Intel Says Fiber Optic Thunderbolt Cables Coming Later This Year

As far as TB pricing goes the article above tells you what you need to know. My emphasis added

Just last week, Intel announced that it was working on moving Thunderbolt to the PCI Express 3.0 standard, a move that could see the company double the effective bandwidth for data transfers. The company has not, however, provided a projected timeframe for a public launch of the enhanced Thunderbolt speeds.

Click to expand...

USB didn't take off world wide until Intel integrated it right into the Mainboard. TB is no different...eventually it'll be right on the Mainboard and the move will be to move away from these backplanes with umpteen USB ports and other stuff. Makes for a cleaner system physically and, with the protocol support of TB, a cleaner one electronically as well.

nuckinfutz said:

Comparatively speaking Thunderbolt cables are cheap. If you were expecting UB pricing for cables with active chips embedded you were highly mistaken

Click to expand...

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC913ZM/A

2 meters of copper wire for 50 USD is cheap in your opinion?

Manufacturing costs = 50 cents

----------

nuckinfutz said:

As far as TB pricing goes the article above tells you what you need to know. My emphasis added



USB didn't take off world wide until Intel integrated it right into the Mainboard. TB is no different...eventually it'll be right on the Mainboard and the move will be to move away from these backplanes with umpteen USB ports and other stuff. Makes for a cleaner system physically and, with the protocol support of TB, a cleaner one electronically as well.

Click to expand...

Eventually eventually...

Eventually we all die and the universe will collapse.

I would like those peripherals now please, and cheaper than USB 3.0 if possible.

xinu said:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC913ZM/A

2 meters of copper wire for 50 USD is cheap in your opinion?

Manufacturing costs = 50 cents

Click to expand...

What about the active chip? What's the price on this component?

http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/06/29/what-makes-the-thunderbolt-cable-lightning-fast/

xinu said:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC913ZM/A

I would like those peripherals now please, and cheaper than USB 3.0 if possible.

Click to expand...

Not possible by design. USB's host controller is your CPU. This is why it's so cheap. TB technology is more akin to something like Firewire where the I/O and host controller do not depend on the CPU so you get more consistent speed and lower CPU utilization.

TB will never be as cheap as USB 3.0.

xinu said:

http://store.apple.com/us/product/MC913ZM/A

2 meters of copper wire for 50 USD is cheap in your opinion?

Manufacturing costs = 50 cents

----------



Eventually eventually...

Eventually we all die and the universe will collapse.

I would like those peripherals now please, and cheaper than USB 3.0 if possible.

Click to expand...

Do not forget the controller at each end of the cable too.

Longer cables are nice but products are non-existent and I know people prefer bus powered devices when possible.

nuckinfutz said:

What about the active chip? What's the price on this component?

http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/06/29/what-makes-the-thunderbolt-cable-lightning-fast/

Click to expand...

Oh please, let's not confuse righteous indignation for a need for facts.

nuckinfutz said:

What about the active chip? What's the price on this component?

http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/06/29/what-makes-the-thunderbolt-cable-lightning-fast/

Image





Not possible by design. USB's host controller is your CPU. This is why it's so cheap. TB technology is more akin to something like Firewire where the I/O and host controller do not depend on the CPU so you get more consistent speed and lower CPU utilization.

TB will never be as cheap as USB 3.0.

Click to expand...

Well lets say it is 2 dollars then. Probably not that much still.
A5 ARM CPU manufacturing costs are about 10 dollars perhaps, and it is quite more complex chip than some I/O dsp in that plug.

xinu said:

Well lets say it is 2 dollars then. Probably not that much still.
A5 ARM CPU manufacturing costs are about 10 dollars perhaps, and it is quite more complex chip than some I/O dsp in that plug.

Click to expand...

Different sized market. We cannot glean anything about the chips in a TB cable because Intel is the only source for these cables. If there were more vendors making the chips they'd likely be cheaper like an ARM SoC but that's not the case here.

There's a reason why you don't see TB cables on Monoprice

xinu said:

Well lets say it is 2 dollars then. Probably not that much still.
A5 ARM CPU manufacturing costs are about 10 dollars perhaps, and it is quite more complex chip than some I/O dsp in that plug.

