Acer and Asus to Provide Momentum to Thunderbolt Adoption

[sennekuyl]

<snip>
I don't believe that any TBolt devices have shipped to the general public.
<snip>

Wikipedia has USB introduced Jan 1996 (there are sources ranging the dates from 1994 to 1996.) with the wide support beginning with the release of USB 1.1 in 08/1998. Nearly 3 years later. Couldn't find when the first device was shipped, but memory seems to be very similar to the claims of Wikipedia. [I remember expecting USB to be widely adopted with the release of Win95 but it didn't even have a driver. Seems it wasn't finalised till after Win95's release, but don't remember knowing that at the time.]

Point is, it is flaming only 9 months and we have had devices shipped with reasonable reviews. Yeah, they are expensive, but there weren't many 12AUD USB mice released in 96. Not really expecting <100 tbolt devices for 2 - 5 years.

 

[munkery]

...

TBolt is implemented on systems that have USB ports so the fact that TBolt doesn't directly support USB without an adapter/hub is functionally not an issue because it doesn't impact the user.

 

[AppleScruff1]

TBolt is implemented on systems that have USB ports so the fact that TBolt doesn't directly support USB without an adapter/hub is functionally not an issue because it does not impact the user.

I agree. I see how it looks like I was implying otherwise.

 

[THX1139]

Yeah, T-bolt might be nice... in about 2 more years. In the meantime, it would have been nice to have USB 3.0. I'm not willing to pay the premium price for external T-bolt devices, no matter how cool they are.

I'm thinking it's going to be too little, too late. It's going to go down the same road that FW800 has gone.

 

[THX1139]

At this moment, it looks like Thunderbolt is a hyped up nonsense. I haven't found a use to fit me yet.

Just because YOU can't use it doesn't make it hyped up nonsense. There are plenty of good reasons for OTHER people to use it; it just sucks that it's not widely adopted and there are few peripherals on the market, and none that are affordable for every day use.

 

[repoman27]

Yeah, T-bolt might be nice... in about 2 more years. In the meantime, it would have been nice to have USB 3.0. I'm not willing to pay the premium price for external T-bolt devices, no matter how cool they are.

You could always cover up the little lightning bolt next to the port and just pretend it's a normal mini-DP port, that way you won't be reminded that you've got the potential for extra functionality and paid nothing extra for it.

Meanwhile, 82% of all people who buy a PC in 2011 might also say "It would have been nice to have USB 3.0," since the adoption rate this year is only targeted at 18%.

And in six months or less, Macs with both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt will begin shipping.

 

[sennekuyl]

Yeah, T-bolt might be nice... in about 2 more years. In the meantime, it would have been nice to have USB 3.0. I'm not willing to pay the premium price for external T-bolt devices, no matter how cool they are.

I'm thinking it's going to be too little, too late. It's going to go down the same road that FW800 has gone.

I just pointed out that TB has been more successful in 9 months than USB was in 3 years... It is like these people don't accept any vector except their own isolated thoughts!?

 

[munkery]

. . .

Have a cover on the back side of the display that is removable to facilitate the inclusion of a GPU as a user installed option.

Include a second cover that facilitates the cooling fan for those that opt to install a GPU.

Set up the connection for the PCIe device as a separate device prior to the display connection in the chain despite being a part of the display to mitigate any bandwidth issues as much as possible.

Is there any requirement that the new ATD be the first device in the daisy chain?

 

[aggri1]

A device can only use one channel. The other channel is to provide bandwidth for other devices in the chain.

Quick question: since we can put up to six devices on a Thunderpants chain, when more than two devices are connected, do they all start sharing the two (right?) available channels?

I'm also curious as to how the video signal will go out over Thunderpants in the case of the discrete, removable, graphics cards like in the MacPro (as opposed to the built-in discrete graphics systems like in the MBPro). And what will happen if you change the video card? I guess we'll see eventually, if the MacPro ever gets updated.

Cheers,
A.

 

[munkery]

Quick question: since we can put up to six devices on a Thunderpants chain, when more than two devices are connected, do they all start sharing the two (right?) available channels?

