Apple Launches MacBook Pros with Thunderbolt, Quad Core CPUs, AMD GPUs

[iZac]

Are you kidding? Instead of a physical port you will now need to pack in half a dozen dongles and hubs. What is the difference? Please tell me you are joking.

I mean to say, in 5 years time this port could become standard for near enough every connection standard we use today. OK, so we have firewire , USB variants, MDP, DVI, HDMI, optical audio etc etc, but imagine the utopian future where every camera, storage device, TV set and anything else could connect with one port.

Glorious

 

[Denarius]

I mean to say, in 5 years time this port could become standard for near enough every connection standard we use today. OK, so we have firewire , USB variants, MDP, DVI, HDMI, optical audio etc etc, but imagine the utopian future where every camera, storage device, TV set and anything else could connect with one port.

Glorious

Imagine there's no USB,
And no HDMI too,
No hour long backup transfers,
Simple even for you,
Imagine all the people,
Their peripherals all one chain,
Woo hoooooo ooeooo.

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the system bus will be as one!

 

[AidenShaw]

Thunderbolt is uber-hyped

I mean to say, in 5 years time this port could become standard for near enough every connection standard we use today. OK, so we have firewire , USB variants, MDP, DVI, HDMI, optical audio etc etc, but imagine the utopian future where every camera, storage device, TV set and anything else could connect with one port.

Glorious

A glorious future where we're limited to 7 external devices? (And if your keyboard and mouse are ThunderPort, that means only 5 other devices.)

I hope not.

I'd like a future where ThunderPort is available for high bandwidth stuff (RAID arrays, professional audio/visual, docking stations, etc). I'd like to keep USB3.0 for most of the stuff. (127 devices supported per controller, bandwidth adequate for most devices, ...)

Don't forget that the MBP implementation takes half of the bandwidth normally dedicated for graphics away, and gives it to the ThunderPort controller. (The discrete graphics is put on a PCIe x8 port instead of the more common PCIe x16 port.)

It seems like a horrible waste to take away half of the graphics bandwidth and give it to your mouse.

 

[mjteix]

A glorious future where we're limited to 7 external devices? (And if your keyboard and mouse are ThunderPort, that means only 5 other devices.)

I hope not.

I'd like a future where ThunderPort is available for high bandwidth stuff (RAID arrays, professional audio/visual, docking stations, etc). I'd like to keep USB3.0 for most of the stuff. (127 devices supported per controller, bandwidth adequate for most devices, ...)

Don't forget that the MBP implementation takes half of the bandwidth normally dedicated for graphics away, and gives it to the ThunderPort controller. (The discrete graphics is put on a PCIe x8 port instead of the more common PCIe x16 port.)

It seems like a horrible waste to take away half of the graphics bandwidth and give it to your mouse.

Are you really comparing USB3's "127 devices supported" with daisy-chaining up to 7 Thunderbolt devices (per port)? Wow...

Don't forget that most gpus connected thru 8x lanes instead of 16x offer up to 99% of performance, it doesn't take half! You're being ridiculous. I think it's a great way to be able to offer up to 2 Thunderbolt controllers/ports on computers that don't have many free PCIe lanes (all mainstream cpus/chipsets).

But I agree, USB is perfect for a mouse, a keyboard, a printer or other devices that, you know, matter.

While researching other stuff, I found out that "The first USB 3.0 consumer products were shipped in November 2009". Wow, and after all this time (over 16 months), all that's available in USB3 are a bunch of marginally faster storage units, no audio equipment at all, a couple of video converters that don't even work at USB3 speed,... and the latest (Intel, OCZ,... 550MB/s read) SSDs can already saturate USB3*, that's a glorious future. The first Thunderbolt devices (the MBPs) were just release a month ago. I really think you should give Thunderbolt 16 months too, and we'll see what's available then.
* USB3 raw throughput is 4 Gbit/s, and the specification considers it reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GB/s or 400 MB/s), or more, after protocol overhead.

