Easiest way to drive LG UltraFine 4K Monitor with eGPU  

@buick_wong Thank you for sharing this new cable. Also glad to hear it could provide USB-C monitor output and USB data. I could only find one seller on eBay offering it for $75 shipping from Hong Kong/Taiwan.

Sooooo expensive. This cable is sold in China less than 45 USD.

If only it worked with the 5k!

Posted by: Eightarmedpet

If only it worked with the 5k!

It looks as he has even two 5k Ultrafine Displays. @buick_wong could you please tell us more about your setup? How many eGPUs and monitors do you have. Do you have hardware pictures?

Posted by: OliverB

Posted by: Eightarmedpet

If only it worked with the 5k!

It looks as he has even two 5k Ultrafine Displays. @buick_wong could you please tell us more about your setup? How many eGPUs and monitors do you have. Do you have hardware pictures?

Holy cow you’re right. No way the cable works with them though, that would be too good to be true.

Hi @eightarmedpet , I saw the PM. But I don't know why I cannot reply it directly.

For now, this cable is based on DP 1.2, not 1.4 and it based on USB-C DP Alt mode. So, It cannot be used to drive 5K directly. If you want to drive 5K UltraFine, You'd better buy a GC-Titan-Ridge AIC Card to combine two DP 1.2 input to USB-C Thunderbolt 3 Alt Mode output. That's what a 5K's requirements.

I think @itsage have been used the solution above before to drive a 5K UltraFine Monitor.

@oliverb how did you know that I have two 5K UltraFine ? LOL.

Certainly Yes, I have them. I'am now working on driving them through GC-Titan-Ridge AIC Card.

@buick_wong thanks for the reply! You prob need more posts until you can PM... as I assumed reg 5K, such a shame, hopes dashed once again... I do have an alpine ridge TB3 card but struggling find a way to power/connect it (risers are hard to get here in the UK - or at least I don't know where to get the right ones).

Your screen shots show your 2x LG 5K displays... would love to see some pics because its one hell of a set up! What do you use it for if you dont mind me asking?

Posted by: Buick Wong

I am spending much time on looking for a solution to drive LG UltraFine 4K with eGPU. Well, Blackmagic eGPU is fine, but its legacy RX580 is not the one for me . Sunix or GC-Titan Ridge AIC cards can be used in this situation. But it needs extra power and may lose the audio, brightness control. Today I find a cable from Huawei, it called Huawei VR2 cable. It combines USB and DisplayPort to USB-C DP Alt Mode, something like the Virtual Link Alt Mode Cable.

The Sunix UPD2018 card can be placed into a Thunderbolt 3 PCIe expansion box like the Sonnet Echo Express SEL which will allow the USB functions of the display to work correctly (audio, USB ports, brightness control). The Huawei cable seems like a much less expensive solution.

The Huawei cable probably does not support two lane DisplayPort 1.2 with USB 3 because they specifically mention only USB 2.0 and they would not include a USB 3 type A connector in that case. Therefore, this cable is not good for USB-C docks or lower resolution (1080p) USB-C displays. The Huawei cable has a male USB-C connector so it would not be good for USB-C video adapters.

A better adapter cable would have a female USB-C connector and support both modes of USB-C DisplayPort alt mode and provide extra power using an external power supply - basically everything the Sunix UPD2018 in a PCIe expansion box does, except with the USB controller replaced by a USB input.

@joevt3, I also have the Sunix config in my Thunderbolt expansion box. But Huawei provides a better solution at much less price. It doesn't need extra power and configuration, just plug and play. maybe a better cable can provide USB 3.1 connection and DP 1.4 like USB-C VirtualLink Alt Mode.

Posted by: Buick Wong

@joevt3, I also have the Sunix config in my Thunderbolt expansion box. But Huawei provides a better solution at much less price. It doesn't need extra power and configuration, just plug and play. maybe a better cable can provide USB 3.1 connection and DP 1.4 like USB-C VirtualLink Alt Mode.

Does the Sunix have the problem of losing audio and brightness control or did you mean that problem is only with the AIC solution?