I believe a device can only use one channel but more than one device will use a channel and it is unlikely that a single device will saturate a channel's entire bandwidth.

 

[JohnPhamlore]

Online tech press may have exaggerated story

Sadly looking at various articles from the online tech press, I see more a textbook illustration of how repeated transmission exaggerates stories.

Engadget's article has a link to a video of Intel's representatives at IDF discussing Thunderbolt, PCs, Asus, and Acer.

http://www.engadget.com/2011/09/14/intel-announces-thunderbolt-coming-to-pcs-at-idf-2011/

The actual words that discuss Acer and Asus are simply "Acer and Asus are going to be delivering platforms with Thunderbolt technology on them next year."

There is nothing that precludes Acer and Asus's total involvement in Thunderbolt next year being each supplying one platform with a production run of 50,000 ultrabook units.

Unfortunately this thin sliver of news appears to have been exaggerated upon retelling to give readers the impression that Acer and Asus were adopting Thunderbolt across many lines or that Thunderbolt was going to be built directly into Ivy Bridge chipsets. (Notice how many articles appear to have Apple Thunderbolt-related boilerplate that could have been written any time the past few months.) Also forgotten was that the day before, the consensus was that the PC makers would struggle to develop ultrabooks cheaper than Macbook Airs, in which case one would rightly ask in analogy to iPads, why would someone buy a non-Macbook Air when he or she could have the real thing for about the same price?

 

[RobQuads]

Wikipedia has USB introduced Jan 1996 (there are sources ranging the dates from 1994 to 1996.) with the wide support beginning with the release of USB 1.1 in 08/1998. Nearly 3 years later. Couldn't find when the first device was shipped, but memory seems to be very similar to the claims of Wikipedia. [I remember expecting USB to be widely adopted with the release of Win95 but it didn't even have a driver. Seems it wasn't finalised till after Win95's release, but don't remember knowing that at the time.]

Point is, it is flaming only 9 months and we have had devices shipped with reasonable reviews. Yeah, they are expensive, but there weren't many 12AUD USB mice released in 96. Not really expecting <100 tbolt devices for 2 - 5 years.

Are you seriously comparing the release cycle of products from the 1990s to the 2010s. Grasping at straws there a bit. Now as soon as you have announced a product it needs to be on the shelf within 12 months, if it stretches beyond this it will struggle unless its the first to market

 

[kyjaotkb]

Thunderbolt is by far more flexible. You can connect anything to thunderbolt that you could connect to a PCIe port internally. There really are no disadvantages to thunderbolt besides lack of physical backwards compatibility with USB.

a $50 cable is a disadvantage

 

[mutantteenager]

I thought Apple was the saviour of the market, surely their sole adoption should make this a worldwide standard?

 

[gnasher729]

Sony is/was implementing Thunderbolt but with the USB connector. Is that still true?

I don't know if this is now or was ever true, but it would be complete madness. Every device that is designed to connect to Thunderbolt will come with a cable that plugs into Thunderbolt and won't fit into a USB connector.

 

[OllyW]

Every device that is designed to connect to Thunderbolt will come with a cable that plugs into Thunderbolt and won't fit into a USB connector.

It would be nice if they did, the handful of Thunderbolt devices that are currently on sale don't ship with a cable.

 

[xUKHCx]

Sony is/was implementing Thunderbolt but with the USB connector. Is that still true?

I don't know if this is now or was ever true, but it would be complete madness. Every device that is designed to connect to Thunderbolt will come with a cable that plugs into Thunderbolt and won't fit into a USB connector.

It is sort of true

Sony released the power media dock which utilises the lightpeak architecture but in a proprietary form, through a USB3ish cable.

Power Media Dock™
The performance of VAIO Z Series is taken to new extremes by the unique Power Media Dock2, a monolithic expansion module that links with VAIO via an optical cable. The proprietary port can also be used to attach regular USB devices to VAIO when it’s not docked.

