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Intel Reportedly Shipping New Thunderbolt Controllers Ahead of April 23 Ivy Bridge Introduction

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macrumors bot
Original poster
Apr 12, 2001
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VR-Zone reports that Intel has begun shipping its second-generation Thunderbolt controller chip, known as "Cactus Ridge". As previously discussed, Cactus Ridge will arrive in both four-channel (DSL3510) and two-channel (DSL3310) versions, offering Apple a pair of options for including the new chips in its forthcoming products.
Another aspect that makes the DSL3510 interesting is that it supports multiple internal DisplayPort inputs. What this means is that it could in theory interface with a discrete graphics card as well as the integrated graphics from an Intel CPU. This is likely to be the chip used by Apple in its desktop systems, whereas the more power efficient DSL3310 will end up in notebook products.
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thunderbolt_controller_comparison.jpg



The arrival of the new Thunderbolt chips lines up nicely with Intel's Ivy Bridge processors to set the stage for updates to a number Apple's Mac lines. Previous reports have indicated that the first batch of quad-core desktop and mobile Ivy Bridge chips appropriate for Macs should be arriving on April 29, with an announcement coming in the week prior to that date.

Digitimes now claims that the announcement will take place on April 23, with a number of PC manufacturers lined up and ready to launch systems using the new processors. The report points to PC vendors being ready to release new ultrabooks beginning in May, but previous reports had claimed that the lower-voltage chips likely to make their way into the more compact machines won't be launching until early June.

Article Link: Intel Reportedly Shipping New Thunderbolt Controllers Ahead of April 23 Ivy Bridge Introduction
 
Article Link
https://www.macrumors.com/2012/04/12/intel-reportedly-shipping-new-thunderbolt-controllers-ahead-of-april-23-ivy-bridge-introduction/
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Henriok

macrumors regular
Feb 19, 2002
226
14
Gothenburg, Sweden
This seems to solve the question I've had concerning a Mac Pro with a discrete GPU on a expansion card. I guess a new Mac Pro will be able to pipe the graphics back to the motherboard through the TB controller and out the back.. That way you won't need a TB controller on the graphics board itself, or an integrated GPU on the mobo just to guarantee that the Mac Pro have graphics enabled TB even if you change the graphics card.
 
Northgrove

Northgrove

macrumors 65816
Aug 3, 2010
1,149
437
Maybe Intel is ready to ship slightly ahead of schedule. Hard to tell whether this means slightly earlier Macs though. They may be looking to align these new desktops and laptops with the release of Mountain Lion, which is announced for "summer". Especially if the timeframe between their earliest ship dates for these computers and the new OS version ends up being just around one month or so. Makes more of a bang if they can announce a new OS X along with new Macs.
 
iThink Apple

iThink Apple

macrumors 6502a
Aug 27, 2011
643
207
Northgrove said:
Maybe Intel is ready to ship slightly ahead of schedule. Hard to tell whether this means slightly earlier Macs though. They may be looking to align these new desktops and laptops with the release of Mountain Lion, which is announced for "summer". Especially if the timeframe between their earliest ship dates for these computers and the new OS version ends up being just around one month or so. Makes more of a bang if they can announce a new OS X along with new Macs.
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Summer meaning Early or late summer?
 
charlieegan3

charlieegan3

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Feb 16, 2012
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the tread functionality is to add to the discussion, not to tell us when you last jerked-off to the thought of a new mac.
 
Rocketman

Rocketman

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Here's what I don't get. Why isn't the Cactus Ridge 4C the ONLY chip vendors want to use so you can daisy chain everything? To me the next generation of devices have a couple of end user advantages. Easier implementation of multiple screens so you can have a data display and a media display fro the same one box you own, whether it is a laptop or a desktop. We seem to not be there yet for any handtop. Also high speed I/O is finally real and on all such devices. Hopefully we will see Thunderbolt as the new replacement for the 30 pin connector as I speculated in a recent post. That will be the physical device portion of the coming convergence of iOS and OSX.

Rocketman

https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/14576035/
 
L

Laco

macrumors 6502
Apr 23, 2008
375
1
Once affordable devices that use Thunderbolt are produced then I will care.
 