The Huawei solution is the best I've seen for the USB-C four lane DisplayPort + USB 2.0 problem of displays like the LG UltraFine 4K but it probably doesn't work for the USB-C two lane DisplayPort + USB 3.x problem of other displays and USB-C docks. The DisplayPort version doesn't matter - DisplayPort 1.4 requires lines that can do 8.1 Gbps (only 50% more bandwidth than DisplayPort 1.2) which means any cable that can do USB 3.1 gen 2 should be good enough. I don't know if the quality of the Huawei cable is good enough for DisplayPort 1.4 but it could be.

VirtualLink Alt Mode is four lane DisplayPort 1.4 + USB 3.1 on the USB 2.0 lines. I think the cable would need to advertise that it's for VirtualLink alt mode, and the USB Type-A connector would need the USB 2.0 pins moved to the USB 3 pins. This would make it unusable for DisplayPort alt mode situations.

@joevt3 Sunix‘s audio and usb works properly if you connect it to TB3 to PCIe expansion box. But Huawei ‘s cable supports only DP1.2. 4096 is its max resolution. On its manual, it said its max bandwidth is 21.6Gbps which means clearly its a DP1.2 4 lanes cable with usb 2.0. This configuration meets UltraFine 4K’s requirement perfect.

Just bought a node lite as one popped up on eBay for a good price and actually in the Uk for once, I’ll Pop my TB3 add in card in it and see how it all works cabling and performance wise. 

If if the results of the above are lack lustre I’ll hold on to the Node Lite and see what Navi brings in the way of ITX size cards.

Damn, saw this post 1 day late! Was just in HK yesterday (I'm based in Manila, Philippines). Held off from buying a Razor Core X and an AMD Graphics card because I couldn't find any that had 2 USB-Type C ports to connect my 2 monitors.

So I guess this cable solves my problem of running 2 Ultrafine 4K LG Monitors from the an eGPU, right? Oh well, I guess this gives me one good reason to go back to HK haha!

I tried with 2017 4K, max was [email protected] in bootcamp Windows 

It also requires multiple plug in and outs to light my display up. (while it does recognize it as audio output device 100%)

Posted by: willian

I tried with 2017 4K, max was [email protected] in bootcamp Windows 

It also requires multiple plug in and outs to light my display up. (while it does recognize it as audio output device 100%)

What is a "2017 4K"? Do you mean the 21.5-inch LG UltraFine 4K display?

According to the following link, [email protected] is the max for a MacBook 2015 (Intel HD Graphics 5300). Newer Macs support 60Hz.
https://support.apple.com/en-ca/HT207447

What computer did you use?

Did you get the same result in MacOS?

Can confirm, works as expected with Huawei VR cable and Ultrafine 4k.

LG UltraFine:

  Resolution: 4096 x 2304

  UI Looks like: 2048 x 1152 @ 60 Hz

I just purchased Ultrafine 4K and was looking for a solution to drive it using Bootcamp and eGPU. Thanks for this tip! Hoping it will work for me as well.

I haven't purchased Huawei VR2 cable yet, but I found this website which is listing the cable for ~$55 (at this moment).

https://www.giztop.com/accessories/huawei/huawei-vr-2-computer-connection-cable.html

I may give it a try in a couple of weeks. 

@devdevs The new Wacom Link Plus should also work (not the old Wacom Link). The VR cable is probably better because it's less expensive and doesn't require power.

@devdevs I believe there's a problem in your signature that is causing subsequent messages to become bold text.

@joevt

Thanks for the heads up. / was missing from closing <b> tag. Interesting that forum software allows it to influence other texts. Should qualify for security / bug fix.

https://www.giztop.com/accessories/huawei/huawei-mate-11/huawei-vr-2-computer-connection-cable.html

I just received this cable from China and am happy to report that my egpu with a radeon vega 64 is driving one of my LG ultrafine 4k displays with my Mac Mini.

@jltawil

Congrats!

I'm about to get the cable. Can you please describe exactly how's everything setup? 

Do USB C ports work from the monitor? Speakers?

Can you control volume and brightness with keyboard both on macOS and Windows Bootcamp?

