Adding USB-C ports to PC

cgifts

Hi - I'll looking to add some additional USB-C ports to my PC - my motherboard is a Gigabyte X299 DESIGNARE EX ATX LGA2066 - https://pcpartpicker.com/product/H222FT/gigabyte-x299-designare-ex-atx-lga2066-motherboard-x299-designare-ex

What would my best option be for fastest possible speed?

Many thanks.

JoyPad

If this is your motherboard, then you already have some of the fastest USB available. You have two USB 3.1 gen 2 USB-C at the back, and a front header, if your case has another. These are capable of 10Gbps, see details here.

The only thing that you could possibly add is a USB 3.2 gen 2x2 card, giving you one port capable of 20Gbps. Here's an example. It would be interesting though to tell us what is your current use and what device(s) you want to add.

wotzgoingon

I wonder too what he needs them for. I have the same USB specs as he has apart from the newest 20Gbps so 10Gbps in USB A and C and I never use them.

cgifts

Thanks for the replies - the PC is used for video editing and ingesting files - we use the 2 usb-c ports on the back end for our card readers and that leaves us with only one on the front for portable ssd - we use multiple ssd for various projects which can be ongoing simultaneously and it would be handy to have extra ports available to connect these portable ssd - we also use footage from across older projects (each project stored on it own SSD - usually 8 camera shoot so 2TB ssd generally holds one projects depending on length of shoot) and it would be useful to have relevant older projects connected at the same time as current project so that we can pull older footage as needed - so the want for extra ports is more for convenience than speed but would still like to have speed to transfer files quickly and edit from ssd when necessary.

minitrue

Those "3.1 gen 2 usb-c" ports on the back are actually Thunderbolt 3 according to gigabyte so you have more options over a very wide range of prices! For example if you connected https://www.amazon.co.uk/Corsair-Thunderbolt-Ethernet-Compatible-Aluminum/dp/B08JCKSPCC to one of those thunderbolt ports you would get a sd card reader, with 2 usb-c ports (10gbps) and 2 usb a ports (5gbps) and they could probably all run at full speed at once. There's loads of thunderbolt docks out there and I've no idea which are the best either in general or for your use so that linked one is just as an example rather than recommendation!

The one thunderbolt hub I could mention (the OWC one) unfortunately says it's only for thunderbolt 3 on Mac and thunderbolt 4 on PC but there may be other options and in fact it might even just work with thunderbolt 3 on PC for all I know but you would want to find confirmation on that.

You could also just go with a "usb-c dock" which would be like that expensive thunderbolt dock but much cheaper with the difference being the speeds you would get when using more than one device on the dock at a time as they would collectively be limited to the 10gbps link back to the PC.

Jon Doe

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058264998/adding-usb-c-ports-to-pc

There's quite a range of options for you:

https://geizhals.eu/?cat=ioexpcard&xf=11067_3.0%7E4621_USB+Typ-C