Thinkpads Forum

Hi all,

The information online about the features of the Thinkpad T14s Gen 6 Snapdragon (model 21N1 / 21N2) with the Qualcomm Snapdragon chip specifically the Snapdragon® X Elite X1E-78-100 Processor (3.40 GHz) is incredibly sparse:

It is said in some places that this laptop has "Thunderbolt 4" support. This should mean it supports USB-C with USB version 4, Power Delivery, and Displayport.

But I can't find anywhere if the Snapdragon's Thunderbolt connector also has PCI-e data function, so you can connection Thunderbolt PCI Expansion chassis, Thunderbolt docks.

I'm not sure if the Snapdragon chip includes a whole Thunderbolt controller, and I would guess to have Thunderbolt PCIe data support, the T14s would need to be equipped with an Intel Thunderbolt controller chip.

Does this laptop have Thunderbolt 4 PCIe data function?


Examples of computers with CPU not made by Intel and which has Thunderbolt PCIe data support are: Apple M4 / M3 / M2 / M1 laptops. These have full Thunderbolt support built-in. Some AMD computers. These support Thunderbolt if you add a Thunderbolt PCI-e extension card in a particular configuration.


For examples of Thunderbolt products that use PCIe, see for example here https://www.sonnettech.com/product/echo ... rview.html and here https://www.sonnettech.com/product/thun ... ducts.html.


Anyone who has this laptop and some Thunderbolt PCI device, would you like to check?

Also, if anyone has Linux working on this computer, checking dmesg and lspci should show any Intel Thunderbolt controller.


It is only expectable that a Thinkpad with a Snapdragon CPU has this support. In case the laptop doesn't have it, then please Lenovo incorporate real Thunderbolt PCI on your Thinkpad X1 Carbon Snapdragon and Thinkpad T14s Snapdragon thinkpad models in the next edition!


Thanks.


https://www.lenovo.com/us/en/p/laptops/ ... en101t0099

https://docs.qualcomm.com/bundle/public ... _Brief.pdf

https://www.notebookcheck.net/Qualcomm- ... 568.0.html

Crosspost with https://forums.lenovo.com/t5/ThinkPad-T ... -p/5363773.

Call Lenovo and ask them?

Thunderbolt is not the same as USB4. USB4 is an open implementation of the PCIe tunneling capability of Thunderbolt. As far as I know the only difference between USB4 and 3.2 IS PCIe tunneling. Pretty much all high end laptops support it at this point (say, AMD versions of Thinkpad does) so my educated guess is that the T14s G6 Qualcomm does support PCIe tunneling. It really makes no sense for Lenovo not to implement a feature that the SoC clearly supports and is standard across the line.

mikemex wrote: ↑

Wed Mar 12, 2025 3:45 am

USB4 is an open implementation of the PCIe tunneling capability of Thunderbolt. As far as I know the only difference between USB4 and 3.2 IS PCIe tunneling.

Exactly. If it's USB4, it means it has to do PCIe tunneling. Otherwise it's false advertising.

Think of Thunderbolt vs USB4 a bit like Intel x86 versus the standard x86. The spec made it possible for others to implement something similar to what Intel did. There will be some minor differences, but the core functionality should be compatible, otherwise there is no point in making it a standard.