Intel Announces Next Version of Thunderbolt With 20Gbps Throughput Coming in 2014

[guzhogi]

I hope it supports DisplayPort 1.2 & PCIe 3.0 for future proofing. And then updated again when PCIe 4.0 comes out in 2014/15 (according to Wikipedia).

While Thunderbolt doesn't have as many products as USB, it's good that someone is trying to get the ball rolling. Hopefully, more & more companies make products for TB.

What depresses me is how many people here are like "Well, I don't need it, so why does anyone else? Apple should get rid of it!" Why must the minority of people who actually use TB suffer just because you don't need something? You and a majority of the world probably don't need a surgeon's scalpel, so does that mean that scalpals don't need to be made anymore?

 

[Trubbles]

Oh great - an update before affordable peripherals ever came out...

Can I take this to mean that by the time affordable peripherals come out, they will be for the new standard?

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Yay, twice the speed at twice the price!

At last a resonable pricing!

BTW this is pretty impressive.

 

[Nightarchaon]

Thunderbolt and good eGPU solutions, will it finally happen this year? I bet not.

the ONLY reason to use that port would be an eGPU dock, Harddisks, CD-Drives, etc all work fine, and are much easier to chain via USB 2.0 , and 3.0 ,

my setup at home is an iMac with a 12port USB hub , off the back of that hub i have 2 Drobos, Numerous harddrive caddies and various other devices,

I would saturate a single Thunderbolt channel (in terms of number of devices allowed on the port, not the speed of the channel) with drives easily, and the extra cost would be extortionate for no real gains in speed.

Now if the day comes i ever have Terabytes of SSD raids then maybe Thunderbolt would be worth it, as it is, without an External GPU box that lets me run two TITANS in SLI, its a dead tech screaming for a use.

 

[Nightarchaon]

Oh great - an update before affordable peripherals ever came out...

Can I take this to mean that by the time affordable peripherals come out, they will be for the new standard?

No it means that we now get no peripherals at all beyond drive caddies and USB3/audio/network breakout boxes because existing companies wont be able to sell their existing overpriced Thunderbolt 1 gear as we all wait for the better Thunderbolt 2 gear that will never arrive

So manufacturers will go on and make USB3 gear instead because Thunderbolt 1 gear didn't sell well enough to warrant the investment in making Thunderbolt 2 gear...

Apple will then in late 2014 drop the thunderbolt port in favor of its own proprietary super-lightning port that only allows you to connect a cabbage warmer to your Mac , because Jonny Ive says there cool..

That last bit might not happen... but i suspect the rest will be how Thunderbolt now plays out as a hardware standard

 

[amoergosum]

apple will then in late 2014 drop the thunderbolt port in favor of its own proprietary super-lightning port that only allows you to connect a cabbage warmer to your mac , because jonny ive says there cool..

lol...

 

[Swordylove]

By the time this arrives, perhaps there will be some TB 1.0 hubs people can actually afford.

LOL good one.

 

[Woyzeck]

Apple will then in late 2014 drop the thunderbolt port in favor of its own proprietary super-lightning port that only allows you to connect a cabbage warmer to your Mac , because Jonny Ive says there cool..

Actually that's not totally unrealistic. I recently bought a USB Superdrive and couldn't believe that that's perhaps the only USB DVD drive that only works with an Apple computer. Not all of them of course, just those without a built-in Superdrive. And all that at three times the price of a regular external DVD drive.

 

[cube]

Does this mean the price of the current obsolete Thunderbolt devices will now drop to reasonable levels so that I don't have to "settle" for eSATA?

 

[Zeov]

Is it not possible to run an external enclosure with graphics card over Thunderbolt with Windows installed if OSX now happens to lack GPU drivers? Or does Windows on the other hand lack TB drivers?

its possible.. and people are doing it right now with 670 and such...


but thats with the thunderbolt -> sonnet echo pro and then hook a ViDock up to it.

 

[Giuly]

1,200 Mbps, faster than current? Nopes.. 1,200MBps, that would only actually be on par with the 10Gbps promised by the current one. Didn't anandtech push the current TB pretty close to 10Gbps?

Not if you're running two displays on the other channel.

But the most interesting thing is that they use Dell displays which are daisy-chainable.

