Time for another question and answer round for one of our readers but first if you guys are wondering where to send in your Ask Back2Gaming questions, you can reach us via our Facebook fanpage (PM or drop a message at our timeline) or hit the comments in any of our posts and we’ll gladly get back to you with an answer.
So going back, reader Gavin4Z Chua asks:
Where to buy ASUS ThunderboltEX?
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To answer that question we reached out to our friendly-neighborhood ASUS rep. As it seems, Thunderbolt technology still hasn’t really took off in our country and as such, demand for the card is very low. That said, the ASUS ThunderboltEX expansion card is currently under “order basis” status. It’s worth noting that the ASUS ThunderboltEX card is built for select boards only and you’ll need to have a compatible motherboard to use (ASUS Maximus V GENE, P8Z77-V line of boards, Sabertooth Z77.) If you don’t have such a board, ASUS is refreshing their line-up with products that feature onboard Thunderbolt ports.
If your current situation is that you need Thunderbolt ports and haven’t bought any new boards yet, we suggest thinking about the possibility of upgrading your current hardware configuration with something that feature Thunderbolt such as motherboards from ASUS, GIGABYTE or MSI.
Hope that helps!
In a word..Vaporware.. I invested in a P8Z77 mobo over a year ago based on the fact that I WOULD be able to add TB to it. Now Asus’ answer is “Oh sorry, buy our new Mobo” which means I have to rip apart my incredible build. Spend $250 on another mobo (plus other knickknacks in a rebuild) reinstall Windows and drivers and rebuild my OS & apps. And with no benefit over what I have now. I’ve been using Asus boards ages and now I never want to buy their products again. Enough options out there to dump them after this.
^This