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Apple Thunderbolt Display Supplies Begin Running Short at Third-Party Resellers
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I'm pretty sure its 10gbps after the overhead is calculated (intel states 10gbps useable bandwidth after overhead is subtracted) and even so, Thunderbolt is using two streams: one for data and one for video, 10 gbps each, both ways. overall it's 20gbps one way and 20 the other way, simultaneously.
After going to 2560x1440 you really can't go back to using anything smaller anymore.
At least this is how I felt.
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Apple will update the 27" with new ports, and form factor.
Current ATD will be dropped in price to Apple Refurb prices.
No 4k until 2015. (When Apple intro's 4K it will be called Retina, the size of the screen will be anyone's guess)
27" ACD is EOL'ed.
| endthread
At least this is how I felt.
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Apple will update the 27" with new ports, and form factor.
Current ATD will be dropped in price to Apple Refurb prices.
No 4k until 2015. (When Apple intro's 4K it will be called Retina, the size of the screen will be anyone's guess)
27" ACD is EOL'ed.
| endthread
4K too small screen real estate, resolution should be doubled
I have a feeling that Apple will not change the resolution in there larger displays until at least 2015. Next year 4K may be readily available but I think they will wait and opt for a pure doubling of the pixels the following year. If they go to 4K they will limit the amount of content on the screen and you won't get any more than what you could on a 21' display.
I would hope by this time that the integrated graphics have come leaps and bounds and will be able to support such a resolution with ease, so Macbook Air users will not have a problem.
I think the idea of having a graphics card integrated is a brilliant idea, however I think this will only be possible with the second iteration of thunderbolt, as the current standard doesn't have faster enough IO - or so I read somewhere a while back. This could also solve the problem if Macbook Air's couldn't push that many pixels as it would automatically uses the discrete GPU to run the thunderbolt display.
As for what I think is likely to be implemented this time around, a sound output - digital/analog like whats in the laptops and 3 USB 3.0. Most people will not notice the bandwidth limitations due to not every port being used to full capacity, and with HDD only able to write about 150MB/s max you'd need to be using three SSD's connected to all USB 3.0 ports to really see that capacity has been limited. I also think Firewire will go but will be supplemented with an additional thunderbolt where you can buy an adapter if you really need it.
I have a feeling that Apple will not change the resolution in there larger displays until at least 2015. Next year 4K may be readily available but I think they will wait and opt for a pure doubling of the pixels the following year. If they go to 4K they will limit the amount of content on the screen and you won't get any more than what you could on a 21' display.
I would hope by this time that the integrated graphics have come leaps and bounds and will be able to support such a resolution with ease, so Macbook Air users will not have a problem.
I think the idea of having a graphics card integrated is a brilliant idea, however I think this will only be possible with the second iteration of thunderbolt, as the current standard doesn't have faster enough IO - or so I read somewhere a while back. This could also solve the problem if Macbook Air's couldn't push that many pixels as it would automatically uses the discrete GPU to run the thunderbolt display.
As for what I think is likely to be implemented this time around, a sound output - digital/analog like whats in the laptops and 3 USB 3.0. Most people will not notice the bandwidth limitations due to not every port being used to full capacity, and with HDD only able to write about 150MB/s max you'd need to be using three SSD's connected to all USB 3.0 ports to really see that capacity has been limited. I also think Firewire will go but will be supplemented with an additional thunderbolt where you can buy an adapter if you really need it.
Well... since I own a 27" 2011 iMac, a Thunderbolt display WILL work with my computer, but that aside... I think the limited use of the device should come along with some sort of compromise in price... either that, or Apple should get off their high horse and just put an HDMI port on the back of the thing.
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Elegancy over standards compliance? Don't you mean form over function? Following that train of thinking, the ideal would be a computer that ships with nothing but 6 thunderbolt ports... which is nowhere near ideal for today's computing, but if it's elegant, I guess we just have to live with our sacrifices, right?
Unless you deal exclusively with the latest apple products, the Thunderbolt display is outrageously overpriced compared to what you can use it for. The VERY least Apple could do is slap an HDMI port on the back of its stand-alone monitor. Not EVERY industry standard has to be implemented by Apple.
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What? $1000 for a Thunderbolt Display and $600 for a Mac Mini? That's $1600! When you're spending that much, you may as well just lob on an extra $200 to get yourself a 27" iMac which will come with a lot more power, a lot less clutter, and a lot more portability.
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It works for your MBA, good for you. It'll also work with my 2011 27" iMac (which practically IS a thunderbolt display with a computer built in to it) but it WON'T work with my 2009 Macbook, it WON'T work with my Xbox 360.How is the utility restricted? I don't want to pair it with "more than just Thunderbolt Macs" - that's why I'm buying it! It will work great with my 2012 MacBook Air, which is all I need it for.
Just because you have other needs doesn't mean this device would have "restricted utility".
Virtually any monitor you buy today from any vendor will have an HDMI, VGA, and/or DVI port in the back so you can use any combination of adapters to plug in any number of game consoles, blu-ray players, laptops, or desktops into. It's not a matter of quality or elegance, it's a simple matter of accessibility.