Of course, expecting just Thunderbolt ports on a computer is also ridiculous and USB ports should stay on computers (until something else happens), for exactly what you said, mouse, keyboard, and some storage units, simple audio/video equipment, etc. It's really great for that. But Thunderbolt offers much more potential right from the start with a dozen of 3rd parties working on different kind of devices, not just storage units.

If you're really unhappy that the new MBPs don't offer USB3 ports, then you should complain to Apple (for not using a dedicated controller) AND Intel (for not integrating USB3 with Sandy Bridge chipsets), you don't need to take it on Thunderbolt because it doesn't take away anything, all previous ports are still there, you don't have to use different adapters for the miniDP output, nothing has changed, and when available, you may be able to use a new kind of devices on your MBP, fast external storage or course but also better audio/video equipment than what exists today in USB, FW, or else format.

The fact is that if you're happy with the docking and USB3 features of your current computers (as it seems from your previous posts), why does it matter to you that Apple has implemented Thunderbolt on the new MBPs?

 

[AidenShaw]

Are you really comparing USB3's "127 devices supported" with daisy-chaining up to 7 Thunderbolt devices (per port)? Wow...

Don't forget that most gpus connected thru 8x lanes instead of 16x offer up to 99% of performance, it doesn't take half! You're being ridiculous. I think it's a great way to be able to offer up to 2 Thunderbolt controllers/ports on computers that don't have many free PCIe lanes (all mainstream cpus/chipsets).

But I agree, USB is perfect for a mouse, a keyboard, a printer or other devices that, you know, matter.

While researching other stuff, I found out that "The first USB 3.0 consumer products were shipped in November 2009". Wow, and after all this time (over 16 months), all that's available in USB3 are a bunch of marginally faster storage units, no audio equipment at all, a couple of video converters that don't even work at USB3 speed,... and the latest (Intel, OCZ,... 550MB/s read) SSDs can already saturate USB3*, that's a glorious future. The first Thunderbolt devices (the MBPs) were just release a month ago. I really think you should give Thunderbolt 16 months too, and we'll see what's available then.
* USB3 raw throughput is 4 Gbit/s, and the specification considers it reasonable to achieve 3.2 Gbit/s (0.4 GB/s or 400 MB/s), or more, after protocol overhead.

Of course, expecting just Thunderbolt ports on a computer is also ridiculous and USB ports should stay on computers (until something else happens), for exactly what you said, mouse, keyboard, and some storage units, simple audio/video equipment, etc. It's really great for that. But Thunderbolt offers much more potential right from the start with a dozen of 3rd parties working on different kind of devices, not just storage units.

If you're really unhappy that the new MBPs don't offer USB3 ports, then you should complain to Apple (for not using a dedicated controller) AND Intel (for not integrating USB3 with Sandy Bridge chipsets), you don't need to take it on Thunderbolt because it doesn't take away anything, all previous ports are still there, you don't have to use different adapters for the miniDP output, nothing has changed, and when available, you may be able to use a new kind of devices on your MBP, fast external storage or course but also better audio/video equipment than what exists today in USB, FW, or else format.

The fact is that if you're happy with the docking and USB3 features of your current computers (as it seems from your previous posts), why does it matter to you that Apple has implemented Thunderbolt on the new MBPs?

Two things....

First, note that I said "I'd like a future where ThunderPort is available for high bandwidth stuff (RAID arrays, professional audio/visual, docking stations, etc). I'd like to keep USB3.0 for most of the stuff". I wasn't dissing ThunderPort.

Second, I was replying to a post saying "Thunderport for everything" - and pointing out some of the disadvantages of that idea. I was dissing the idea of ThunderPort-only.

By the way, we have eSATA for those SSDs. (...and two of them would saturate a ThunderPort channel )

There are also SSDs that hit 1000MB/s read and 970MB/s write. Build a ThunderPort device around one of those for a super-fast disk!

