Recently I’ve received several requests from customers who want to share a Docking station with monitor/mouse/keyboard between a Desktop PC and a modern Laptop without using a software solution like Mouse without borders

Many modern laptops feature USB-C or Thunderbolt-3 which makes Docking connectivity simple with a single connector providing power, data, and monitors. But most Desktop PCs still lack these ports. Collected below are a set of solutions to upgrade your PC to have either a USB-C with DisplayPort alternate-mode output OR a Thunderbolt 3 output.

USB-C+DP-ALT-mode PCIe add-in-boards

• Sunix upd2018
  • PCIe x1 board with full-size DP input and dual USB-C output – one of which supports DP alt-mode (DP 1.2).
  • based on ASMedia ASM1142, Cypress CYPD4225, and Ti TUSB1046 chipsets for broad mainboard compatibility
  • ~$65-90 USD according to Amazon price history
• Delock 89582 (re-brand of Sunix for EU market)
• Dell re-brands of the Sunix board – check ebay! Different worldwide regions have different part numbers, but they are all the same board.
  • Dell YF1YR ($140 USD order direct from Dell)
  • Dell 1H0Y3 ($65 list for Enterprise bulk ordering – SFF bracket only)
  • Dell M0W58 ($65 list for Enterprise bulk ordering – Full-size bracket)
  • Dell WYY76 ($65 list for Enterprise bulk ordering – Half height bracket)

To use these boards, you’ll need a 1 foot DisplayPort -> DisplayPort cable.

Titan-Ridge based Thunderbolt-3 boards

• Gigabyte GC-Titan Ridge (~$100 USD)
  • x4 PCIe board
  • GigaByte only lists Intel 10th gen mainboard support, however several reviewers such as LTT have verified functionality on AMD ThreadRipper and Ryzen boards – albeit with some setup hassles
  • The v2.0 manual shows 1×5 pin and 1×3 mainboard headers (v1.0 only has the 1×5 header) which are used to connect to the mainboard PCH/chipset for hot-plug and PCIe lane reservation purposes. The card is mostly functional without them connected with some caveats. Shorting pin 3 (platform sequence control) to +VCC power of the 5-pin header on the add-in board fixes device enumeration and hot-plugging for mainboards without the built-in 5-pin GPIO header.
• Asus ThunderboltEX 3-TR (~$90 USD)
  • x4 PCIe board
  • Asus mainboard compat list – according to Asus, only works on certain Asus Intel 10th gen and AMD B550 mainboards
  • Has a proprietary 14-pin TB3 header. Likely need one of the Asus mainboards for full functionality.
• There are several older Alpine-Ridge based boards by Asus, GigaByte, ASRock, etc. but with mixed compatibility for USB-C-only (non-TB3) accessories and different mainboard brands.

GPU boards

• Some NVIDIA RTX 2060, 2060-Super, and most RTX 2070, RTX 2080 and higher boards have fully-featured USB-C/VirtualLink ports. $350+ USD (Q3 2020) and requires a 500+ watt power supply, so unless you need the GPU performance, this is not an economical option.
• AMD Radeon RX 6800/RX 6900 series boards also have fully featured USB-C ports with similar power requirements and cost to the NVIDIA GPU boards.

External DP+USB -> USB-C multiplexers

References: 

Special thanks to /u/chx_ for research on the Sunix board and inspiring the article.