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.
Intel to Support Both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt in 2012 'Ivy Bridge' Platform
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
I shall try and find the link again.. obviously, with a USB3 -> TB adapter the IO speed will be decreased down to USB3 levels.
Personally, I see little point of USB3 -> TB connectivity since they'll probably be far more USB3 hard disks etc available ( and cheaper ) than TB - and there's no benefit at the end of the day to link USB3 to a TB device.
Personally, I see little point of USB3 -> TB connectivity since they'll probably be far more USB3 hard disks etc available ( and cheaper ) than TB - and there's no benefit at the end of the day to link USB3 to a TB device.
You made a simple claim:
"Thunderbolt will be 'Mac only'"
It won't be, you were proven wrong, now get over it. Maybe you missed the title of this topic?
"Intel to Support Both USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt in 2012 'Ivy Bridge' Platform"
This is why Apple was wise to do Thunderbolt in partnership with Intel. It is not at all Mac Only.... it is built into Intel's support chips.
For FireWire, manufacturers had to incur the cost of a FW controller chip. For thunderbolt, it is built into the chipsets they are using already, and therefore, is simply a matter of adding a connector to the motherboard.
This should drastically lower the barrier for adoption.
Plus, being built into the displayport standard-- which is also open, and has been adopted by Dell for its displays-- there is a good incentive to offer a combo tunderbolt/mini-displayport port on their motherboards.
I saw demos of FW1600 and 3200 back at WWDC in 2001 or 2002. They've existed for a very long time. The fundamental problem is that as a separate technology they add cost. This added cost is something Apple will bear, but cheap PC motherboard manufacturers wont.
I think it was Apple's attempts to get Intel to integrate Firewire with their chipsets (back at the time that Intel was on the USB 2.0 bandwagon) that ultimately resulted in the beginning of the Thunderbolt project. (This is just a guess on my part but the timing is right.)
Big difference is that FW needed a license from apple and a third party chip to implement it. Now there is no longer a need for a separate license and the port is integrated into intels chipsets.
First, no I made no such claim. I responded to one. And the claim wasn't that it will be restricted to being Mac only, but that it will end up being Mac only, in the same sense that FW is. Some PC ship with FW, but not many. It is considered a Mac only interface. The gist is that TB may as well, if history repeats. You didn't prove anything. You see many PC's shipping with TB right now? How many PC vendors have announces support for TB? The unfortunate fact is that consumers know the USB brand, so the vendors will support it. TB might be in Intel's spec, but that doesn't mean every system will support it nor that many drive vendors will either.
See econgeek's post. It explains is pretty well.
The PC industry is plagued with lowest common denominator, low cost crap.
Apple and Intel are trying to move forward. We should support that.
Of course they're complementary. USB for the mouses, joysticks, and dancing desk toys. Thunderbolt for real I/O like hard drives and RAID. Same as how it's always been, only now we'll have Thunderbolt slowly replacing Firewire.
All my external devices are Firewire today: multiple hard drives, DVD burner, video camera, flat bed scanner, card reader, and audio mixer. The only USB devices I have is my mouse. I suppose I'll slowly migrate to Thunderbolt as I upgrade, but Intel's new USB announcement won't change any of this. Maybe my mouse will work faster? lol.
All my external devices are Firewire today: multiple hard drives, DVD burner, video camera, flat bed scanner, card reader, and audio mixer. The only USB devices I have is my mouse. I suppose I'll slowly migrate to Thunderbolt as I upgrade, but Intel's new USB announcement won't change any of this. Maybe my mouse will work faster? lol.
Last edited:
Sounds like me as well! My 2009 15in MBP is still doing fine but I would love an ultra-portable that has the option for a fast external solution.
No. The claim simply stated 'Mac only'. Nothing more and nothing less and you agreed with said two word claim. Thunderbolt will be integrated into every Ivy Bridge chipset just like USB 3.0. It's not the same situation as FireWire in the slightest. Not only is it faster than USB 3.0 but it also works with USB via adapters as well as almost any other IO on the planet. FireWire worked only with FireWire devices.
You mean the one right above your post that proves you wrong? Funny stuff.
Thunderbolt is a step backwards.
The MBPs could have DisplayPort 1.2 if it were not for the damned connector merge.
