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Editor's Note: This article is sponsored by UGREEN.
UGREEN's new Thunderbolt 5 docking stations fill a very particular high-end niche, and the flagship model - the Maxidok 17-in-1 - is the crown jewel of the lineup catered towards the most demanding workstations. It retails for $500, but Amazon currently has it for $389.99 with free shipping exclusively for Amazon Prime members. No the Maxidok isn't inexpensive, but this is still a very competitive price point relative to other comparable TB5 docks on the market.
Thunderbolt 5 has the same appearance as a typical USB Type-C port but make no mistake it is a different beast altogether. Whereas USB Type-C Gen 3.2 supports bi-directional transfers of up to 10Gbps (20Gbps unidirectional), TB5 supports bidirectional transfer speeds of 80Gbps (120Gbps in asymmetric mode). Additonally, TB5 is capable of driving three 4K monitors at 144Hz or 8K monitors at 60Hz, all from the same port. It also supports USB Power Delivery up to 240W, which means it can charge pretty much any non-gaming laptop including ThinkPads and Macbook Pros.
The UGREEN Maxidok docking station is one of few docks released this year that adopts the new Thunderbolt 5 standard. It connects to your laptop via a single Thunderbolt 5 cable and makes full use of its bandwidth capabilities by expanding it into 17 total ports. The list of ports is as follows:
The Maxidok also boasts up to triple monitor support.
For comparison, you cannot run either of these setups over Thunderbolt 4. That standard is limited to either three 4K monitors at 60Hz (not 144Hz) or a single 8K monitor. Keep in mind this is also very taxing on your laptop so you'll also have to make sure your components can handle the load.
The Maxidok doubles as a locally attached storage drive with an empty PCIe Gen4 x4 NVMe M.2 slot that can support up to 8TB of storage. Transferring files over Thunderbolt 5 is blisteringly fast. When using the PCIe Gen 4x4 interface, you can expect speeds of up to 5,000-7000MB/s. Thunderbolt 5's theoretical limit is higher, but the limiting factor is PCI-E.
All that speed does generate heat, but UGREEN has taken care of that. The Maxidok features an active cooling system with a 60mm fan that exhausts hot air out. The unibody aluminum chassis also helps with heat dissipation.
Eric Song is the IGN commerce manager in charge of finding the best gaming and tech deals every day. When Eric isn't hunting for deals for other people at work, he's hunting for deals for himself during his free time.
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