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2011 Thunderbolt Mini=External Dedicated Graphics Card?
- Thread starter lilsoccakid74
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http://www.sonnettech.com/news/nab2011/
look at the echo express
also look at the fusion f2tbr
this gives you a real graphics card and a fast ssd raid if they work correctly mac minis will be beasts.
look at the echo express
also look at the fusion f2tbr
this gives you a real graphics card and a fast ssd raid if they work correctly mac minis will be beasts.
Pretty excited about the possibilities here. I admittedly don't know too much about how the technology works, but if thunderbolt truly allows you to run an external graphics card, it could be Apple's compromise to the small PC gaming market. In other words, people like me who want OSX but can't give up playing Fallout and Elder Scrolls. 
In other words, people like me who want OSX but can't give up playing Fallout and Elder Scrolls.
You'll be able to play it, but at very low FPS.
Thunderbolt is still MUCH slower than PCIe so I wouldn't wish for an AMD 6990.
TB = 10Gb/s
PCIe 2.0 x8 = 32Gb/s
PCIe 2.0 x16 = 64Gb/s
Might be fine for lower-end graphics but not for the most powerful cards. Plus, there is no word on how it will work anyway. Sonnet doesn't say anything about support for graphics card. With Mac Pros, you have to flash PC GPUs in order to make them work so it is unlikely that you could just pop in any card you like and it would work.
TB = 10Gb/s
PCIe 2.0 x8 = 32Gb/s
PCIe 2.0 x16 = 64Gb/s
Might be fine for lower-end graphics but not for the most powerful cards. Plus, there is no word on how it will work anyway. Sonnet doesn't say anything about support for graphics card. With Mac Pros, you have to flash PC GPUs in order to make them work so it is unlikely that you could just pop in any card you like and it would work.
Its not possible. TB has a maximum data rate (in perfect conditions) of 1GB/sec, AGP 4x has 1.06GB/sec. So no matter what video card you use it will be very weak by modern standards.
In other words, the Mini's integrated GPU is more powerful than anything you could put though a TB port, so you might as well just connect the display directly to the TB port!
In other words, the Mini's integrated GPU is more powerful than anything you could put though a TB port, so you might as well just connect the display directly to the TB port!
I wouldn't expect many Mini users to opt for a high-end graphics card though. Question is, will any upgrade you can achieve through this that much better than the IGP to justify the cost? Mini + external GPU might not be that much cheaper than a low-end iMac.
yeah it is interesting to see what comes of this. for a killer fast external boot drive and a decent gpu add-on it may be just too much cash. I like the idea of a cpu in a box (ie 2011 macmini) want more power storage just add on via t-bolt.
Time will tell IF it will work.
Time will tell IF it will work.
TB has low latency (something like 7-8ns IIRC) so it shouldn't be the issue.
Pretty much every other quote I've read says 10gb/sec, not 1. And this article at least http://www.huliq.com/10177/intels-thunderbolt-port-makes-external-graphics-cards-feasible suggests that most x16 PCIe graphic cards using about 4gb to 7gb/sec, which is within the usable range.
Here's a second article on the same point. http://appleheadlines.com/2011/02/2...derbolt”-can-help-your-future-mac-experience/
Edit: Ah, I just suddenly realized you said GB rather than Gb. My reading says that you are basically correct, though the GB number is 1.25. As PCIe 1.x supports 250MB/sec per lane, at 16x lanes, that'd be 4GByte/sec up and down, which is nearly 4 times faster than Thunderbolt at 10Gbit/sec.
That's assuming I'm reading everything correctly and no authors are playing fast and loose with the byte/bit distinction.
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That article is pure crap. It says TB can provide more than PCIe x16, which is nothing else but false.
Thunderbolt = 10Gb/s
PCIe 2.0 x16 = 64Gb/s
They are probably mixing the bits and bytes too when they say 4-7Gb/s is what most PCIe buses provide. PCIe 2.0 x1 provides 4Gb/s alone. Their usage of the word PCI instead of PCIe doesn't make it sound more credible either.
thanks for all the replys. Even being able to support a low end card might provide some hope for other mini users feeling the pain from the minis graphics card.
Will be watching closely to see how this unfolds if they ever upgrade the mini
Will be watching closely to see how this unfolds if they ever upgrade the mini
for people who want to choose the monitor of their choice, and dont have 2k for a mac pro, i think it makes perfect sense.
Well for some of those people it'd make perfect sense if Apple released matte iMac BTO's. I'm not really one of them and there's plenty of threads about it but I still find it silly. Ofcourse others may have still other needs for their monitor. In which case it'd make perfect sense if there was a bit more of a decent graphics solution in the mini. Perhaps as a BTO. But Apple probably won't put a SB CPU and a dedicated GPU in a Mini.
In the end you're right, customer side it would make sense to do just what you propose. It'd suck though, to have your graphics power limited by the connection it uses while there's better technology out there.