Plugging Apple 27" Thunderbolt Display to a new PC Workstation

FIXED!

- If you want to use your Apple Thunderbolt Display with a modern PC motherboard & GPU, no converters or adapters will work to use it in standard display outputs. Apple Thunderbolt Display is not just a regular monitor, it is a Thunderbolt device and needs a Thunderbolt supported output. So, you need a Thunderbolt expansion card and a motherboard with a Thunderbolt header on it.

- Apple Thunderbolt Display doesn't work with the Titan-Ridge card. You need the Alpine-Ridge card. My choice was Gigabyte Alpine-Ridge (rev 2.0).

- If you want to use an X570 motherboard that supports AMD Ryzen 9 CPU with high-end Nvidia GPU (maybe 2 GPUs for farming), all of the brands except ASRock drops support Thunderbolt. ASRock X570 motherboards have a Thunderbolt header to connect this expansion card (not all of them, still check the specs for a Thunderbolt header). My choice was ASRock X570 Taichi.

- The Mini Display ports on the Alpine Ridge are inputs to connect your Alpine-Ridge to your GPU or motherboard. So you also need an "Apple Thunderbolt-3-to-2 adapter". Then you will be able to connect your Thunderbolt Display to the card's Thunderbolt 3 (USB-C) output.

- As for drivers, unfortunately, the current driver file Gigabyte provides on their website is a bit old. Under today's date, the most current Alpine-Ridge driver Intel provides is 17.4.80.94. You can download it with a Google search and install it. There is no obligation to download only from Gigabyte's website.

Yes! Apple Thunderbolt Display device works with modern motherboards, high-end CPUs, and high-end GPUs, only if you carefully select the right pieces of equipment.