Apple could have just added an HDMI port onto the back of their display and solved a lot of problems and boosted their sales, but instead they restricted consumers: 1 video input type, 1 screen size, 1 thousand dollars.
I think the odds are with you on that one, don't be prepared to win a huge amount of money
Does anyone remember how long it took Apple to release the current TBD when the previous models stock started running low? I realize this has no real basis and doesn't mean squat diddly, but I JUST purchased a 27" TBD and would not mind waiting a few weeks for the new model. In fact, I'd be pretty upset if it came out that fast and my 14 days are expired.
Same height as the iMac.
The current monitor and old iMac were 1/2 inch off. Easy fix.
Btw: $699 is a pipe dream. Not going to happen.
The current monitor and old iMac were 1/2 inch off. Easy fix.
Btw: $699 is a pipe dream. Not going to happen.
There's actually a logic board with a processor and a fan as well inside the Thunderbolt display. So it actually does need that space.
Not a word about the reduced glare coating they put on the new iMac? That would be a far more significant and newsworthy feature IMO.
I rather have the larger display. Also a matte version would be great. I don't like the glare of the glass panel. I know this won't happen.
It won't be a traditional 'matte' screen, but if the new iMac gives us any clues, Apple has finally, after way too many years, woken up again to the importance of reducing reflections. I'm predicting that the new display will have the same coating as the iMacsand having compared these in-store to the old ones, it's a significant improvement, and one that should have been received with far more cheers from the MR community than it was.
A 21.5" thunderbolt display would not be a low-margin product. Why on earth would you possible think it would be?
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I don't want a ridiculous 27" screen. I hope they stop making it.
Actually, a company does sort of make that (it's pricey though). It's a 1U rack mounted enclosure that you stick a Mac Mini inside of and plug a thunderbolt cable into. Then, there is a couple PCI-E slots. However, the cards have to be 'thunderbolt aware' and thus compatible with this configurations. It's not designed for GPU's though, but rather things like FibreChannel cards (for servers). Neat idea though.
A thunderbolt GPU would be nice for notebooks, but not a desktop replacement. Thunderbolt is fast, but only fast enough to handle the load of a mid-grade desktop graphics card today. To run the faster, higher end stuff, you need to plug it into PCI-E!
I would love for an 'external PCI-E' slot (not unlike Expresscard, but I think it could be done in a much smaller AND faster form factor) to exist. That could really make these other machines alot more powerful. Then you could run a full PCI-E 2.1 x16 card at full speed on your machine. Thunderbolt is a step in the right direction, but it's not there yet. For two years companies have been announcing external GPU boxes, and for two years we haven't seen anything but announcements. We'll see. Personally, if they made one, I'd buy one. A mid-grade desktop card will knock the socks off of my HD4000!
Not a word about the reduced glare coating they put on the new iMac? That would be a far more significant and newsworthy feature IMO.
It won't be a traditional 'matte' screen, but if the new iMac gives us any clues, Apple has finally, after way too many years, woken up again to the importance of reducing reflections. I'm predicting that the new display will have the same coating as the iMacsand having compared these in-store to the old ones, it's a significant improvement, and one that should have been received with far more cheers from the MR community than it was.
indeed. you hit the spot.
That's why i'm in line for the new display.
I'd seen the sonnet rack solution already, there's a video from Avid showing them running Pro Tools HD on a Mac Mini with custom drivers on YouTube. It's still the hard drive issue and the fact a lot of PCI cards are double wide or need a power feed from the motherboard. If they made something that handled double wide cards and had integrated SATA 6Gb/s with built in drive bays and the price was right, it would solve a lot of problems and not just be for the Mac Mini.
Avid ended up bringing out Thunderbolt native systems for a huge price premium.
It's a shame there's not a solution that negates the need for custom drivers and is totally transparent. Something like the way the Thunderbolt to Firewire adapter works, it just shows as an additional port, they could just show up as a number of available PCIe slots in system profiler and the hardware wouldn't know the difference.
Because that's exactly what they are -- low margin. Just look at the market value for such screens. It's easier to stomach a 27" 2560x1440 display being $1000 since competitors are in that price range and a Thunderbolt dock is included.
The average selling price of 21.5" 1080p displays is between $100-200 for a nice IPS panel. If Apple prices it at $500 or $600 for the Thunderbolt dock, virtually no one will buy it since it is just too high for its contemporaries. Even though it'd have a built-in dock, it's primarily a display and thus it would have to compete with the insanely low priced options out there. Plus, Apple would have similar fixed costs as they do with the large one in building, manufacturing, etc due to the precision build process. Every time you add another product/configuration, you increase your fixed costs and don't get to leverage the economies of scale for variable costs. To top it off, displays are such a low volume sector for Apple. They have a limited number of engineers and the comparative advantage in terms of economic utility for their company is to devote them elsewhere when possible.
There is no profit to be had here, at least not up to Apple's standards. They will never commit any engineering teams to this product when they are better purposed to higher volume, high profit items.