 

[Antares]

Wait until Thunderbold 3, 30Gbps Pff.. this is just a way of sucking money for proprietary cr*p, when they could just go with the USB standard, heck even help improve it. USB3 is to be updated this year to 10Gbps speeds... I bet they could go to 20Gbps until 2014.

There was a time when Apple rushed to get the newest standards, like the USB and the Display Port, now they are just rushing for a closed system nobody wants to use.

What are you talking about? Thunderbolt is a standard just like USB. It's not proprietary. Anyone can use Thunderbolt just like anyone can use USB.

 

[deconstruct60]

Why must the minority of people who actually use TB suffer just because you don't need something? You and a majority of the world probably don't need a surgeon's scalpel, so does that mean that scalpals don't need to be made anymore?

They probably also don't buy surgeon's scalpels either. If surgeons made every one in the country buy a scalpel just so that they could buy scalpels cheaper.... most would complain.

Apple is on path to moving to where can't buy a Mac without Thunderbolt (Mac Pro last one left and whether it needs it or not probably going to be added forcing some trade offs ).

 

[subsonix]

They probably also don't buy surgeon's scalpels either. If surgeons made every one in the country buy a scalpel just so that they could buy scalpels cheaper.... most would complain.

Apple is on path to moving to where can't buy a Mac without Thunderbolt (Mac Pro last one left and whether it needs it or not probably going to be added forcing some trade offs ).

Yeah, but the connector is also a DsplayPort so it's of use for anyone who use an external display, but on steroids. Also keep in mind that there are other older I/O ports such as pci express express card that TB i supperior to.

 

[deconstruct60]

.... because existing companies wont be able to sell their existing overpriced Thunderbolt 1 gear as we all wait for the better Thunderbolt 2 gear that will never arrive

A highly dubious assertion when the new Redwood Ridge controllers are suppose to drive costs down slightly. One of the biggest Thunderbolt complaints is device costs, not whether they have some utility. More so the match between price and value provided.

Thunderbolt v2.0 double of speed is extremely like not gong to be accompanied by cost decreases. I'm not sure why most folks are going to wait longer for devices that at are least as expensive, if not more, than the ones available sooner.

There is always new tech coming several years out. That isn't a new issue. Those who buy TB 1.0 devices now thought will be in the market for v1.0 capable devices in the future. The base of potential 1.0 users is going to be FAR bigger than the base of 2.0 users for at least a year.

Interia of the previous standard is the same reason USB 3.0 adoption took several years from the passing of the standard. Thunderbolt's interia will be smaller but it will be present.

 

[deconstruct60]

Yeah, but the connector is also a DsplayPort so it's of use for anyone who use an external display, but on steroids.

But if solely used as a DisplayPort then port could be provisioned cheaper. Either the system cost could be lower or other, more widely valued, parts could be added.

Thunderbolt isn't a total bust of an additional expense but it isn't adding anything that wouldn't have already been their either in the 100% usage in leagcy DP mode. There is no value add if never going to buy any TB devices.

It was a smart move to hijack a port that had some usefulness outside of TB devices. It will help TB bridge the device evolutionary pricing problems in the beginning. But there is going to be more than a little blowback grief about the growth problems.

 

[subsonix]

But if solely used as a DisplayPort then port could be provisioned cheaper. Either the system cost could be lower or other, more widely valued, parts could be added.

The consequence of that is that you think Macs should be built to a lower standard, let's dumb it down to the lowest common denominator and only support USB, even though the common crutch and internet wisdom from armchair critics is that the pros are ignored. One of the most common argument I see from that group is the need for more ports and expandability, TB solves that, and does it in a progressive way not relying on technology from the past. Let's take express card as an example, it's not possible to chain devices, it's not hot pluggable, it's not dual purpose, the connector is larger and more fragile. Yet it's been used to expand portable systems with things like pcie expansion chassis for TDM cards for example.

Thunderbolt isn't a total bust of an additional expense but it isn't adding anything that wouldn't have already been their either in the 100% usage in leagcy DP mode. There is no value add if never going to buy any TB devices.

The same can be said about other ports, see my point about dumbing down above.

 

[/dev/toaster]

Yet still no display port 1.2 hubs for monitors ... GRRRR.

 

[Tech198]

20 Gig via Thunderbolt.

Speed is great, but thats not the issue..

May have the fastest car on the market, but it didn't sell to the mass audience (e.g. lack of hardware support), then you can say anything you like..