 

[iZac]

Imagine there's no USB,
And no HDMI too,
No hour long backup transfers,
Simple even for you,
Imagine all the people,
Their peripherals all one chain,
Woo hoooooo ooeooo.

You may say I'm a dreamer,
But I'm not the only one,
I hope someday you'll join us,
And the system bus will be as one!

haha, nice. Record a video and post it to youtube, Apple might play it at their next iMac update event!

 

[res1233]

Two things....

First, note that I said "I'd like a future where ThunderPort is available for high bandwidth stuff (RAID arrays, professional audio/visual, docking stations, etc). I'd like to keep USB3.0 for most of the stuff". I wasn't dissing ThunderPort.

Second, I was replying to a post saying "Thunderport for everything" - and pointing out some of the disadvantages of that idea. I was dissing the idea of ThunderPort-only.

By the way, we have eSATA for those SSDs. (...and two of them would saturate a ThunderPort channel )

There are also SSDs that hit 1000MB/s read and 970MB/s write. Build a ThunderPort device around one of those for a super-fast disk!

RAID up 10 of those, or even 11 to saturate the line for writes too, and time machine will never be the same. You can say goodbye to early retirement though, heh. Most SSDs are not even big enough to use for a backup either, which might require you to buy 20-22 SSDs, so... I guess time machine backups at thunderbolt speeds might have to wait.

 

[AidenShaw]

B is "bytes", "b" is bits

RAID up 10 of those, or even 11 to saturate the line for writes too, and time machine will never be the same. You can say goodbye to early retirement though, heh. Most SSDs are not even big enough to use for a backup either, which might require you to buy 20-22 SSDs, so...

Capital "B" is bytes, not bits ("b"). One of them will nearly saturate ThunderPort. And, it holds 1.2TB - so it might be big enough for backups.

This one is even faster - 1.4 GB/s (11.2 giga bits per second, 1400 mega bytes per second).

I guess time machine backups at thunderbolt speeds might have to wait.

The bottleneck is more likely to be the source drive, so unless the source is a RAID-0 SSD array, eSATA will do the job today - and it's almost free.

What does Apple have against useful ports with devices available today?

 

[diamond.g]

Capital "B" is bytes, not bits ("b"). One of them will nearly saturate ThunderPort. And, it holds 1.2TB - so it might be big enough for backups.

This one is even faster - 1.4 GB/s (11.2 giga bits per second, 1400 mega bytes per second).




The bottleneck is more likely to be the source drive, so unless the source is a RAID-0 SSD array, eSATA will do the job today - and it's almost free.

What does Apple have against useful ports with devices available today?

Does Apple get $ from the usage of TB?

 

[dime21]

I mean to say, in 5 years time this port could become standard for near enough every connection standard we use today. OK, so we have firewire , USB variants, MDP, DVI, HDMI, optical audio etc etc, but imagine the utopian future where every camera, storage device, TV set and anything else could connect with one port.

Glorious

No, it sounds awful. Why should a mouse be on a uber-speed multi-gigabit interface? it doesn't make sense. There is a need for two distinct busses, at a minimum.

A low speed serial bus like USB for peripherals with very modest transfer needs. keyboard, mouse, joystick, digital audio, and other input devices and low-speed stuff.

And a high-speed bus like Thunderbolt for things with high i/o need such as hard disks, optical drives, HD video cameras, external displays, etc.

 

[AidenShaw]

Does Apple get $ from the usage of TB?

No, TeraByte is a generic term that's been in use for a long time.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

While researching other stuff, I found out that "The first USB 3.0 consumer products were shipped in November 2009". Wow, and after all this time (over 16 months), all that's available in USB3 are a bunch of marginally faster storage units, no audio equipment at all, a couple of video converters that don't even work at USB3 speed,... and the latest (Intel, OCZ,... 550MB/s read) SSDs can already saturate USB3*, that's a glorious future.