Click to expand...

t-bolt is a must for any 2011 iMac owner. read this thread


https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/1317577/


long and short of it reads posts 150 to 156.

for under 470 you get a portable blazing fast 240gb ssd . full warranty



http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16820226226 = $279


http://www.provantage.com/seagate-stae121~7SEG904F.htm = $ 92.34



http://www.jr.com/apple/pe/APP_MC913ZM_SL_A/ = $ 49.00


$ 421.34 total

nuckinfutz said:

Different sized market. We cannot glean anything about the chips in a TB cable because Intel is the only source for these cables. If there were more vendors making the chips they'd likely be cheaper like an ARM SoC but that's not the case here.

There's a reason why you don't see TB cables on Monoprice

Click to expand...

RasBerry Pi mini-computer costs 35 dollars. It is a whole computer.

End of discussion.

xinu said:

RasBerry Pi mini-computer costs 35 dollars. It is a whole computer.

End of logical discussion.

Click to expand...

Fixed that for you. Have a nice day.

Great for silence lovers!

I think this is great news. Then you finally have an easy (one cable!) and affordable way to put your computer and hard drives in an adjacent room (or closet etc.) for a completely silent work environment. Should be great news for music studios and silence lovers.

nuckinfutz said:

Fixed that for you. Have a nice day.

Click to expand...

It is midnight here. But thanks anyway.

But yes.. My point just is that 50 dollars for that copper-wire is rip off. Thats my point.

And arguments that we cannot know how much that small DSP costs?

Well yes we know. It costs close to nothing. It is a DSP chip and those have been out there for 30+ years.

Atari Falcon back in 1992 had powerful DSP chips. Any 49 dollar Guitar effects pedal has more than one DSP chip inside.

And this new DSP tech is Amazing Incredible in such ways again that it costs so much that you gotta ask 50 bucks for it? yeah right.. iBelieve

wikus said:

LOL, what a failure thunderbolt is becoming. All this hype and time.... where are devices for consumers?

Have any of you;

- seen anyone having a thunderbolt device?
- seen a thunderbolt device on a store shelf?

Click to expand...

I bought a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter # STAE121 and an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSD and a Thunderbolt cable for $263. I use it as my boot drive and the performance of my iMac has increased tremendously.

To the ones moaning and complaining about the cable cost, I'm guessing some of you have no issue blowing loads of money on Alcohol, Cigarretts, Pot, Eating Out, Clothing, etc...

That or you're not in the pro market, for professionals thunderbolt runs circles around USB3.0 and even for regular users. Thunderbolt isn't meant as a method for connecting your basic keyboard or mouse. It's a method for us to connect devices with amazing speed, daisy chain able and other such features.

DCJ001 said:

I bought a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter # STAE121 and an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSD and a Thunderbolt cable for $263. I use it as my boot drive and the performance of my iMac has increased tremendously. Image

Click to expand...

Is it not possible to just put that thing inside the iMac?

DCJ001 said:

I bought a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter # STAE121 and an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSD and a Thunderbolt cable for $263. I use it as my boot drive and the performance of my iMac has increased tremendously.

Image

Click to expand...

As always, real facts and evidence always trumps trolls.

DCJ001 said:

I bought a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter # STAE121 and an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSD and a Thunderbolt cable for $263. I use it as my boot drive and the performance of my iMac has increased tremendously.

Image

Click to expand...

thank you. and it is in warranty. apple wants $600 for a 256gb ssd sata II it is the only warranty for an internal ssd. like this poster did 263 for portable instantly replace able ssd (if you choose to have a spare on hand). size of 120gb. or 421gb for a 240gb .

your need for pretty not satisfied pay 30 for this

http://store.apple.com/us/product/TW851LL/A

this option for a portable osx is truly viable for an iMac. far less money then apples option for the internal ssd

daxomni said:

Is it not possible to just put that thing inside the iMac?

Click to expand...

