New iMac more than one "thunderbolt" port?

[Pachang]

Obviously by tomorrow in america we might have a better idea about this. It seems that apple has decided not to integrate lightpeak into it's usb ports but into the mdisplay port ports. This doesn't make sense to me but I guess it is because they don't want to force everyone with external displays to buy MDP->thunderbolt (usb looking) adapters (which if true is the first time apple has opted to not make people buy new adapters when given the chance).

Obviously "thunderbolt" will have to come to the iMac pretty soon. And it makes sense for them to put more than one thunderbolt port into the iMac. Does mrumors think that they will have multiple display port looking thunderbolt ports or some other arrangement? And could this mean we could finally see multiple external monitors for the iMac?

Discuss.

[flipster]

My guess is that there would be one on the iMac and two on the Mac Pro
I don't get why people are so hyped up over it, although i dont have a lot of knowledge on it, it seems as though nothing supports "thunderbolt" yet anyway

[nStyle]

You see no point because there is no point... for the average user.

. . . Just as there was no point in USB 2.0 -> 3.0 for the average user.

[biggd]

Originally Posted by nStyle

You see no point because there is no point... for the average user.

. . . Just as there was no point in USB 2.0 -> 3.0 for the average user.

Exactly.
But over time I think apple wants to make it even more ubiquitous that USB

[Pachang]

Originally Posted by flipster

My guess is that there would be one on the iMac and two on the Mac Pro
I don't get why people are so hyped up over it, although i dont have a lot of knowledge on it, it seems as though nothing supports "thunderbolt" yet anyway

So if you want to use an external monitor you can't use 10gbits I/O

[flipster]

Originally Posted by Pachang

So if you want to use an external monitor you can't use 10gbits I/O

Ehh, I'm tech savvy, but I have no idea what you just said. Elaborate, please ?

[Pachang]

Originally Posted by flipster

Ehh, I'm tech savvy, but I have no idea what you just said. Elaborate, please ?

you've seen that the thunderbot port is the mini display port. So you can use a monitor OR thunderbolt device using the port's 10gbps I/O. That's what I meant.

[flipster]

Originally Posted by Pachang

you've seen that the thunderbot port is the mini display port. So you can use a monitor OR thunderbolt device using the port's 10gbps I/O. That's what I meant.

Ohh, was wondering why it was in there! Gotcha, thanks!

[John.B]

Originally Posted by Pachang

you've seen that the thunderbot port is the mini display port. So you can use a monitor OR thunderbolt device using the port's 10gbps I/O. That's what I meant.

AND, not OR...

Thunderbolt supports daisychaining. Assuming your display supports Thunderbolt, you'll connect your MBP to the one of the display's Thunderbolt connectors and then connect the second Thunderbolt connector from that display to a hard drive (or whatever). Thunderbolt breakout boxes can't be far behind that will let you continue to plug in your legacy hardware (USB2 and USB3 hard drives, HDMI displays, etc.)

MBP -> Thunderbolt compatible display -> Thunderbolt compatible hard drive

- or -

MBP -> Thunderbolt compatible hard drive -> Thunderbolt compatible display -> Thunderbolt breakout box -> HDMI

- or -

MBP -> Thunderbolt breakout box -> HDMI/USB2 drive/wired Ethernet connection

If you haven't seen it yet, Here's an Intel demo of what the technology is currently capable of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kidmWiqKzqY

In the mean time, the working assumption is that that mini Display Port connector will still drive your current Cinema Display...

[skiltrip]

Sounds messy.

[dazed]

too early to know anything. best to wait to see how its all implemented.

[fhall1]

Originally Posted by skiltrip

Sounds messy.

Not really.....same as Firewire - just insanely faster.

[ukwebdev]

I was looking to buy a 27 Imac - guess I'll wait now until they update these to incorporate thunderpants...

I'm assuming you'd be able to daisy chain a couple of 27 displays - but would the graphics cards run to this ok???

what do you guys reckon???

[hamean]

Originally Posted by John.B

AND, not OR...

Thunderbolt supports daisychaining. Assuming your display supports Thunderbolt, you'll connect your MBP to the one of the display's Thunderbolt connectors and then connect the second Thunderbolt connector from that display to a hard drive (or whatever). Thunderbolt breakout boxes can't be far behind that will let you continue to plug in your legacy hardware (USB2 and USB3 hard drives, HDMI displays, etc.)

MBP -> Thunderbolt compatible display -> Thunderbolt compatible hard drive

- or -

MBP -> Thunderbolt compatible hard drive -> Thunderbolt compatible display -> Thunderbolt breakout box -> HDMI

- or -

MBP -> Thunderbolt breakout box -> HDMI/USB2 drive/wired Ethernet connection

If you haven't seen it yet, Here's an Intel demo of what the technology is currently capable of: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kidmWiqKzqY

In the mean time, the working assumption is that that mini Display Port connector will still drive your current Cinema Display...

Thanks for the video. This is fantastic news, and if Thunderbolt connections are implemented similar to that video, these could be the one stop ports on future laptops. Does Thunderbolt have integrated power?

[lowonthe456]

I'd like to know too, also how many 24" or how many 27" monitors could be chained together......I've seen the math done, but it seems like 2 should be doable.......err maybe


I'm on board for a new iMac now, not becuase I was underwelmed by the new MBP specs, but the price increase...

I'll get an imac now and maybe an ipad later this year or something.

