USB Finalizes 10Gbps SuperSpeed+ Standard as USB 3.1

I'm afraid this would make thunderbolt the "firewire part 2"

Thunderbolt, which moves data at up to 10Gbps in both directions, appears mostly on Apple devices currently, but devices tend to be more expensive than their USB 3.0-compatible counterparts.

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Now that's an understatement! Devices that use thunderbolt are MUCH MORE expensive and MUCH LESS readily available. For anyone other than the rare pro user thunderbolt is useless.

So let me get this straight, USB 3.1 is much much cheaper, uses simple cables with no electronics inside, is fully backward compatible and is ubiquitous while Thunderbolt is expensive, exclusively high-end, rare and requires cables with fancy chips inside, without actually being faster?

Sure, Thunderbolt 2 will be even faster, but then so will USB 3.2 and so on...

Intel isn't doing ****.

baryon said:

So let me get this straight, USB 3.1 is much much cheaper, uses simple cables with no electronics inside, is fully backward compatible and is ubiquitous while Thunderbolt is expensive, exclusively high-end, rare and requires cables with fancy chips inside, without actually being faster?

Sure, Thunderbolt 2 will be even faster, but then so will USB 3.2 and so on...

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There's a difference between theoretical and real life performance (with USB the difference tends to be the biggest). Furthermore, Thunderbolt actually offers a lot more possibilities and is much more advanced than USB 3.
However I do agree that probably 95% of Mac users won't ever use Thunderbolt (except for Displayport adapters). It's even a lot less popular than FireWire used to be. It's a shame Apple pushed Thunderbolt in their 2011 Mac models before adopting USB 3, which people actually use.

Why don't these guys just team the f**# up and make it one mother***#$% port.

It's just the consumer that dies slowly in the end...

USB and Thunderbolt are different technologies for different purposes. Yes, there is some crossover functionality between the two. But they are different technologies altogether. Like someone stated on here, only a small percentage of users will need/use Thunderbolt, at our studio it's pretty critical for our needs. USB 3.1 will also be a welcome tech here as well.

baryon said:

So let me get this straight, USB 3.1 is much much cheaper, uses simple cables with no electronics inside, is fully backward compatible and is ubiquitous while Thunderbolt is expensive, exclusively high-end, rare and requires cables with fancy chips inside, without actually being faster?

Sure, Thunderbolt 2 will be even faster, but then so will USB 3.2 and so on...

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I think there is still a difference since usb does not provide this thru put bidirectionally. Thunderbolt actually supports usb as well as video and other protocols all one one optical cable allowing for much longer runs. The specification actually plans for up to 100 Gigabits over optical as well as being the interconnect for chips on the motherboard when the speed of memory catches up.

RIP Thunderbolt

Rmbp mid 2014 with 3.1 please

I still can't tell, just by looking at the port, whether a USB port is 2.0 or 3.0... and they're adding 3.1 now?

Oh well. Good thing I haven't picked up a USB 3 PCIe card yet.

Will USB 3.1 be bale to handle video like ThunderBolt?

Also, at what point will the cables have faster abilities than the devices themselves? All fine and dandy to have a cable that will do 10Gbps but if the mechanics are stalled at 6Gbps, then meh... Kind of like Ethernet with internet.

Don't get me wrong it will be nice though.

bb426 said:

Why don't these guys just team the f**# up and make it one mother***#$% port.

It's just the consumer that dies slowly in the end...

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Competition is good for progress and the consumer. For most users, USB will probably win out, but Thunderbolt will continue to have a function as long as it keeps improving.

bb426 said:

Why don't these guys just team the f**# up and make it one mother***#$% port.

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http://xkcd.com/927/

That's what usually happens.

I'll be honest. Most people commenting don't know about the underlying technologies and just go off the 'specs'.

USB 3.1 is fine and dandy, it doesn't hold a candle to Thunderbolt, v1 or v2.

USB is for consumers, Thunderbolt is for the Pro's.

I will never trade Thunderbolt for USB.

milwaukeeJ said:

I'll be honest. Most people commenting don't know about the underlying technologies and just go off the 'specs'.

USB 3.1 is fine and dandy, it doesn't hold a candle to Thunderbolt, v1 or v2.

USB is for consumers, Thunderbolt is for the Pro's.

I will never trade Thunderbolt for USB.

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+1000

I'll never say that thunderbolt and associated products are cheap, but the ignorance I'm seeing in these comments is a little discouraging.

No mention of the type of data being transmitted, source and destination, etc, to say nothing of the whole power and daisy-chaining thing, um yeah. Oh and that's if the average user is actually saturating the USB 3.x channel with a raid of HDDs? SSDs?

To be honest, I'm happy for thunderbolt to die, or end up like Firewire - there if I need it, but at a cost.

