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Example of an External Dock and GPU Over Thunderbolt Technology
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Thunderbolt has 10GBs/s transfer speed.. and it's NOT fast enough for a video card? Wow.. I didn't know that standard connectors inside a computer required 15-20+GBs/s transer speed
Edit: I think my entire premise here is flawed because it assumes video data travels over Thunderbolt when the scenario I describe you would connect the monitors to the video card, so data transmitting to the monitors is irrelevant. What's more relevant would be the instructions sent to the video card, but that would be hard to quantify without an understanding of how video card drivers work, etc. However, in the case where the video data does go back through the Thunderbolt interface (as in a laptop display powered by an external graphics card), I'm thinking the amount of bandwidth available would sufficient.
Let's do the math and see if we can figure this out. Granted I lack a true understanding of how data is actually delivered to the monitor, so this is a bit of guesswork. Let's initially assume that each pixel requires an 8-bit byte for color data (which is more than likely wrong, but we're estimating conservatively).
Say you have a single 2560x1600 monitor and you want to deliver data to it at 60 frames per second. So the number of bytes per second you have to transfer:
2560x1600x60 = 245.76 MB/s (B for bytes, not bits)
Thunderbolt delivers 10 Gbit/s. Since I'm talking in bytes, we need to convert this to that. Let's assume 8-bit bytes, Thunderbolt delivers 1.25 Gbytes/s.
We're looking pretty good so far, but let's be less conservative and say instead that each pixel needs 24-bits of data. So we triple our estimate to about 735 MB/s. Add a second 2560x1600 monitor and we're at 1.47 GB/s and we've already exceeded Thunderbolt's capabilities. Through in latency, protocol overhead, and the possibility of other Thunderbolt devices needing a chunk of the bandwidth and things look even more constrained.
They are talking about high end video cards here, so it's not unreasonable to talk about multiple 2560x1600 monitors. So it's probably good enough for typical users, but maybe not for completely ridiculous multi-huge-monitor gaming setups.
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The Thinkpad series may not be stylish, but it excels in design (at least the IBM-era ones did, I haven't used a Lenovo-era Thinkpad). I experienced the difference when I switched from an old IBM Thinkpad 23 to a Macbook Pro.
The Thinkpad had a nice smooth slope at the edge where your wrists rest (whereas MBP has a sharp edge that is uncomfortable, though I got used to it eventually), the monitor folds back much further so that you can have it almost parallel with the keyboard (useful for sitting in awkward positions), the Trackpoint beats even Apple's touchpad (which is the best touchpads I've ever used). The Thinkpad took a beating like no Macbook ever could, and it's still running fine. Later models have drains so if you spill something on the keyboard, it just drains out of the bottom. Models with optical drives you can easily swap out the optical drives for an additional battery or a second hard drive.
I love my MBPs, but I have to be more careful with them (both MBPs I use have dents and one has a misaligned lid), though magsafe has prevented some accidents. If I could run OS X on a Thinkpad without any issue, I probably would. Of course I care much more about design and function than style. My girlfriend uses my Thinkpad now, and though we plan to get her a MacBook Air or Pro at some point, she prefers the Trackpoint as well and is going to miss it.
Well...about bandwidth issues
Intel annnounced earlier that LightPeak (now Thunderbolt) can be scaled up to 100Gbps....I want to see Thunderbolt scaled up to 100Gbps XD good for external GPU
Intel annnounced earlier that LightPeak (now Thunderbolt) can be scaled up to 100Gbps....I want to see Thunderbolt scaled up to 100Gbps XD good for external GPU
AnandTech's analysis on this is also out: http://www.anandtech.com/show/4474/sony-updates-vaio-z-thinner-lighter-light-peak-and-external-gpu
This may end up like eSATA/USB ports. Perhaps used but never officially approved by the standards bodies.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ESATA/USB
Of course, Thunderbolt doesn't even has a standards body so that wouldn't be unusal at this point. There is nothing stopping the other proprietary dock connector implementation from flipping to TB/fiber but wrapping the connection in a proprietary connect to keep the market segmentation.
That's debatable. Apple is counting on your TB/DP device having a TB/DP port of its own to daisy chain (because you're using apple displays after all right... RIGHT?).
Not that TB/USB3 is bad. Somewhat similar to the combo eSATA/USB2 ports you see.
but an other thing you need to look at the open cl and that can be slowed down by a small link. Now some one needs to do tests with a card at x4 x8 x16 running open CL apps.
It's not all the "hacks" (besides which, they stored customer info and passwords in a plain text files. I mean, seriously....this is blatant idiocy on their part). It's also them purposefully installing a root-kit on music CD's, one that could easily be exploitable and they user didn't even know it was there. Sure, this was 6 years ago and they took holy hell for it, but who KNOWS what these guys are thinking or what they put on these laptops.
As I say, they're lackadaisical concerns for security that they've demonstrated over the past half-decade is enough to say "no more". But hey, give em a shot. maybe this will be the time nothing bad happens.
Source? I have read zero indications of this. Some people make the wrong conclusion because Sony uses the Light Peak name instead of Thunderbolt.
I'm sure there is something even more sinister than a rootkit on these computers.....Windows
That's for a black screen. Most people want 32 bits of color.
So it's 2560*1600*60*32 =7.8 Gbps = 983 MB/s
The Lenovo Think Pads are just as nice, if not better.
I use a T410 daily for work and LOVE it.
Core i5 cpu with 8GB of ram running Win7 Enterprise. Smooth as silk
Will take it over ANY other notebook, including our beloved Apple products.
Wow I have used many a thinkpad with my work and have never been impressed. Now we moved over to elite books by HP with core i5s and Win7 as well. Pathetically slow compared to my MBA running a C2D. I do like the eraser head though!
I rebooted my MBA next to my HP the other day. My MBA was restarted before my HP was even down.
That is because your MBA has an SSD whereas your HP has a regular HD. Put them next to each other while doing video encoding for instance. The HP will be done when your MBA is still encoding the beginning credits.
Sounds like your company may be using a custom built software package.
My company has pre-built images for our laptops and most flat out suck.
They have more "monitoring" software and have disabled many of the features that make a system run smoothly.
None are truly optimized for the hardware they are installed on.
Employees have about 6 different models of laptops to choose from.
I'm fortunate to be part of the pool of employees they test images on.
My laptop is pretty much straight out of the box Win 7 Enterprise with very little company tweaks.
They loaded McAfee on it and the performance dropped like a stone.
Real shocker I know.
Removed and it screams again.
Using an alternative antivirus program that actually works without killing the laptop.
Hopefully it will make it into the final build and we can toss McAfee in the can.