[MacHamster68]

does thunderbold mean any Mac without it is now obsolete and worthless , so people are forced to upgrade
ok one good thing as so many will now jump on it and sell their just bought Mac's because they want thunderbold , the market will get flooded with near new Macs which brings the prices right down which is actually the best thing about thunderbold .......near new Mac's for a bargain price with full apple warranty

how many peripherals are available at the moment for thunderbold ?, i mean we have not even seen many usb3.0 devices yet and thunderbold is supposed to be the usb 3.0 killer as many said,
but people said the same about usb1.1 would be the firewire killer ... and still even usb 3.0 could not kill firewire as a very reliable form of data transport

[DannyBres]

i doubt you will be able to daisey chain displays as the GFx processors in the MBP and iMacs are not powerfull enought to power more than 1 extra display!

They will not be obselete most thinsg will still support USB and FW800 but if you are a big movie editor or use large files with insame RAID arrays a thunderbolt compatyible machine will definaely speed things up!!

[diddl14]

From the Intel Thunderbolt spec:
"Users can add high-performance features to their PC over a cable, daisy chaining one after another, up to a total of 7 devices, 1 or 2 of which can be high-resolution DisplayPort v1.1a displays (depending on the controller configuration in the host PC)"
This sounds like the host pc/laptop needs to have multiple internal displayports hooked up from the gfx-chip to the thunderbolt chip in order to facilitate multiple displays. So the question is if the new MBP's are wired that way?

What should work is a setup with an external PCIe x1 gfx-controller as slave. Ideally monitors will have this build in so you can just daisy chain them...

[camelsnot]

thunderbolt on an imac is a big bag of hurt. So much so Apple probably just need not investigate it further. they know what's best for us. And no, monitors won't have the capability to "daisy chain" thunderbolt drives or displays or TB-approved devices.

[ryu3000]

I'm confused by the whole daisy chain thing. Would that mean that you don't need multiple Thunderbolt ports?

[diddl14]

Originally Posted by DannyBres

i doubt you will be able to daisey chain displays as the GFx processors in the MBP and iMacs are not powerfull enought to power more than 1 extra display!

Up to 4 displays according to the specs on the ATI website: http://www.amd.com/uk/products/noteb...n-6300m.aspx#2
But the limitation might be that the MBP does only wire 1 gxf output to the thunderbolt port...

[MacHamster68]

yes lightpeak would offer you about 7 hdd's daisy chained some say 10 others more depending on source , which actually isn't a lot , as you still have to consider the speed of a sata drive , so for hdd's thunderbold does not make any sense , only if you could replace all your hdd's with ssd's with a thunderbold connector , which might get expensive for people like me ,
i have 15 external firewire HDD's all daisy chained , a total of about 5.4 terabyte in use mainly as backup drives , i cannot even remotely afford to replace them with ssd 's , which to my knowlege dont even exist to buy at the moment with a thunderbold connector , most still use sata connection and that would only be for my backup drives , not to think about the drives i use regular
and with firewire i can daisy chain 69 hdd's
so for me thunderbold is only something of a gimmic with no real use for the average computer user at the moment some are already happy to have a fully working display in their iMac 27" , and ok some are in the position to buy another 27" cinema display , but how many average buyer can afford 1 iMac plus 4x 27" cinema displays with a thunderbold connector (this cinema display doesn't exist at the moment anyway) , we could talk again in 10 years time when this thunderbold thing is more widely available or disappeared already like so many things

i remember betamax , sony was so proud of and did try to force the whole industry to adopt , jvc then turned around pointed the middle digit direction sony and developed vhs ...we all know the result betamax disappeared of the shelfs as quickly as it came ok some still use it
same can happen to thunderbold if another company comes up with a system that is nearly as good but cheaper

i mean firewire can do everything usb can but better , but usb devices are cheaper ...only because the inventors want a nice fee from anybody putting a firewire port onto his device , thats why so many use usb and only a few use firewire , , but firewire is backwards comaptible , you can connect a fw400 device on a fw800 port for
usb3.0 the same its backward compatible with usb2.0 and even usb1.1 devices

at the moment for thunderbold /lightpeak there are talks about $50 for each connector but nothing confirmed yet for anybody who want to make a device for that connection
so thunderbold would at least force you to buy expensive adapters ..remember apple did that before when they ditched the adc port and gone to dvi , you did want to use your just bought adc cinema display , but needed to buy either a new display with dvi or expensive dvi to adc adapter to even use your new Mac

so for now its only theory and i continue to use my firewire drives and wont throw them away any time soon, same for my dvi monitors

[John.B]

Originally Posted by ryu3000

I'm confused by the whole daisy chain thing. Would that mean that you don't need multiple Thunderbolt ports?

Yes. You connect the devices in series, one to the next to the next, similar to how FireWire works (and how SCSI works, but without the need to terminate the last connection). Each device has to have two ports, though, with the exception of the first and last device.

MBP -> TB Hard Drive -> TB Media Storage Array -> Display Port Monitor

If you would prefer a hub, I'm pretty sure the TB breakout boxes will function like your average USB hub does today, but probably only with legacy devices (USB2/USB3/FireWire/HDMI).

[Sirmausalot]

Originally Posted by fhall1

Not really.....same as Firewire - just insanely faster.

What kind of drive configuration will actually take advantage of lightspeed? Only RAID SSDs?

[KKramer]

Originally Posted by John.B

AND, not OR...

MBP -> Thunderbolt compatible display -> Thunderbolt compatible hard drive

- or -

MBP -> Thunderbolt compatible hard drive -> Thunderbolt compatible display -> Thunderbolt breakout box -> HDMI

- or -

MBP -> Thunderbolt breakout box -> HDMI/USB2 drive/wired Ethernet connection

In the mean time, the working assumption is that that mini Display Port connector will still drive your current Cinema Display...

None of those configs would work. According to Apple display device should be terminating, the LAST in the chain.
Serious limitation. I'd wish you could use display as TB hub.