Thanks for all of that, Tom. This is beginning to get a lot clearer while also more confusing, but you've been helpful

The only device I'm really thinking of these days is the Dell XPS 13, which I think is the best all around Windows computer on the market. I have one and I love it. Since that will be the one I recommend, I'm going to do my best to figure out its capabilities. In general, that wouldn't include much high end 3D gaming, as much as I hear the Intel 520 is much better than previous generations.

According to Dell's product page, the port on the XPS 13 supports:

1 Thunderbolt™ 3 Supports:
Power In / Charging
PowerShare
Thunderbolt 3 (40Gbps
Bi-Directional)
USB 3.1 Gen 2 (10Gbps)
Native DisplayPort 1.2 Video
Output
VGA, HDMI, Ethernet and USB-A
via Dell Adapter (Sold Separately)

So the way that's written makes me think that there's something inherent about USB-C that enables all those connections, so why don't I see boxes with USB-C inputs and an output for every single one of the mentioned ports? Dell clearly made one and sold it until they had disastrous results with it. Why? Something tells me that the answer is "because it's the early days of the standard and these people just haven't figured it out yet." Clearly I still don't understand this connector, but I'm trying to.


But from what I understand, USB-C has a max of 40gb/s. So it's not "just a connector." I don't care if it's using USB 3 or not, I care about monitor outputs via an external breakout box in this situation. How that's done doesn't matter to me, I just want the configuration, and it seems to be something that manufacturers were also thinking about at first, but have had lots of trouble implementing.

The Dell device you mentioned seems unlikely to simply be a USB3 container. It makes me wonder what protocols it was using.