MacRumors Giveaway: Win a TS3 Plus Thunderbolt 3 Dock From CalDigit

Friday September 7, 2018 12:01 PM PDT by Juli Clover
For this week's giveaway, we've teamed up with CalDigit to offer MacRumors readers a chance to win a Thunderbolt Station 3 Plus dock, which offers 15 ports for Apple's Thunderbolt 3-compatible Macs.


Priced starting at $299.99, the TS3 Plus can replace all of your other dongles because of the sheer number of ports that it offers. Available in both silver and a new space gray option, the TS3 Plus will match Apple's devices.

Design wise, the TS3 Plus, which is designed to be a desktop dock, is made from aluminum with ribbing on the sides, and it can be positioned either horizontally or vertically to work with any desk setup.


At the front and back, the dock includes two Thunderbolt 3 ports, an SD card reader, five USB-A ports, one USB-C Gen. 1 port, one USB-C Gen. 2 port, a DisplayPort 1.2 port, a Digital Optical Audio port, Audio In & Out, and a Gigabit Ethernet port.

The included USB-C Gen. 1 port offers 5Gb/s throughput, while the USB-C Gen. 2 port offers 10Gb/s throughput, ideal for high-performance SSDs.


The TS3 Plus provides 85W of charging power so it's able to charge Apple's 15-inch MacBook Pro models, along with the 13-inch 61W models with an included Thunderbolt 3 cable. It supports one 60Hz 5K display via Thunderbolt 3 or two 60Hz 4K displays using the DisplayPort and Thunderbolt 3 connections.


CalDigit's TS3 Plus is compatible with 2016 and later 13 and 15-inch MacBook Pro models that support Thunderbolt 3, the 2017 iMac models, and the iMac Pro. We have two of the CalDigit docks to give away.

To enter to win, use the Rafflecopter widget below and enter an email address. Email addresses will be used solely for contact purposes to reach the winners and send the prizes. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page.

Due to the complexities of international laws regarding giveaways, only U.S. residents who are 18 years or older and Canadian residents (excluding Quebec) who have reached the age of majority in their province or territory are eligible to enter. To offer feedback or get more information on the giveaway restrictions, please refer to our Site Feedback section, as that is where discussion of the rules will be redirected.

a Rafflecopter giveaway
The contest will run from today (September 7) at 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time through 11:00 a.m. Pacific Time on September 14. The winners will be chosen randomly on September 14 and will be contacted by email. The winners will have 48 hours to respond and provide a shipping address before new winners are chosen.

Tags: giveaway, CalDigit
20 comments


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TheAppleFairy
24 weeks ago
Now that's a nice giveaway.
Rating: 5 Votes
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zorinlynx
24 weeks ago

That's a really nice dock, and I agree -- there are plenty of ports. And I love the SD slot on the front. But it's interesting that HDMI is missing in favor of Display Port.


An HDMI port is only an HDMI port. It can't easily be converted to anything (besides VGA, and who uses that anymore).

Whereas DisplayPort can be converted to pretty much everything else. It's the closest thing we have to a universal video output. So it's far better to have a DisplayPort output than HDMI.
[doublepost=1536363245][/doublepost]Does anyone here have experience using these kinds of docks with the newer Macbooks?

Can you literally come home, take your laptop out of the bag, plug a single cable into it and immediately your monitor lights up and everything plugged into the dock is just working? Or do you have to fiddle with it?

I'm just wondering how well this works; someday I might consider upgrading my setup and going laptop-only, but I still want a desktop-like experience at home.
Rating: 3 Votes
Avatar
djbuddha
24 weeks ago

will this allow me to connect 3 monitors to my 2017 iMac 5k?


It will allow 2 monitors in addition to the 5K display.

Remember though, your output performance is based on how good your GPU is. You may want to consider an external GPU option if you want great graphic performance with all the displays running.
Rating: 2 Votes
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jonnysods
24 weeks ago
An absolute beast!!

Entered!
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
theluggage
24 weeks ago

But it's interesting that HDMI is missing in favor of Display Port.


Well, they've got to choose one or the other, and Displayport is pretty common on decent monitors. Displayport-to-everything else adapters are available (I notice that the HDMI-out-to-DisplayPort converters to go the other way tend to require an additional USB port for power). Its also the protocol used for sending video data over Thunderbolt, so HDMI would need extra conversion circuitry in the dock.

This isn't a portable dock, its more suited to staying wired-in on your desk, so needing an extra dongle for HDMI isn't quite the annoyance it would be on a mobile solution.

Also, isn't the licensing for HDMI more expensive?
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
fpsBeaTt
24 weeks ago

An HDMI port is only an HDMI port. It can't easily be converted to anything (besides VGA, and who uses that anymore).

Whereas DisplayPort can be converted to pretty much everything else. It's the closest thing we have to a universal video output. So it's far better to have a DisplayPort output than HDMI.
[doublepost=1536363245][/doublepost]Does anyone here have experience using these kinds of docks with the newer Macbooks?

Can you literally come home, take your laptop out of the bag, plug a single cable into it and immediately your monitor lights up and everything plugged into the dock is just working? Or do you have to fiddle with it?

I'm just wondering how well this works; someday I might consider upgrading my setup and going laptop-only, but I still want a desktop-like experience at home.


Bought two, one for myself, one for my father; they're superb, and will compliment the Razer Core X running off the other TB3 controller on the CPU.
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
guitarman777
24 weeks ago
I just got one. The connections are solid. The only issues I had were I needed an active DisplayPort to HDMI connector to get my monitor to work (it’s an older 1080p monitor), and the power supply was causing noise interference. I contacted the company and they sent me a new one no charge as the one packaged with it ended up having grounding issues they’re aware of. Once I got that all sorted, it’s been brilliant. Very pleased with it. I’d like to try 4K monitors with it, but we don’t have any available at work right now.
Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
djbuddha
24 weeks ago

Does anyone here have experience using these kinds of docks with the newer Macbooks?

Can you literally come home, take your laptop out of the bag, plug a single cable into it and immediately your monitor lights up and everything plugged into the dock is just working? Or do you have to fiddle with it?

I'm just wondering how well this works; someday I might consider upgrading my setup and going laptop-only, but I still want a desktop-like experience at home.


That’s EXACTLY how well it works. I take it for granted now, but seriously, it works magic. The ONLY thing I ever have to change sometimes is my audio output from my 4K LG monitor to my Scarlett interface for my powered monitor speakers.
[doublepost=1536388219][/doublepost]

I just got one. The connections are solid. The only issues I had were I needed an active DisplayPort to HDMI connector to get my monitor to work (it’s an older 1080p monitor), and the power supply was causing noise interference. I contacted the company and they sent me a new one no charge as the one packaged with it ended up having grounding issues they’re aware of. Once I got that all sorted, it’s been brilliant. Very pleased with it. I’d like to try 4K monitors with it, but we don’t have any available at work right now.


Don’t mind the 2012 MBP under the first monitor, I use that for something else. My 2017 Pro is in a TwelveSouth bookarc off camera behind the 2nd monitor.

Dual 27” LG 4K displays. It works well- but the GPU in the maxed out 2017 can only hold up so well over super long periods of time.

I had the same power interference issue (I think I was one of the first, I even sent them an audible noise comparison between the old and new power supply LMAO).

Rating: 1 Votes
Avatar
jayducharme
24 weeks ago
That's a really nice dock, and I agree -- there are plenty of ports. And I love the SD slot on the front. But it's interesting that HDMI is missing in favor of Display Port.
Rating: 1 Votes
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