That's a ridiculous thing to say. USB3 is a no-brainer update to existing ports that will continue to be carried on computers for a LONG time to come. Intel has their own reasons, but in a very short amount of time, nearly every manufacturer will have USB3 on ALL new computers (save maybe Apple?) and market demands still apply in 2011 as far as I know. Where there is no demand (a few Apple with Thunderbolt) there is no product. Where there is higher demand (all new computers eventually having USB3 by default) there will be more demand.

In short, if you think demand is so slow for USB3 given it's available now on a substantial number of computers, how much slower for Thunderbolt that has almost nothing to run on? (save a few Apple notebooks).

Part of the reason for a lack of USB3 devices is that most devices don't NEED more than USB2 bandwidth. The audio market releases new hardware rather slowly (e.g. I STILL cannot even get a fully stable Snow Leopard driver for my Midi-Man 2x2 and Lion is about to come out! Admittedly that is a USB device, but it's still the same pace whether it's an all-in-one or separate audio and midi devices; I have a Presonus FW there and it's always coming unplugged with very little tension on my MBP; frankly I'd prefer a single USB3 device for that reason alone) They're not going to just drop one out instantly when most of their base already owns FW devices. They will add USB3 support (for dual devices anyway) when their next hardware generation comes out.

The first Thunderbolt devices (the MBPs) were just release a month ago. I really think you should give Thunderbolt 16 months too, and we'll see what's available then.

Then maybe you should wait 16 months before commenting?

 

[Bubba Satori]

What does Apple have against useful ports with devices available today?

Everybody else has them. Where's the Ca$het in that?

 

[AidenShaw]

Intel has their own reasons, but in a very short amount of time, nearly every manufacturer will have USB3 on ALL new computers (save maybe Apple?) and market demands still apply in 2011 as far as I know.

Let me fix that for you...

Intel has their own reasons for not including USB 3.0 support in the current generation of chipsets, but Intel does include USB 3.0 support in all of their desktop (ATX) motherboards for Sandy Bridge and most of their small-form-factor motherboards for Sandy Bridge.​

If you build or buy a desktop Sandy Bridge system with an Intel motherboard, it *will* have USB 3.0 support. The majority of other new 3rd party motherboards have USB 3.0.

The only way to be sure that you won't get USB 3.0 is to buy an Apple.

 

[Denarius]

Let me fix that for you...

Intel has their own reasons for not including USB 3.0 support in the current generation of chipsets, but Intel does include USB 3.0 support in all of their desktop (ATX) motherboards for Sandy Bridge and most of their small-form-factor motherboards for Sandy Bridge.​

If you build or buy a desktop Sandy Bridge system with an Intel motherboard, it *will* have USB 3.0 support. The majority of other new 3rd party motherboards have USB 3.0.

The only way to be sure that you won't get USB 3.0 is to buy an Apple.

I suspect the split in the road here is temporary. Apple has committed to TBolt while they have exclusivity, but once the exclusivity ends then I'm certain USB 3 will be succeeding USB 2 in Macs. It actually makes no sense not to do so given that USB 3 offers backwards compatibility and there will still be a lot of legacy USB 2 products to cater for.

I think the exclusivity deal must have been desirable to Apple in a bid to attract some more of the pro AV market from Windows with the greater hardware flexibility. Mind you, they need to get a move on with the TBolt peripherals to make that work.

If I was in Intel's shoes I'd be practically giving away TBolt interface hardware to peripheral manufacturers for the next year.

Then again, maybe they'll go for a USB3/TBolt adapter. But then again, who knows?

 

[AidenShaw]

...in a bid to attract some more of the pro AV market from Windows with the greater hardware flexibility.

Wow, using "Apple" and "hardware flexibility" in the same sentence.

Three Apple laptops with ThunderPort, not such a big deal. And not really three laptops, more like one laptop with three different screen sizes and some option choices designed to force an upsell.

Any Apple towers with ThunderPort, no. And no chance of upgrading current systems, and no guidance on when a new version of the maxi-tower will have ThunderPort.

