Thunderbolt 4 AIC compatibility with older MBs

Hi everyone,

I have an interrogation that I hope someone will elucidate for me.

On the Asrock Thunderbolt 4 AIC and Thunderbolt 4 AIC R2.0 add-in card that both use the Intel JHL8540 Thunderbolt 4 controller (the only difference between those cards seems to the jumper locations on the boards themselves) and the list of compatible motherboard seems to be longer on the R2.0 model on the Intel side. Nothing moved on the AMD motherboards list.


Both revisions of the card officially support the AM4 X570S PG Riptide and B550 PG Riptide motherboards. My question is the following. Can either card work on an older X570 motherboards like the X570 Taichi that officially support the Asrock Thunderbolt 3 AIC R2.0 card ?

I don't look for official support. The main reason why I am looking for this card is because it is still available right now on the market while the Thunderbolt 3 AIC R2.0 model seems discontinued.

Are there any limitation embedded on the motherboard itself that could prevent newer TB4 cards to work on TB3 compatible motherboards since both technologies have some specifications in common like the 40Gbps bidirectional bandwidth and identical headers on the cards ?

I know from this source on the forum that other brand cards like Gigabyte work on Asrock MB https://forum.asrock.com/forum_posts.asp?TID=12076&PID=66382𐍎 . Can newer Asrock TB cards work on older Asrock MB ?

Thank you in advance,

Hello poit57,

Thank you for your reply.

I do have something new to bring about this topic.
A couple of days after I posted my topic on this forum, I sent a support ticket to Asrock America and a very concerned person helped me find a solution for my problem. That person contacted the headquarter and someone provided him a costom BIOS for my x570 Taichi motherboard to test.

In that costom BIOS, some change was made to enable support for the Thunderbolt 4 AIC card. In theory, the X570 Taichi is only compatible with the Thunderbolt 3 AIC R2.0 card.

I'm using this costom BIOS version 5.50D for almost 2 months now and it works flawlessly.

I didn't want to change my whole setup, in fact, I'm really happy with it and I feel like I can enjoy it for many more years again until USB4 becomes more widely available.

I am also faced with the same dilemma, I have the ASRock Taichi x570 Motherboard and need a solid answer and solution, Does the ASRock Thunderbolt 4 2.0 work on this particular motherboard or not...The above comment about it just needing a driver kind of puzzles me because if it works why haven't ASRock Released it in general for all to use it ,especially since it would benefit their sales...
ASRock needs to create a thunderbolt card that is universal for all their boards and stop limiting products that people people still need for both Audio and Visual work. I Have invested heavily and need my UAD Thunderbolt set up to communicate effortlessly with my ASRock Tai Chi x570 AMD Computer so I can get my projects done. ASRock are you guys Listening...If anyone has a solution to this frustrating obstacle please let me know...

Any chance you would be willing to share the modified bios? That would be amazing as I am in the same boat as you and the TB3 cards are no longer available.
Thanks!