Featuring high-speed I/O data transfer based on the architecture codenamed ‘Light Peak’, Power Media Dock boosts graphics performance while adding numerous extra connectivity options. It includes an optical drive for even greater business productivity and satisfying HD entertainment. The module comes supplied with a stylish design-matched stand.

With Power Media Dock added, VAIO Z can manage up to four displays (including the notebook screen) via HDMI™ and/or VGA output ports. In this configuration, VAIO Z makes a compelling choice for design, finance and science professionals who need to work across several screens simultaneously. New-generation AMD Radeon HD graphics with 1GB VRAM effortlessly handle demanding graphics tasks, from 3D CAD to gaming.

When docked, connectivity options are boosted by additional USB ports plus VGA and HDMI outputs. Power Media Dock also sports an optical drive bay that can be specified with a Blu-ray Disc™ or SuperMulti combo drive. Games and movies on DVD or Blu-ray Disc sound as good as they look with latest Dolby® Home Theater® v4.

It is listed as

docking station/USB port x1 (supports USB 2.0/3.0 compatible devices);

So USB3 port with optical parts added to make a "light peak usb3 port" that is proprietary to Sony.

 

[sennekuyl]

Are you seriously comparing the release cycle of products from the 1990s to the 2010s. Grasping at straws there a bit. Now as soon as you have announced a product it needs to be on the shelf within 12 months, if it stretches beyond this it will struggle unless its the first to market

Why is recognising that history repeats itself grasping at straws? If you cast your eyes further than USB I'd be very surprised if the pattern changed dramatically for any new protocol or revolutionary technology. <--- which hasn't happened all that much since the 90s and protocol tech if anything has settled into a bit of a rut. Not to mention, it was a comparison of the disparagers of TBolt had made, I and others just pointed out their basis for their suppositions was irrational.

 

[DESNOS]

a $50 cable is a disadvantage

Apple is known for rather ridiculous pricing for their cables, although the cable happens to be an active one, I doubt there isn't someone out there who can make it cheaper. Cheap active cables can be risky though, as it isn't just a wire.

 

[repoman27]

Quick question: since we can put up to six devices on a Thunderpants chain, when more than two devices are connected, do they all start sharing the two (right?) available channels?

I believe a device can only use one channel but more than one device will use a channel and it is unlikely that a single device will saturate a channel's entire bandwidth.

Each device in the chain gets dedicated use of one channel when talking. It's a high speed, point-to-point switching architecture. If you consider the way a gigabit Ethernet switch works, you can have four devices connected to a 5-port switch and one port used as an uplink. The switch can connect any two attached devices together at the full 1 Gbps link speed, or if more than one device is trying to talk to a device attached to a given port at the same time (often the case with the uplink port) it switches between them very rapidly, so that they each get 100% of the pipe, but not 100% of the time. So you can think of Thunderbolt like a chain of 3 or 5-port, 10 Gbps Ethernet switches. Each switch provides two ports for uplink, one port for the device, and potentially two ports for connecting an uplink coming from another switch.

I'm also curious as to how the video signal will go out over Thunderpants in the case of the discrete, removable, graphics cards like in the MacPro (as opposed to the built-in discrete graphics systems like in the MBPro). And what will happen if you change the video card? I guess we'll see eventually, if the MacPro ever gets updated.

Yeah, that's a head scratcher, id'n it? Maybe a Virtu like solution with some additional hardware on the mobo to copy the frame buffer from any of the installed dGPUs to the DP input on the TB controller?

Have a cover on the back side of the display that is removable to facilitate the inclusion of a GPU as a user installed option.

Include a second cover that facilitates the cooling fan for those that opt to install a GPU.

Set up the connection for the PCIe device as a separate device prior to the display connection in the chain despite being a part of the display to mitigate any bandwidth issues as much as possible.

Is there any requirement that the new ATD be the first device in the daisy chain?

I'm pretty sure the ATD can be placed wherever you like in the chain.

And yes, with a second TB controller creating sort of a device within a device, you could alleviate some of the bandwidth woes. This would be irregular though, and probably not the best precedent for Apple to set.