An Imac with ThunderPort - not really "flexible" compared to a mini-tower, just less crippled than the current Imac. And, again, no roadmap on when to expect ThunderPorts in Imacs. In comparing an Imac with ThunderPort to a mini-tower with a few PCI slots and disk bays, it's hard to say that the Apple has greater flexibility.

If I was in Intel's shoes I'd be practically giving away TBolt interface hardware to peripheral manufacturers for the next year.

Intel probably is - how else to push a proprietary single-source solution supported on a fraction of the systems sold by a minor vendor?

 

[mjteix]

That's a ridiculous thing to say. USB3 is a no-brainer update to existing ports that will continue to be carried on computers for a LONG time to come. Intel has their own reasons, but in a very short amount of time, nearly every manufacturer will have USB3 on ALL new computers (save maybe Apple?) and market demands still apply in 2011 as far as I know. Where there is no demand (a few Apple with Thunderbolt) there is no product. Where there is higher demand (all new computers eventually having USB3 by default) there will be more demand.

In short, if you think demand is so slow for USB3 given it's available now on a substantial number of computers, how much slower for Thunderbolt that has almost nothing to run on? (save a few Apple notebooks).

Part of the reason for a lack of USB3 devices is that most devices don't NEED more than USB2 bandwidth. The audio market releases new hardware rather slowly (e.g. I STILL cannot even get a fully stable Snow Leopard driver for my Midi-Man 2x2 and Lion is about to come out! Admittedly that is a USB device, but it's still the same pace whether it's an all-in-one or separate audio and midi devices; I have a Presonus FW there and it's always coming unplugged with very little tension on my MBP; frankly I'd prefer a single USB3 device for that reason alone) They're not going to just drop one out instantly when most of their base already owns FW devices. They will add USB3 support (for dual devices anyway) when their next hardware generation comes out.



Then maybe you should wait 16 months before commenting?

I don't think I'll have to wait that long, but you guys are the ones criticizing Thunderbolt and saying that USB3 does everything and better/cheaper than Thunderbolt will ever do. The fact is USB3 doesn't do everything (yet) and it has been on the market for 16 months. At launch Thunderbolt has more different usages announced/demoed than USB3. So who needs to calm down? The fact is if you don't like Thunderbolt/Apple/Intel, why are you even complaining that Apple's offers Intel's Thunderbolt on their MBP. If you don't feel threatened by Thunderbolt/Apple, you should be happy and move on.

Are you calling Midi-Man 2x2 a device for the audio market? Is it the 90s again? Most toys don't NEED more than USB2 bandwidth. If your vison of the audio market is a 2x2 midi interface and a dual-channel audio interface, you sure don't need more than USB2, even for storage. Of course the PRO AUDIO industry moves slowly, but AFAIK nobody in the majors has announced USB3 devices, there's a little trend for combo USB2/FW400 interfaces, but those are still very low-end, anybody serious about audio will offer FW and/or PCIe devices (not just for the bandwidth, but for the sustained rates and low latency, where both technologies best USBx). Three of the major players in PRO AUDIO have announced/demoed devices supporting Thunderbolt: AVID, Apogee, Universal Audio. Then I ask again: where are USB3 audio devices than can compete with at least FW, if not Thunderbolt?

"dual devices"? Do you mean audio and midi? Where have you been those past 20 years? Everyone and their sisters integrate midi with almost all audio interfaces (even Presonus), its peanuts in terms of cost/bandwidth.

How can you be so sure that "They will add USB3 support"?

Of course USB3 will be a no-brainer with Intel's future chipsets for Ivy Bridge. Manufacturers will add it "for free". But If "most devices don't NEED more than USB2 bandwidth" why even bother offering USB3 devices and why criticize Apple for not offering it? And then again I never said that Thunderbolt should replace all USB ports. In fact I pointed out that Apple's implementation of Thunderbolt doesn't take any any of the previous ports, so it will be easy to move from USB2 to USB3.

