Sadly, Intel doesn't decide, what's supported on a Mac.
Macs' chipsets has also supported eSata for years, but no support anyway.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
Hewlett Packard Not Convinced of the Value of Thunderbolt
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
Macs' chipsets has also supported eSata for years, but no support anyway.
Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)
3840x2160x60 Hz > 4096x2160x24 Hz
DP 1.2 is 21.6 Gbps, HDMI 1.4a is 10.2 Gbps
DP also supports the Blu ray lossless audio codecs. The reason HDMI is dominant is because it was around first and is good enough right now, not because it is superior to DP.
mosx said:
Thats not DRM, thats your player needing an update. Is it DRM when you need to update OS X to a newer version to run a newer version of iTunes? Or when you need to update an Xbox 360 or PS3 to newer version? No. Thats just needing an update.
Plus Avatar is one of those discs that does peak at over 40Mbps video with lossless audio, so its no surprise that your blu-ray player would need some sort of update.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DisplayPort#Technical_specifications
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HDMI#Version_1.4
DisplayPort was updated AFTER HDMI 1.4 to support the same maximum resolution, 3840x2160. However, HDMI also supports 4096x2160, for wider aspect ratios. I sure hope you can multiply.
HDMI also supports other neat things that DisplayPort doesn't, like MLP (DVD-Audio) as well as DSD (SACD).
You should go to the "official" website for HDMI and read about all of the neat video, audio, and networking features HDMI offers. Those of us with PCs that can do something than be more than expensive fashion accessories appreciate the fact that HDMI is a standard feature. My PC can easily be transformed from a work machine to an entertainment machine that plays blu-ray discs with 8 channel LPCM, it can play games with better graphics than the Xbox 360 at double the resolution and frame-rate with better uncompressed 8 channel LPCM audio than the PS3 (and even more significantly better graphics than the PS3).
Apple's implementation of DisplayPort can't do that since they don't provide proper Windows drivers and Apple's implementation of audio over DisplayPort seems to be FUBAR and all of the mDP to HDMI adapters that do support audio from mDP don't seem to properly support LPCM or anything other than bitstreaming old DVD quality AC3 and DTS. Not only that, but good luck finding a system that can actually take audio in from DisplayPort without some sort of conversion to HDMI first.
It sure is nice finally having a computer that doesn't require me to use half-baked standards and a billion different dongles to do what I want or need it to do
3840x2160x60 Hz > 4096x2160x24 Hz
DP 1.2 is 21.6 Gbps, HDMI 1.4a is 10.2 Gbps
DP also supports the Blu ray lossless audio codecs. The reason HDMI is dominant is because it was around first and is good enough right now, not because it is superior to DP.
Looks like Intel did and looks like Sony just fragmented the whole standard by using a different connector than Apple and by mating their implementation to the USB ports instead of the display ports.
My understanding was that the USB group didn't want to share their connector with Thunderbolt.
LinkWiki said:
So I'm surprised to see Sony apparently using a USB connector.
I agree, having to unplug a monitor to change the chain is daft, but that's because the monitor is connected via displayport. Once the monitor connections are available using Thunderbolt, it can appear anywhere in the chain.
But that's because there is no eSata port. There are, however, already USB ports which would be electrically USB3, assuming Apple hangs the ports off the Intel controller. Whether they write the drivers for them to use USB3 or have them operate in USB2 still (or add in a separate USB2 controller chip), remains to be seen.
Usb2 connector differs physically from usb3 connector. They are only downward compatible. If Apple want's they can still use usb2 connectors and wire them to ivy bridge.
You mean you can't plug a USB2 device into a USB3 port? I must admit, I've never tried, despite having 2 USB3 ports on my PC's motherboard.
No, all USB ports are backward compatible. You can stick your USB2 drives in any of the USB version port and it would work. Same for USB and USB3 drives. Only difference is to be able or not achieve the high speed. Nevertheless, the port is universal.
Thunderbolt is not an adequate display option, especially compared to Display Port 1.2. It only works in Apple's case because it doubles as a DP.
I think Sony is on to something. However, we can't deny the fragmentation is there with this move and now it's a whole new ballgame. No peripherals are yet on the market and already the vendors are providing different implementations.
On my desk, I have a scanner, a printer, an external keyboard, a mouse, an external hard drive for backup, and a monitor. That's five USB devices and a monitor. Having five USB cables and a monitor cable dangling around on the desk, and having to plug all of them into a MacBook would be a pain (that's why I have a very old desktop Mac sitting under the table). With the right adapters I could plug _all_ these devices into a single Thunderbolt cable. All the adapters, USB cables and video cables nicely hidden out of view, just a single Thunderbolt cable lying on the desk and being plugged in. With the added advantage that each USB device would have a complete USB port for itself. That's possible with Thunderbolt, because if you can build a PCI-E card to do it, you can build a Thunderbolt device to do it.
And yes, it sucks if your computer breaks. When it breaks, you repair it.