My point is that the audience that would want to add an external GPU might be better served by other solutions. For instance, an external Thunderbolt enclosure with a beefy PSU and adequate cooling that can accommodate a single full-length, double slot width, PCIe 2.0 x16 mechanical, off-the-shelf video card. This way you could add any old video card that you happen to have lying around, or pick one from the myriad available that suits your needs/budget. There's already a couple of announcements from vendors who are working on such things. At the moment, pricing seems ludicrous, but it should be conceivable to market an enclosure such as this for around $150, once TB controllers are in good supply and there's some competition out there.

 

[LordVic]

My point is that the audience that would want to add an external GPU might be better served by other solutions. For instance, an external Thunderbolt enclosure with a beefy PSU and adequate cooling that can accommodate a single full-length, double slot width, PCIe 2.0 x16 mechanical, off-the-shelf video card. This way you could add any old video card that you happen to have lying around, or pick one from the myriad available that suits your needs/budget. There's already a couple of announcements from vendors who are working on such things. At the moment, pricing seems ludicrous, but it should be conceivable to market an enclosure such as this for around $150, once TB controllers are in good supply and there's some competition out there.

YES PLEASE!

I would pay good bucks (like 300ish) for an "all in one" solution that would expand on your portable.

When i first saw Thunderbolt, I thought it would be the perfect device for laptops. What i envisioned is a breakout box with the ability to include 1 or 2 PCI-e devices (such as video card). but also had on it a USB hub, Gigabit ethernet, and other assorted plugs your desktop might have. Perhaps even a hard drive.

when you're at home. plugged in. your macbook would use the external devices and you'd have a lot more horsepower for your regular uses.
But easily unplugging your cable, and walkign away, a complete portable computer.

The new AIR's would be perfectly matched with such a system.

 

[Wang Foolio]

The only problem with putting hard drives and GPU's directly in the monitor/docking station is that you would be paying a ton of money for a gimped iMac to plug into. And it would likely cost 70% as much as said iMac.

I think the new displays shipping this week are the happy middle ground, where you expand the connectivity but don't make them prohibitively expensive. $2k for a MBA and this monitor isn't too bad, but make the monitor cost another $500 and you could almost get away with an MBA and low end iMac for the same price.

 

[lilo777]

Let's not forget

that we hardly have any evidence that TB even works. Obviously, being Intel creation, it should work. I do not doubt it. Still, do we have any evidence that someone in the real World actually used TB? As we know TB cable is used for carrying two "signals": PCIe and DisplayPort.

When we connect MBx to a monitor's mDP port (and that's the only real use that we saw for TB ports on MBx so far), we are exercising only the DisplayPort part. We have yet to see the PCIe part in action. Perhaps the only indication that it works in the real world (and not just in the test labs) is the fact that the same tech is used by Sony for connecting VAIO Z to external GPU.

 

[gmcalpin]

I don't know if this is now or was ever true, but it would be complete madness. Every device that is designed to connect to Thunderbolt will come with a cable that plugs into Thunderbolt and won't fit into a USB connector.

That complete madness is already in-market, but as I said earlier, it's not Thunderbolt. It's — in Sony's own words — a "proprietary port" "based on the architecture codenamed 'Light Peak'" (emphasis mine) that "can also be used to attach regular USB devices to VAIO when it’s not docked."

http://presscentre.sony.eu/content/detail.aspx?ReleaseID=6836&NewsAreaId=2

 

[RobQuads]

I just pointed out that TB has been more successful in 9 months than USB was in 3 years... It is like these people don't accept any vector except their own isolated thoughts!?

USB3 is a different matter, its matched its year 1 numbers, do you think TB will grow by 260% this year... to match the 18% its done for year 2.

Growth is also not just defined by the number of machines with TB/USB3 its also the accessories. In 1 year there were hundreds if not thousands of USB3 adapters on eBay for various things such as hard drive, USB, ethernet adapters , memory keys etc. So far we have... a couple? TB devices - very high end disk arrays.

IMO its the accessories that decide the sucess.