If you don't see any usefulness for Thunderbolt for yourself, that's alright, you don't have to, just like you don't have to use FW or Enet. Just don't pretend to know the "needs" of the audio market when your issues are on a Midi-Man 2x2 from last century.


Released in celebration of M-Audio’s 20th anniversary, the Midiman MIDISPORT 2x2 Anniversary Edition multi-port USB MIDI interface delivers a new look and enhanced functionality...

This was MY first and last midi interface circa 1999.

 

[Denarius]

Wow, using "Apple" and "hardware flexibility" in the same sentence.

Yes, greater hardware flexibility. If an iMac/Mac Mini is able to add external accessories such as video/audio capture devices/scratch disks at sufficient speeds through TBolt then the system is more flexible than earlier generations with regard to the Pro AV market. QED.

Any Apple towers with ThunderPort, no. And no chance of upgrading current systems, and no guidance on when a new version of the maxi-tower will have ThunderPort.

Other than that Apple intends to add TBolt in all the Mac range as they're refreshed, the way you're carrying on I'm amazed you think that it's even worth mentioning that they haven't added it to the Mac Pros yet. With the presence of PCIE in the Mac Pros, Thunderbolt is less significant for the Mac Pros anyway.

 

[diamond.g]

No, TeraByte is a generic term that's been in use for a long time.

No I meant ThunderBolt. We know Intel gets $, but does Apple?

 

[Denarius]

No I meant ThunderBolt. We know Intel gets $, but does Apple?

Presumably yes, from licensing the MDP connector.

 

[Digital Skunk]

With the presence of PCIE in the Mac Pros, Thunderbolt is less significant for the Mac Pros anyway.

One question I've been pondering from time to time is whether or not Apple will stick TB on the Mac Pro's graphics card or on the chassis.

If on the GPU then it'll jack the price up on the TONS of cards Apple produces every year . . . . I mean the few. It'll also render those $1300 and $1800 cards Nvidia makes obsolete, and new ones will have to be made jacking the price up even further.

Or Apple can stick it on the chassis and confuse the hell out of some users.

We all know that TB will need access to the GPU to send display signals, so???? What will Apple do with the Mac Pro?

 

[Denarius]

One question I've been pondering from time to time is whether or not Apple will stick TB on the Mac Pro's graphics card or on the chassis.

If on the GPU then it'll jack the price up on the TONS of cards Apple produces every year . . . . I mean the few. It'll also render those $1300 and $1800 cards Nvidia makes obsolete, and new ones will have to be made jacking the price up even further.

Or Apple can stick it on the chassis and confuse the hell out of some users.

We all know that TB will need access to the GPU to send display signals, so???? What will Apple do with the Mac Pro?

I don't know, but I would have thought it would have to be on the graphics card for access to the PCIe bus and to the graphics bus for the MDP. But then that contradicts the assertion that I've seen about that TBolt has to be on the motherboard.

 

[MagnusVonMagnum]

I suspect the split in the road here is temporary. Apple has committed to TBolt while they have exclusivity, but once the exclusivity ends then I'm certain USB 3 will be succeeding USB 2 in Macs. It actually makes no sense not to do so given that USB 3 offers backwards compatibility and there will still be a lot of legacy USB 2 products to cater for.

To me, it makes NO sense to not include USB3 as soon as possible in a computer (particularly for Apple, IMO) because unlike Thunderbolt, we know that USB3 will eventually have wide support (plus its backwards compatible with the most used port in the solar system (USB2) so there's no reason NOT to include it). The only thing NOT including it now in Apple products is going to do is royally cheese off those who buy a MBP right now with Thunderbolt and two years from now there are still virtually no Thunderbolt products what-so-ever (due to no demand) while everyone else (maybe including newer Mac owners) are enjoying USB3. They'll ask themselves why oh why couldn't Apple just include USB a year ago instead of putting them in another upgrade situation (although I'm guessing Apple actually likes that idea).

