Y4ah I’m not sure what motherboards have the capability- I paid through the nose for thunderbolt 5 board, but they should drop in price at some point. I’m not sure if thunderbird 3 can handle dual monitors, it should I would assume- boards with tb3 should be pretty inexpensive- if I were to build one for general use, I would look for tb3 and skip the high price of tb5 for now. I’m not sure how far back tb goes, maybe to version 1- I would have to look into it more. If so, not sure what they are capable of. But tb3 with a hub sounds like a pretty good option for not much $$ perhaps.
I’ve only ever built 1 myself, and it was a lot of fun (although I made a huge mistake and my cooler wasn’t working unbeknownst to me, and computer kept bogging way down, freezing, and I would reboot not realizing what was wrong, until it dawned on me it was temperature related. Brand new cpu! Hope I didn’t hurt it, but took me with my addled brain about 20 minutes to realize what was going on- temps got as high as 93c 0nce I realized what was happening and checked. Uggh- huge mistake)
Anyway, happy building- hope you find a good solution to the dual monitors. The dual display ports might be all that is needed and a lot less expensive for ya.
“Anyway, happy building- hope you find a good solution to the dual monitors. The dual display ports might be all that is needed and a lot less expensive for ya.”
This is why I scope out ebay for an i5-12500 or i5-13500 OptiPlex with dual DisplayPort. At the right used price of course! Both CPUs have the current ultimate Intel UHD 770 graphics. Which is pathetic graphics compared to Ryzens with onboard graphics. But plus+++ good enough for non-gaming.
An Intel UHD 770 computer with dual DisplayPorts will support dual 4k monitors at 60hz and dual QHD monitors at 100Hz, though iirc correctly its even higher than 100hz for QHD. I did all that research quickly via Perplexity AI.
Intel UHD 770 graphics is in desktop CPUs. Intel is screwy, because its latest laptop CPUs have graphics that are 100%? better and kinda suitable for gaming
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Perplexity AI says-—
Conclusion
The Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics in the 13th Gen mobile processors is approximately 43%-73% better in various benchmarks and real-world scenarios compared to the Intel UHD Graphics 770, making it a more capable option for users requiring enhanced graphical performance.
Grok AI says-—
Given these points, we can conclude that the Intel Iris Xe integrated graphics in 13th Gen mobile processors is approximately 72% to 400% better in benchmarks and real-world scenarios compared to the Intel UHD Graphics 770, depending on the specific test or application.