Try and forget about that port being a displayport (although it is at the moment) and think of it as being a Thunderbolt port which happens to share the same connector. As I understand it, the Thunderbolt protocol being used is capable of carrying different protocols inside it's packets (like IP can be used for http, IMAP, etc), including display data. In other words, it's a peripheral agnostic protocol which doesn't care whether it's talking to a disk array or a monitor. This is where it comes into its own.
Of course we don't have any devices capable of talking the Thunderbolt protocol as yet, never mind monitors. Once we do have monitors and other devices capable of using Thunderbolt, the monitor can be the first item in the daisy chain and therefore won't be affected by unplugging disks from the middle of the chain.
DP 1.2 supports 21 Gbps of bandwidth. TB supports 10 Gbps. Why would I want to downgrade my display options ? You're just not understanding my point in all of this.
That's the whole point. TB is not adequate for display transport. It's way too low bandwidth.
Right now it works because Apple is on DP 1.1a and the port can probably be used as straight DP, thus using its full bandwidth.
I understand it perfectly. But since the MBP does not (to the best of my knowledge) support multiple displays from a single display port, whether previously or currently, it's a moot point. I can still run a single 27" display (2560x1440) from a thunderbolt enabled displayport connection. The extra bandwidth (21Gbps) would only be needed to run multiple displays or extreme resolutions (which I have yet to see any display device outside of a few advanced cinema displays support).
I never understood why apple didn't just go with USB 3.0 I'm using a few external 3.0 drives and they are great for the price. It make take years before we really see any Thunderbolt products if we ever get to see any that we can really use.
For my line of work all I need is a few peripherals e.g. RAID and PCI enclosures. Since its looking good for that this summer, Im all for Thunderbolt.
I got to see some tests at NAB and I was sold then
It doesn't because it doesn't support DP 1.2. Apple only support DP 1.1 which only allows one display per port. Nothing about ThunderBolt will allow that to change since the DP source stream is actually separate from the ThunderBolt source stream.
Yes, I know. But I have yet to find anyone who has used a single displayport connection on the 2009 or 2010 models to drive multiple monitors (which the 21Gbps bandwidth would be needed for). Therefore dropping support down to the 10Gbps 1.1 implementation does not leave us worse off - we can still drive a 30" cinema display at 2560x1600. It would, however, leave us worse off if we wanted to daisy chain thunderbolt enabled monitors. But that's a limitation of Thunderbolt, not Apple's implementation of displayport in the 2011 models.
Again, that's a 1.2 feature. Apple would need to implement DP 1.2 for that, something you will never get on older Macbooks (since it requires a change of hardware).
Thunderbolt however just threw a wrench in the whole thing.
So to be clear, Apple do not and never have supported 1.2? I was under the impression that the 2009 and 2010 models did, but it appears I was mistaken. So really Apple have extended the existing use of the port by adding Thunderbolt but have limited the use of the port for multiple monitors in the future.
I guess they feel that at most people will connect a single display to their laptops.
How many pci-e lanes TB has?
If only 1, it's theoretically slower than usb3.
If 2, then it can have same as usb3.
Funny thing here is, that usb3 is pretty much enough for almost enything that used to need pci-e.
I guess we'll see monitors with usb3 video in, bit like displaylink has been.
But I doubt that TB will have enough bandwidth to replace powerful graphic card. They usually need 16x pci-e.
And even if usb-TB shows up to be nicer, does anyone think that Apple can admit that they were wrong?
PCI-E v1.x: 250 MB/s (2 Gbit/s)
PCI-E v2.x: 500 MB/s (4 Gbit/s)
PCI-E v3.0: 1 GB/s (8 Gbit/s)
(all single channel).
So it's a bit more than 1 v3.0 channel but less than a multiple of the others.
Wrong
ATI Radeion 6x series for example has MDPorts beside of DVI to actually run a desktop pc on Cinema Displays...
The only PITA of buying a Macbook Pro despite all the awesomeness of the hardware and Mac OS X, is that I have to buy two adapters, one for my HDTV (MDP -> HDMI), and one for other projectors (MDP -> VGA/DVI etc.), there isn't anything except Apple monitors that use the MDP.
ATI Radeion 6x series for example has MDPorts beside of DVI to actually run a desktop pc on Cinema Displays...
...
ATI Radeion 6x series for example has MDPorts beside of DVI to actually run a desktop pc on Cinema Displays... And since thunderbolt is included, the MDP is able to run nearly every device... but that's going to take some time i guess...
The only PITA of buying a Macbook Pro despite all the awesomeness of the hardware and Mac OS X, is that I have to buy two adapters, one for my HDTV (MDP -> HDMI), and one for other projectors (MDP -> VGA/DVI etc.), there isn't anything except Apple monitors that use the MDP.
ATI Radeion 6x series for example has MDPorts beside of DVI to actually run a desktop pc on Cinema Displays... And since thunderbolt is included, the MDP is able to run nearly every device... but that's going to take some time i guess...
If I am reading the spec right, it is using a 4x lane. So it is actually capable of at 8-32Gbit/sec of bandwidth. Yet is is stuck at the 10Gbit/sec that the controller supports.
Just a sidenote when 100Gbit/sec support comes they will have to add lanes, otherwise the controllers interface to the computer becomes the bottleneck.