A Mac Pro owner can probably just pop in a USB3 card for cheap and be good to go (like I did for this used PowerMac when I got it for USB2), but I'm afraid the only Thunderbolt "device" you might see any time soon is a USB3 breakout box (and won't that be fun for MBP owners to carry around just so they can use their 3TB drives faster...)

Are you calling Midi-Man 2x2 a device for the audio market? Is it the 90s again?

Hey guy, try READING my post before you jump off the cliff dude. The ONLY thing I was talking about in regards to the Midi-Man 2x2 device was the way that MAudio refuses to even update their drivers so their products work properly with Snow Leopard. THAT'S IT. That's the only reason I mentioned it.

In any case, it suits MY needs (I use a single controller workstation for recording my own music and a Presonus (which is Firewire and low latency) for the Mic/Guitar connections and it works with Logic Pro. I don't NEED anything else, thank you very much. Now kindly take your massive freaking attitude problem elsewhere please.

Most toys don't NEED more than USB2 bandwidth. If your vison of the audio market is a 2x2 midi interface and a dual-channel audio interface, you sure don't need more than USB2, even for storage. Of course the PRO

Paying more for something doesn't automatically make it better suited to one's needs, dude. If you were a real professional, you'd know that. I record all the parts myself. I cannot play more than one live instrument at a time. Three inputs (two most of the time) are all I need. And I never claimed to be a "professional". But what I know and what I do aren't always the same thing.

AUDIO industry moves slowly, but AFAIK nobody in the majors has announced USB3 devices, there's a little trend for combo USB2/FW400 interfaces, but those are still very low-end, anybody serious about audio will offer FW and/or PCIe devices (not just for the bandwidth, but for the sustained rates and low latency, where both technologies best USBx). Three

Round-trip latency is the sum of the ASIO input buffer, the ASIO output buffer, the A/D and D/A converter latency and the driver's hidden safety buffer. While most USB2 interfaces have relatively high latency, not all do. The Fireface UFX, UC, and Babyface can all go down to a 48-sample ASIO buffer size. Total round-trip latency is 4.5ms (48-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k). If you have a well-configured i7 based DAW, you can sustain substantial loads (glitch-free) at the 48-sample ASIO buffer size. Also note that the M-Audio FastTrack Ultra and FastTrack Ultra 8R go down to a 64-sample ASIO buffer size... which yields 5.5ms total round-trip latency
(64-sample ASIO buffer size/44.1k)

Everything I've read says that USB3 does not suffer from inherent latency issues that most USB2 drivers have. If Apogee, etc. want to go Thunderfart, that's their business, but it doesn't make USB3 bad. For all intensive purposes, Thunderbolt is simply PCIe-external so obviously anyone that already supports PCIe products wouldn't have much trouble converting over.

The fact is if you don't like Thunderbolt/Apple/Intel, why are you even complaining that Apple's offers Intel's Thunderbolt on their MBP.

WTF said I don't like Apple or Intel or even Thunderbolt for that matter??? Man you like to jump to conclusions. I'm talking about how Apple should support USB3 sooner rather than later regardless and you're foaming at the mouth again.

If you don't feel threatened by Thunderbolt/Apple, you should be happy and move on.

I wish you'd move on....

 

[AidenShaw]

"TBolt" is brilliant - thank you, Denarius

Yes, greater hardware flexibility. If an iMac/Mac Mini is able to add external accessories such as video/audio capture devices/scratch disks at sufficient speeds through TBolt then the system is more flexible than earlier generations with regard to the Pro AV market. QED.

Other than that Apple intends to add TBolt in all the Mac range as they're refreshed, the way you're carrying on I'm amazed you think that it's even worth mentioning that they haven't added it to the Mac Pros yet. With the presence of PCIE in the Mac Pros, Thunderbolt is less significant for the Mac Pros anyway.