Possible - yes. Easy to do - No:

http://ifixit-guide-pdfs.s3.amazonaws.com/guide_6434_en.pdf

Plus, I like the idea of being able to disconnect this from my iMac and connecting it to any Thunderbolt Mac, including my next Mac if I choose to sell this one.

DCJ001 said:

I bought a Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter # STAE121 and an OCZ Vertex 3 120GB SATA III SSD and a Thunderbolt cable for $263. I use it as my boot drive and the performance of my iMac has increased tremendously.

Image

Click to expand...

That sounds like a great solution.

Can you boot camp that?

Spectrum Abuser said:

-No. The technology [thunderbolt] is also not even a year old yet.
-Yes.

Seriously you need to get over yourself. Of course it won't have the support of USB 2.0 at the present. And no one in their right mind should expect it to.

Click to expand...

That is COMPLETELY false. How long have the MacBook Pros been out with Thunderbolt? Its been OVER a year. Thunderbolt has been known about for even longer than that.

Most of us have only seen less than a dozen products mentioned as 'coming soon' on the macrumors website or elsewhere online. The devices in the real world have been driven into obscurity.

THERE IS NO EXCUSE at this point for things to be exactly the same as they were a year ago when the macbooks got released with thunderbolt. Worse yet, it doesnt look as if things are going to change anytime soon.

I'm all for TB, but Apple and Intel have failed miserably at releasing it.

Wikus

It's expensive. Most new technologies are and they take multiple years to take hold. What's encouraging though is the talk of cheaper chipsets and the possible integration into PCI Express 3.0.

Even then thought I still think TB is beyond the needs of the average consumer. USB 3.0 for faster drive performance is probably more than good enough.

Enthusiasts are going to find that soon SSD pricing will be under a buck a Gigabyte and that's going to mean more systems that need a faster bus to prevent the bus from limiting performance.

Powered cable

While optical fibres can't carry (sufficient) power, there's no reason that optical Thunderbolt cables can't power connected devices - they are multi-core cables anyway, so you just retain a pair of copper cores to carry power. Not sure why Intel isn't proposing this for (relatively) short cables, though power loss would prevent it from working over extended lengths. 100m should be no problem, though.

wikus said:

LOL, what a failure thunderbolt is becoming. All this hype and time.... where are devices for consumers?

Have any of you;

- seen anyone having a thunderbolt device?
- seen a thunderbolt device on a store shelf?

Click to expand...

Personally I own one Promise Pegasus 12TB (6x2TB) R6 RAID System that is used with a mini i7 server and after testing it out I made a PO for five of them to be integrated at work with mini servers for different departments, this is an awesome product.

TB is a win in my opinion, not ever single technology has to be dollar store cheap to adopt right out of the gate; give your head a shake mate, the price will come down and then you will bitch about something else.

Nothing comes this fast for this price range for RAID storage.

Why double convert?

Why double convert?

Don't get me wrong Cross-Compatibility is nice but isn't TB designed off of Light Peak?

I would think it would be better for cable price and speed/performance to put a emitter directly on the the motherboard and then you could use generic fiber optic cable rather then a expense "cable" with logic and a emitter in it.

For backwards compatibility they could easily make a converter for devices already on the market.

nuckinfutz said:

Ahhh Wikus trolling the Thunderbolt threads again to provide nuggets of misinformation.

There are plenty of Thunderbolt devices available or in the pipeline for people that actually need the drive speed.

Click to expand...

Plenty? Really? What number is that? You could compile a short list of all the items and post it as a quick comment. There arent plenty. Theres plenty relative the number of fingers you have on your hands, which would make counting them with your fingers difficult, but relative to USB 3.0 the number is pathetic.

I'm all for Thunderbolt. I'm all for faster transfer speeds. I'm all for more options for a single connection to serve all my needs.

But I'm not at all for everyone wanting that and getting screwed by the lack of devices and the ridiculous price tags after more than a year of it being around.

Once USB 3.0 comes to MacBooks and other Macs, thunderbolt is going to be officially DEAD and will end up JUST like Firewire. Not something I'd like to see, but thats the reality of this awful execution of Thunderbolt.