B

bungiefan89

macrumors 6502a
Apr 5, 2011
565
76
Enough with the games, Intel! You've been teasing us with this sexy technology for over a year now.

I demand some cheaper cords, external GPUs, more affordable external hard drives, and developer kits delivered to third-parties so the industry as a whole can benefit from these super-awesome thunderbolt speeds!
 
M

mdgm

macrumors 68000
Nov 2, 2010
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Hopefully we'll find out soon what the fate of the Mac Pro is. I think there were rumours that Apple was waiting for updated Thunderbolt before refreshing the Mac Pro workstation perhaps for the last time.
 
I

iBug2

macrumors 601
Jun 12, 2005
4,531
851
bungiefan89 said:
Enough with the games, Intel! You've been teasing us with this sexy technology for over a year now.

I demand some cheaper cords, external GPUs, more affordable external hard drives, and developer kits delivered to third-parties so the industry as a whole can benefit from these super-awesome thunderbolt speeds!
Click to expand...

External GPU's are a bit way ahead. Can't do that with 10mbit TB. Need around 200Mbit for that.
 
foodog

foodog

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Sep 6, 2006
911
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Atlanta, GA
mdgm said:
Hopefully we'll find out soon what the fate of the Mac Pro is. I think there were rumours that Apple was waiting for updated Thunderbolt before refreshing the Mac Pro workstation perhaps for the last time.
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I guess the Mac Pro will follow the Mac mini's disappearance that people talked about for years.
 
R

ristlin

Guest
Mar 29, 2012
420
0
I bet Mac Pro is going to be the first updated Mac they release this year.
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guzhogi

guzhogi

macrumors 68040
Aug 31, 2003
3,735
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Wherever my feet take me…
fruitycups said:
i wonder how the battery life will be
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Looks like the new ones are slightly lower power hungry than the old ones so should have a slightly longer battery life.

I'm just hoping that the use PCI-E 3.0 instead of 2.0. Should make it faster. Before anyone says "But but but but there no devices out that take advantage of it yet!" Just remember the famous quote from Field of Dreams: "If you build it, they will come."
 
Mal

Mal

macrumors 603
Jan 6, 2002
6,252
18
Orlando
Henriok said:
This seems to solve the question I've had concerning a Mac Pro with a discrete GPU on a expansion card. I guess a new Mac Pro will be able to pipe the graphics back to the motherboard through the TB controller and out the back.. That way you won't need a TB controller on the graphics board itself, or an integrated GPU on the mobo just to guarantee that the Mac Pro have graphics enabled TB even if you change the graphics card.
Click to expand...

It does appear that way. I don't know why you got downvoted, btw, because I think part of Apple's delay in releasing a new Mac Pro may be related to this problem exactly. Unlike far too many here, I don't expect Apple to drop the Mac Pro, though lengthy update timeframes are probably going to be the norm.

jW
 
E

Exhale

macrumors 6502a
Sep 20, 2011
512
145
Rocketman said:
Here's what I don't get. Why isn't the Cactus Ridge 4C the ONLY chip vendors want to use so you can daisy chain everything?
Click to expand...
More expensive, many devices can't daisy chain, many devices are cumbersome to daisy-chain. On the device side, you're working with extremely tight wattages most of the time - and +2W is an absolute killer. (Thats probably between 10-20% of the iPad3 total consumption)

Also on the computer side, the higher PCI-e cost puts further restrictions on other expansion capabilities which could block internal SATA controllers, wi-fi cards, bluetooth cards, additional (more potent) soundcards, extra ethernet ports, and extra USB or Firewire ports.

Assuming the machine has a discrete card, you only have 8x lanes to use for 'extras' with an Intel based motherboard (e.g. Z68 or the upcoming Z77) - and normally several of those will already be in use on a standard motherboard. In fact, the Revodrive 3 (high-speed consumer SSD) would probably not be able to operate at full speed on a typical system equipped with a 4C controller - due to insufficient lane availability. Even better SSDs like the Intel 920 would be virtually guaranteed to be choked.

The lane limit is not so much of a problem on Enthusiast/Enterprise class boards, but Thunderbolt devices themselves are kind of in the Enthusiast/Enterprise price range.
 
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