. I was able to see PCIe devices over Thunderbolt when I removed my second NVMe drive so that PCIEX4 functions properly.

This confirms dnetcrawler's earlier findings where he was able to get audio and such without the header, as long as the GC-ALPINE RIDGE card was in the slot selected in his BIOS.

Strangely, the USB controller of the Thunderbolt chip was not seen in IORegistry. Does the GC-ALPINE RIDGE have a USB 3.1 Gen 2 USB controller like the motherboard Thunderbolt chips?

I wonder why Thunderbolt add-in cards can't work in other PCIe slots? Well, dnetcrawler's motherboard has an option to select different PCIe slots, but the option doesn't include all PCIe slots? Is it just the 4 lane PCH slots? My second CPU connected slot doesn't work (PCIEX8). I'll try the PCH 1x slots later.

dnetcrawler, can you compare your ACPI before and after you select a different PCIe slot? Make sure the origin folder is empty in /EFI/Clover/ACPI, boot into clover and press F4, change the name of the origin folder to "pcislotA", create a new empty origin folder, restart, change the PCIe slot in BIOS, press F4 in Clover, change the name of the origin folder to "pcislotB", create a new empty origin folder for next time. iasl can be used to disassemble the asl files into dsl (text) which can be compared. Some Thunderbolt BIOS changes don't affect ACPI.

 

[PNZ]

Hi, I am trying to figure out how to build my Hackintosh.
In order to use this monitor, I plan to use a Nvidia Geforce 1080ti and an ASROCK Thunderbolt 3 AIC pci-e card, attached to a Thunderbolt header compatible motherboard (Asus or MSI have lots of them). With this Thunderbolt card (which unites two streams of data from two different DP of Nvidia GPU card) I should manage the 5K on windows smoothly.
What I don't know is if the card will be available on the hackintosh
and if the monitor control will work on Windows. I have read a contrasting opinion about what works and about what not, but probably depends on the Thunderbolt card.
Thanks

 

[joevt]

It might be possible that the Thunderbolt 3 add-in card might be useable even without a computer as in this example with the Sunix UPD2018:

I got this working. See #136
So you could connect as many LG UltraFine 5K displays as you want limited only by the number of DisplayPort outputs you have working (from AMD cards).

 

[didierM4E]

@joevt

How did you get it working ? I'm trying on High Sierra with eGPU (Vega 64) and LG5k... but nothing happens...

Do you need to power the Alpine Ridge card with an additional cable?

 

[joevt]

@joevt
How did you get it working ? I'm trying on High Sierra with eGPU (Vega 64) and LG5k... but nothing happens... Do you need to power the Alpine Ridge card with an additional cable?

Can you describe your setup: eGPU model, motherboard, PCIe cards and connections, Thunderbolt connections, DisplayPort connections? Does the eGPU work with two normal displays? Does the GC-ALPINE RIDGE work with a normal USB-C DisplayPort alt mode adapter to a DisplayPort or HDMI display or with a Thunderbolt 3 to Dual DisplayPort adapter to two normal displays?

dnetcrawler got this working with a Vega Frontier card (no eGPU). #193
It worked with a GC-ALPINE RIDGE card that had no other connections to the motherboard.

My GC-ALPINE RIDGE cards also had no other connections to the motherboard (it worked with a PCIe connection to the motherboard and also without a PCIe connection). My Thunderbolt display was a Thunderbolt 3 to Dual DisplayPort adapter to a Dell 5K display (since I don't have a real Thunderbolt display). My graphics card is an Nvidia, which is reported to not like the LG 5K.