@devdevs I bought my Huawei VR-2 cable from the same place as @jltawil. It arrived tonight and here’s how I got everything hooked up. It worked in both Windows 10 and macOS plug-and-play. 

I am trying to insert some screen shots but I have no idea how.

The mac mini will boot on the integrated card first, then will switch on the egpu once it passes a certain point in time in the boot process. The DP cable is plugged directly into the card, and the usb cable is plugged into the USB port of the RAZER box.

Here is a dropbox link.

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/vdgvuddfrq5r4it/AABi0JRUNVBC_VW8DuXRf6_va?dl=0

This has given me hope. I have the new 24” LG UltraFine. I presume this cable should work with this monitor as well? It does TB3 over USB-C but also accepts video from USB-C from what I can see? Can anyone confirm?

does the brightness and volume control work in MacOS? 

@buick_wong

I want to move up to a 5k display - so I need to buy this GC-Titan Ridge card and insert it into my Razer Chroma expansion slot where the USB controller currently is located? How do I then hook up the 5k monitor to the egpu? Do I jumper the DP to the DP on the Titan Ridge card? do they work internally? Does this work and provide full functionality for the 5k display including use of the camera and speakers etc?

@jltawil I don't think the USB controller slot has been tested with four lane PCIe cards yet. Only single lane. You may need to cover up the other three lanes with tape, or use an x1 to x4 riser or cable, or use an externally powered riser that is not connected to a PCIe slot.
https://egpu.io/forums/thunderbolt-enclosures/four-pcie-slots-into-the-razer-core-v2/

Two DisplayPorts of the GPU are connected to the mini DisplayPort inputs of the GC-TITAN RIDGE (or GC-ALPINE RIDGE) add-in card using the included short DisplayPort to mini DisplayPort cables of the add-in card.

This will not provide full functionality of the 5K display. Additional software that does not exist is required to enable PCIe tunneling of the add-in card.

So, here's my conundrum. I really do like the LG UltraFine 23.7". I would also like to use an eGPU with my MM18, since I imagine I'll run into issues editing video or RAW photos using the integrated GPU on a 4K display. The problem is that it seems like ONLY the vastly overpriced and non-upgradeable BlackMagic eGPUs have Thunderbolt out in a way that retains all of the features of the UltraFine display.

The alternative is using a different eGPU solution and plugging both the eGPU and the monitor into the Mac itself. I have two questions when it comes to this:

• 1) I understand this will result in a performance loss, but what sort of percentage am I looking at? That is, if I use an eGPU with an RX 580, is it going to perform like an RX 570? Or is it more/less drastic than that?

• 2) Will the macOS UI be accelerated as well in this sort of setup, or only apps which are told to use the eGPU?

Thanks in advance for any insight!

@atlas You can get the Huawei VR 2 cable and use it with any eGPU to drive the 4K UltraFine Display. Giztop currently has the best price for US customers. I got one from them and it took about a week for delivery.

@itsage

Okay, that's great. So just so I understand, this would go:

• TB3 on MM18 -> TB3 on eGPU
• DisplayPort on eGPU -> TB3 on UltraFine Display  using this cable
• Then plug the USB cable into the MM18

And doing this will allow full acceleration as well as retain the macOS features of the display like brightness control using the keyboard?

@atlas Absolutely. That’s my understanding from @buick_wong‘s testing with his 4K UltraFine Display. I’m able to use this Huawei VR 2 cable with a portable USB-C monitor in both macOS and Windows.

@itsage Awesome. And just to clarify, this includes the newer 23.7" UltraFine too, even though its input is Thunderbolt vs. the older model which was USB-C?

@atlas I’m looking to do the same as you so will be watching with interest. Please report back how you get on with this setup. 

@lie Will do. How does your machine run on the LG 24" without an eGPU, generally speaking? Is the UI fluid? Do you do any sort of work that pushes the Intel GPU at all?

@atlas

For the most part it drives the screen well. Only time I notice slow down is when scrolling Lightroom catalog it’s quite choppy. I’m mainly interested in this from a gaming perspective but I made soon start doing a little video editing.