10gbps is plenty for the next 5-10 years. Sure eventually 20gbps will be wanted, however right now we need something like thunderbolt, that is widely adopted and actually something people can afford to buy devices for.

Glad that there are some sane people on the USB panel as the idiots running Thunderbolt don't seem to have a clue...again!

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milwaukeeJ said:

USB 3.1 is fine and dandy, it doesn't hold a candle to Thunderbolt, v1 or v2.

USB is for consumers, Thunderbolt is for the Pro's.

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Completely correct. But unless someone is editing video all day long, USB 3.1 will be more than capable. People like graphic designers and web developers wont have any issue on USB 3.1 speeds. Even app developers won't.

You're right though. Thunderbolt is pretty much only for the pro market. The sad thing is the Mac doesn't support any of the pro features that thunderbolt was crated for (i.e using it as PCI-E expansion for graphics cards and such).

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KindredMAC said:

Will USB 3.1 be bale to handle video like ThunderBolt?

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More than capable. On current Thunderbolt you can theoretically daisychain at least 10 - and thats 10gbps speeds. However USB 3.1 'real' spreads will be slightly lower. Either way you could comfortably run yourself 3 screens and a whole bunch of other stuff .

KindredMAC said:

Also, at what point will the cables have faster abilities than the devices themselves? All fine and dandy to have a cable that will do 10Gbps but if the mechanics are stalled at 6Gbps, then meh... Kind of like Ethernet with internet.

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Your logic here only works if you connect just 1 device. If you have 2 screens, 3x external drives, an ethernet adaptor and maybe a HD webcam hooked up, normal usb would choke. With 10gpbs bandwidth all of those things will work fine at the same time.

I'm a poor normal user, not a fantastic super mega PRO wizard.
I just wonder how many years we (poor users) will have to wait to see Apple implement those new USB ports on our normal, poor desktop computers.

Shame it won't be out early enough for the next Mac Pro to include it. TB and TB2 are great but expensive, and USB 3.1 would be nice to have on there as well.

KindredMAC said:

Will USB 3.1 be bale to handle video like ThunderBolt?

Also, at what point will the cables have faster abilities than the devices themselves? All fine and dandy to have a cable that will do 10Gbps but if the mechanics are stalled at 6Gbps, then meh... Kind of like Ethernet with internet.

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10Gbps is gigabits, not bytes, so if the current USB3 can do about 400 MB per seconds, that's about 800 for the new standard. That's faster than SATA ssds but the technology exists for ones faster than 800 (such as the pcie based ones).

Ports have been faster than conventional hard drives for a while but SSD speeds have the potential to improve at least as fast as the new ports do. And the format isn't just for drives. Video formats are going to higher resolution as well, and that's a ton of bandwidth for 4k and beyond.

sofila said:

I'm a poor normal user, not a fantastic super mega PRO wizard.
I just wonder how many years we (poor users) will have to wait to see Apple implement those new USB ports on our normal, poor desktop computers.

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There are two options.

Option A is that we wait "Steve time" which is where it took Apple 4 years after USB 3.0 was released to start adopting it.

Option B is that Tim sees sense and gets this added in 2014. I really don't see anything happening until at least Q2 2014 though.

Battlefield Fan said:

RIP Thunderbolt

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Not so fast! Niche perhaps, but not dead by a long shot. The most promising Pro solution out there!

rmwebs said:

There are two options.

Option A is that we wait "Steve time" which is where it took Apple 4 years after USB 3.0 was released to start adopting it.

Option B is that Tim sees sense and gets this added in 2014. I really don't see anything happening until at least Q2 2014 though.

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Or the 3rd option, which is the one [just like with USB3] where Apple includes it on their machines as soon as Intel releases a processor chip-set that support it natively.

USB3.1 ... oh no.... i am wondering if I should hold off the new MacPro and wait for the newer MacPro next year which may have USB 3.1 instead of 3.0

This is ridiculous.

USB3 and Thunderbolt is not an either/or equation. Is TB more expensive? Yes. Is it faster? Yes. Not every faster, better technology gets to be immediately commoditized so that every layperson can/should use it.

Some will say USB3.1 is fast enough. For those people, great! But for those that need the extra bandwidth, however large that group is; Thunderbolt is the faster [better] option, and I've never thought twice about the price premium, because it enables me to get my work done faster, and do more.

This is like saying the new MacPro should be cheaper, and that iMacs will replace them all. If you need that power, it comes at a cost. And just because you don't need it or can't afford it- doesn't make it any less necessary to those who do.

This strikes me as a bizarre kind of tech entitlement.

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carestudio said:

USB3.1 ... oh no.... i am wondering if I should hold off the new MacPro and wait for the newer MacPro next year which may have USB 3.1 instead of 3.0

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Please do- then mine won't be backordered as long.