That's because intel and the peecee vendors crippled it. Mac's all have normal firewire ports. Every peecee and windows laptop I've ever seen has the micro-firewire ports that are normally only for portable end devices like video cameras and camcorders. The micro ports do not provide bus power either!
Imagine if they did that with USB, instead of putting the normal USB ports on your Dell or HP laptop, they put the micro USB ports like you find on a cell phone, and also took away the bus-power, so thumb drives wouldn't work, and any USB device would require an external A/C adapter. That would have completely destroyed USB as a technology and nobody would have used it. Well, that's *exactly* what they did to Firewire.
This is seriously bad news for Thunderbolt. This is just like Intel supporting both USB 2.0 and Firewire in the past... Thunderbolt will be a specialized gig for the Macs, just like Firewire was, and most PC users will end up using USB...
Intel should have stood their ground on Thunderbolt... Would have pushed component manufacturers to make more Thunderbolt devices, now we're going to have a mish mash, and those of us with Macs are getting the shaft because we won't get USB 3.0 from Apple...
Hopefully there will be adapters and converters.. And hopefully Apple will get their heads out of their asses on the next refresh and add BOTH USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt to give us consumers maximum flexibility.
Intel should have stood their ground on Thunderbolt... Would have pushed component manufacturers to make more Thunderbolt devices, now we're going to have a mish mash, and those of us with Macs are getting the shaft because we won't get USB 3.0 from Apple...
Hopefully there will be adapters and converters.. And hopefully Apple will get their heads out of their asses on the next refresh and add BOTH USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt to give us consumers maximum flexibility.
Glad to hear it
Im really stoked to see the Ivy Bridge benchmarks...the i72600k blew my mind I feel bad for the enthusiast folks who bought a 980x
Im really stoked to see the Ivy Bridge benchmarks...the i72600k blew my mind
I feel bad for the enthusiast folks who bought a 980x
I do not appear to recall Apple extolling the Intel HD 3000.
Otherwise, I am still waiting for proof that Thunderbolt is on the Panther Point controller and I find it unlikely it is on the processor itself given the current PCIe hackjob to implement it.
You mean like FW was faster than USB and USB2? And yes, it will work with any USB device. You think that is an incentive for drive vendors to invest in it? Really? They might decide to stick with USB3, since consumers know the brand and it will work with the Macs that have TB.
I guess that's why we've seen so many PC manufacturers announce support for TB already. Right?
I think a reading comprehension class would be good for you. That's 2 or 3 posts you have misread. He did explain how the two situations differ. Obviously they do. There are also some commonalities. I guess it might be a bit much to expect you to see those, given your demonstrated limitations with reading. They're subtle. Try hard.
The mini-display port connector is part of the DisplayPort 1.2 standard and is seemingly seeing wide adoption from PC laptop and display makers.
The DisplayPort 1.2 specification requires support for DisplayPort 1.1a on mini-display ports, but I don't see anything that precludes it supporting 1.2 signalling.
Can you point to an article that details how Thunderbolt is a problem for this? The Thunderbolt controller, when connected to a DisplayPort 1.2 (only) display, could fall back to DisplayPort mode like it does now, could it not?
I wish they had announced that IvyBridge was USB 2.0 only, but this delays USB 3.0 adoption by a year.
There's been strong support for Thunderbolt, so that year might be enough to kill USB 3.0, which hasn't exactly taken off.
Uh... who cares? You missed my point.
The "world" isn't going to support ThunderPants as Intel now embraces USB3. You're left with basically only Apple to beat the TB drum.
Hence, TB dies or at best fades away slowly. It will never sweep the land aka "firewire" style.
Speaking of reading comprehension class, maybe you missed this part:
"Not only"
You want me to throw some more incentives for you? It's four times faster than USB 3.0, will be even faster later down the road. I'd love to see you do this on your USB 3.0 device: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCz_c_rDAXw
Maybe for your rinky dink Toys R Us peripherals that don't require any real bandwidth USB 3.0 is perfect for you. Go take a look at some of the stuff shown off at NAB.
Who cares? Well Intel does since it's going to be supported natively on their chipset. FireWire wasn't. There's no real USB 3.0 adoption, just a bunch of FUD.
Can you provide any indications that Intel is dropping support for Thunderbolt? Any reason to believe that PC makers won't provide USB ports like they do now but also DisplayPorts like they do now, only in both cases the ports are upgraded to support USB 3 and thunderbolt?