Maybe, if people see that Thunderbolt is improving, despite it not being popular as USB 3.0 by far people may buy it *shrugs* .. PC motherboards having Thunderbird by manufactures like Gigabyte are a good start ..

We need more of this.

 

[repoman27]

Hmmm... Anandtech posted a few more tidbits about Falcon Ridge earlier today that change the picture a wee bit. It's looking to me like Falcon Ridge will be Redwood Ridge with channel bonding to achieve 20 Gbit/s, so the per lane speed will not actually be increasing. The upside of this is that it's totally compatible with all current Thunderbolt devices and cables, just that if you connect two devices with Falcon Ridge controllers, they can use all four lanes to form a single 20 Gbit/s, full-duplex channel. So in all likelihood, the BOM costs of implementing Thunderbolt will continue to decrease with each successive generation, Falcon Ridge included.

Falcon Ridge will be able to fully support DisplayPort 1.2 with HBR2 and MST, even when piped over Thunderbolt to another Falcon Ridge device, as is demonstrated in the video clip linked in the original post. Unfortunately, I also get the feeling that it will continue to use the current PCIe 2.0 x4 back end. The maximum throughput shown in the video is 1259.87 MB/s, which is still below the theoretical maximum payload throughput of a PCIe 2.0 x4 link at 1645.24 MB/s. This could just be due to increased PCIe protocol overhead resulting from the controller giving priority to DisplayPort packets though. We'll have to wait and see.

I'm not sure what the rationale is behind some posters referring to Falcon Ridge as "Thunderbolt 2.0", because it's sort of like calling Haswell "Intel Core 2.0". Light/Eagle Ridge was the first generation of Thunderbolt controllers, then came Cactus/Port Ridge, next up is Redwood Ridge, and sometime in the first half of 2014 we'll see Falcon Ridge. This isn't a standard where generations are denoted by sequential version numbers, it's being iterated continuously by Intel. The cadence seems to be targeting the introduction of a Thunderbolt revision shortly before the launch of each new processor platform.

 

[BornAgainMac]

It could be 10 times faster and it wouldn't change anything. I can see them changing the connector again. I use Thunderbolt to bolt on my monitor.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

Actually that's not totally unrealistic. I recently bought a USB Superdrive and couldn't believe that that's perhaps the only USB DVD drive that only works with an Apple computer. Not all of them of course, just those without a built-in Superdrive. And all that at three times the price of a regular external DVD drive.

Are you sure? I've been using a 3rd party DVD drive since 2005. I just bought anither one last december and it works perfectly with both my macs (2012 iMac & 2011 MBA)

EDIT: BTW they were made by Buffalo if you are interested.

 

[Woyzeck]

Are you sure? I've been using a 3rd party DVD drive since 2005. I just bought anither one last december and it works perfectly with both my macs (2012 iMac & 2011 MBA)

EDIT: BTW they were made by Buffalo if you are interested.

All external USB drives are compatible with most computers, except Apple's superdrive. I couldn't believe it myself, but it's intended to only work with Macs and only those without internal optical drives. A superstupid proprietary solution.

 

[szw-mapple fan]

All external USB drives are compatible with most computers, except Apple's superdrive. I couldn't believe it myself, but it's intended to only work with Macs and only those without internal optical drives. A superstupid proprietary solution.

Oh, I thought you meant 3rd party drives not working with macs. Sorry I misread.

 

[repoman27]

All external USB drives are compatible with most computers, except Apple's superdrive. I couldn't believe it myself, but it's intended to only work with Macs and only those without internal optical drives. A superstupid proprietary solution.

This is just horrifyingly stupid on Apple's part. Apparently it doesn't even work with some Mac mini Servers because it doesn't recognize them as being a legitimate Mac without an internal optical drive (which of course they are).

Considering how often I've had to replace failed slim optical drives in my day, it seems ridiculous to not allow this to be a reasonable solution for when you occasionally need to read or burn an optical disc from a Mac with a dead internal optical drive.

Out of curiosity, do you have one of the original MacBook Air SuperDrives, or is it the newer Apple USB SuperDrive? Has Apple made any progress or are they still insisting on being retarded?

While it is possible to replace the SATA to USB bridge board in the drive enclosure to allow it to work with any PC that can deliver enough power via USB, you really should't have to.