OK, I understand. I read your comment that Apple would "bid to attract some more of the pro AV market from Windows with the greater hardware flexibility" as implying that it was more flexible than the range of Windows systems, since Windows was used in the sentence. Certainly TBolt makes new MacBook Pros more flexible than older MacBook Pros.

I'll believe "TBolt in all the Mac range" if and when it happens. Apple has a long history of crippling lower end systems to push upsells to more profitable ones. I'd be surprised if it shows up in the MacBook, not surprised to see it limited to top Imac configs, and not surprised to see it absent from the MiniMac. (Some bean counter might decide that too many Mac Pro sales would be lost if the MiniMac became more useful.)

By the way, I like the coined word "TBolt" - I'll stop typing ThunderPort and use TBolt instead. "TB" is just wrong - "Thunderport" is not camelCase, and "TB" has been used for decades to mean 10^12 bytes (and mis-used for nearly as long to represent 2^40 bytes). Wikipedia has a great disambiguation page for TB - it could be tuberculosis, Taco Bell, Tampa Bay, TrønderBilene or a number of other things.

One question I've been pondering from time to time is whether or not Apple will stick TB on the Mac Pro's graphics card or on the chassis.

I don't know, but I would have thought it would have to be on the graphics card for access to the PCIe bus and to the graphics bus for the MDP. But then that contradicts the assertion that I've seen about that TBolt has to be on the motherboard.

Does anyone know if TBolt is *required* to carry DisplayPort signals?

The simple and obvious solution for the Mac Pro would be to put TBolt on the mobo as a DisplayPort-less connector.

There's also the issue of a system with more than one TBolt port. Is one TBolt port the "primary" monitor connection? Can you plug your monitor into any one of them? Can you only plug your monitor into the primary? Can you plug multiple monitors into separate TBolt ports? Inquiring minds want to know.

To me, it makes NO sense to not include USB3 as soon as possible in a computer (particularly for Apple, IMO) because unlike Thunderbolt, we know that USB3 will eventually have wide support (plus its backwards compatible with the most used port in the solar system (USB2) so there's no reason NOT to include it). The only thing NOT including it now in Apple products is going to do is royally cheese off those who buy a MBP right now with Thunderbolt and two years from now there are still virtually no Thunderbolt products what-so-ever (due to no demand) while everyone else (maybe including newer Mac owners) are enjoying USB3.

In a recent post I predicted that the most popular TBolt accessory will be a hub that exposes eSATA and USB 3.0 ports....

 

[Digital Skunk]

I don't know, but I would have thought it would have to be on the graphics card for access to the PCIe bus and to the graphics bus for the MDP. But then that contradicts the assertion that I've seen about that TBolt has to be on the motherboard.

I'll believe "TBolt in all the Mac range" if and when it happens. Apple has a long history of crippling lower end systems to push upsells to more profitable ones. I'd be surprised if it shows up in the MacBook, not surprised to see it limited to top Imac configs, and not surprised to see it absent from the MiniMac. (Some bean counter might decide that too many Mac Pro sales would be lost if the MiniMac became more useful.)

Does anyone know if TBolt is *required* to carry DisplayPort signals?

The simple and obvious solution for the Mac Pro would be to put TBolt on the mobo as a DisplayPort-less connector.

There's also the issue of a system with more than one TBolt port. Is one TBolt port the "primary" monitor connection? Can you plug your monitor into any one of them? Can you only plug your monitor into the primary? Can you plug multiple monitors into separate TBolt ports? Inquiring minds want to know.

Good to know that I am not the only one that has reached these conclusions. I really do doubt that Apple will put a displayport-less TBolt port on a Mac Pro, but it really does seem that such an option is Apple's only resort unless they want to jack up the price of graphics card options. TBolt works wonders for all-in-one systems, not very clear on upgradeable towers.

I agree with you Aiden. I doubt we'll see TBold on a MBA anytime soon. I think it'll find itself on the Mini though.