I don't know what else to tell you to make you feel better. This is just the fact behind Apple's business decisions and resource allocation -- build the items that will sell a lot and make a lot of money. You may not want a 27" screen, but Apple doesn't give a damn what you want. You're in the minority and they care about what the majority want. Also, just because you find it to be "ridiculous", that doesn't mean it's ridiculous for everyone. Some of us need it for work given the nature of our jobs. Besides, it's not like you don't have other options. You dont *need* a Thunderbolt display nor is anyone forcing you to buy one. If 27" is too big, get a smaller one; 21.5" screens come a dime a dozen from virtually every manufacturer.
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For a 27", IPS, 2560x1440 display, $699 would put it along the bottom of the price scale. Pricey for a cheap wal-mart Twisted Nematic monitor sure, but for an IPS panel with a super high resolution, no not necessarily.
If color accuracy, viewing angle or a very high resolution are not concerns, then you can get by a LOT cheaper with a cheap display. Professionals use monitors in this size range that can run $5,000 purely because of the accuracy and color spectrum.
I think people are missing that when they talk about price. They are comparing a pro-level monitor with outstanding accuracy to cheap displays they find on the shelf at box stores. Strangely, Apple is competitively priced on the Cinema/Thunderbolt display. (Also I don't understand all the hub-ub around compatibility. They still make the perfectly compatible cinema display... I own one and love it!)
Just to give you a couple comparisons of some other very popular IPS panels in that class;
Dell 27" 2560x1440, $849
HP ZR2740w 27" 2560x1440 $679
Viewsonic VP2770 27" 2560x1440 $899
Eizo 27" 2560x1440 $2,599
NEC even makes a 2048x2560 grayscale (that's right, no color!) display, with a built in graphics card designed for medical imaging for around $10,000 a pop!
Point is, you really can't compare every monitor based on size or even resolution alone.
So at $699, that'll put Apple among the cheapest. I'd LOVE for that to happen too, but it probably won't. However, at $699 it won't be 'pricey', it'll be a steal!
There are lots of 27" monitors in the $200-$300 range, even IPS panels. But they are not A) High resolution (1440p), color accurate (even if they are IPS), nor do they represent a full or near-full color gamut, necessary for certain professionals. They might have one or two of those features, but not all which is crucial. They may also not be LED backlit which is very important when it comes to color accuracy.
However, even as an owner of one, I do sometimes scratch my head as to why people pay so much for them when they aren't creative professionals. They are nice looking I guess. But there are lots of nice 27" displays running under $300 all day long everywhere! They'll be just fine for gaming, word processing, etc. For me, I use it for photography post processing and, unfortunately, those cheaper displays just won't cut it anymore. But aside from that, there's nothing an Apple Cinema Display (or equivalent) does for me that the other, cheaper displays wouldn't do. It really is a pro-level product. Not to say there aren't consumer level advantages, but, I think that they are probably less realized in the consumer market AND, I think people who complain about the price point of these displays (not just Apple, but Dell, HP, Viewsonic, etc.) don't realize that it's really NOT a consumer class product...
Again, not to say I wouldn't like it to be cheaper! I'd love to be able to afford a couple of them! But, as crazy as it sounds, the Apple displays are actually prices right in the ballpark, slightly more expensive (10~15%) than the lower end of the competition (the ACTUAL competition, other displays in that class), right around several other competing displays, and thousands less than certain others (though it lacks the features and performance of those 'others' that are sometimes closing in on the $10,000 mark for a 27"~30" display!)
Wow,
not often you actually learn something of value on the internet...
but today I did!
Thanks, That's a really great article.
That's why retina on a 27 iMac and a 15 MBP will be different PPI's cause if the differing average viewing distances.
I have a feeling that Apple will not change the resolution in there larger displays until at least 2015. Next year 4K may be readily available but I think they will wait and opt for a pure doubling of the pixels the following year. If they go to 4K they will limit the amount of content on the screen and you won't get any more than what you could on a 21' display.
I would hope by this time that the integrated graphics have come leaps and bounds and will be able to support such a resolution with ease, so Macbook Air users will not have a problem.
I think the idea of having a graphics card integrated is a brilliant idea, however I think this will only be possible with the second iteration of thunderbolt, as the current standard doesn't have faster enough IO - or so I read somewhere a while back. This could also solve the problem if Macbook Air's couldn't push that many pixels as it would automatically uses the discrete GPU to run the thunderbolt display.
As for what I think is likely to be implemented this time around, a sound output - digital/analog like whats in the laptops and 3 USB 3.0. Most people will not notice the bandwidth limitations due to not every port being used to full capacity, and with HDD only able to write about 150MB/s max you'd need to be using three SSD's connected to all USB 3.0 ports to really see that capacity has been limited. I also think Firewire will go but will be supplemented with an additional thunderbolt where you can buy an adapter if you really need it.
This has always worried me as well... Since first thinking about 'retina' resolutions that are possible for iMacs and the ATD, I worry that they'd use a 4K display for an effective retina 1080p display.
