Does Surface Pro 11 Support PCIe Tunneling Over USB4?

Question

I noticed that the Surface Pro 11 is equipped with USB4 ports. I'm aware that USB4 can support PCIe tunneling, which is crucial for using high-speed peripherals like external GPUs. However, I haven't been able to find clear information on whether the Surface Pro 11 fully supports PCIe tunneling through its USB4 ports.

Could anyone confirm if PCIe tunneling is supported on the Surface Pro 11? If so, are there any specific settings or limitations I should be aware of? Any detailed insights or official documentation links would be greatly appreciated!

***Moved from Windows / 기타/알 수 없음 / 장치 및 드라이버***

Answer 1

Hello 교승구,

Welcome to Microsoft Community.

The answer is clearly yes.

Systems that incorporate a USB4 host router and support external user connectable USB4 ports must support PCI Express (PCIe) tunneling on all exposed USB4 connectors in accordance with chapter 11 of the USB4 Specification and the PCI Express Specification:

USB4 Systems PCIe Tunneling Support | Microsoft Learn

This means you should be able to use high-speed peripherals like external GPUs with the Surface Pro 11. There are no specific settings you need to adjust to enable PCIe tunneling, as it should work natively. However, ensure that your USB4 cables and peripherals are compliant with the USB4 specification to avoid any compatibility issues.

So in fact, if you have such a need, then I recommend you buy a cable designed for the Surface, which you can find in the following link:

Accessories Designed for Surface (microsoft.com) ****

There is no Korean version of this link because the Korean language store does not carry the corresponding product.

These cables, designed specifically for Surface, often offer unparalleled compatibility.

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 2

The Snapdragon processor on the SP11 does not support eGPUs. They are not. compatible with the ARM architecture.

Answer 3

Hi Rodrigo Perez,

Can you share some support information related to this here?

Qualcomm chips should now be able to support PCIe, although in 2017 this feature seemed to be exclusive to Intel chips.

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Answer 4

I can't say for a fact that they are incompatible but there are several things that make it appear to be so.

1. I believe that Thunderbolt is necessary for connecting eGPUs and the Surfaces only have USB-C
2. The GPUs on ARM processors are built into the SOC and so may not allow a secondary GPU to be connected
3. If it was possible, wouldn't it already have been done? Apple has put a lot of effort into their GPU designs to accelerate performance, but they still fall short of dedicated external graphics cards. If it was relatively easy to adapt the ARM CPUs to an external high-performance GPU, I think that it would already have been done

Not much is truly impossible, but some things aren't really practical and I think that the design of the ARM CPU doesn't make it easily adaptable for use with other non-on-die GPUs.

Answer 5

Hi Rodrigo Perez,

I talked to Surface engineers about this.

So far, we've been told that the Surface Pro 11 can do this, as long as the EGPU this customer is using has an ARM-compatible driver.

That said, the Surface Pro 11 has this capability, but it requires compatible drivers to make the high-speed peripherals work properly.

Best Regards,

Mitchell | Microsoft Community Support Specialist