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Notes of Interest on Thunderbolt and MacBook Pro

Mix said:
So is it possible to connect more than one external display through Thunderbolt daisy chaining on the macbook pros when they implement thunderbolt in to the cinema displays and if so will these be seperate displays instead of identical ones?
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Great question. Anyone?
 
Use for it is there....

by just connecting a dual monitor, with daisy chain, instead having 2 cables going to the Mac, u use only one, next incorporating a USB hub and other Thunderbolt connectors on your monitor or other devices, remember ONE Cable to your PC instead 4 or 5..... Awesome Video, I just wished the lady in the background would SHUT UPPPPP, because u can't hear anything what the guy says.
 
firestarter said:
It would kind of make sense to implement the Thunderbolt controller on the graphics card itself. After all, you'll want to interleave PCIe and Displayport signals in the same socket - so the socket will need to be connected to the graphics card.

Actually - I can't think of any other way to do it.
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That would make sense, I suppose that's exactly what's happening in the MacBook Pros today :)
 
One question... I don't know if this is explained in Intels design documents but...

Since running a display with a normal gfx card doesn't tax the CPU at all, is the same the case with Thunderbolt? I see Thunderbolt as something like a very speedy USB and FireWire and those have always been way more flaky and unreliable than a DVI out of a gfx card, or a PCIe card IMHO. E.g. copying from external harddrives via USB or FW will use quite a bit of CPU and PCI bandwidth... I hope that is not the case with Thunderbolt - does it use its own ADDITIONAL PCIe controller or does it hook up to the existing one? If the latter is the case, I foresee some problems. It would be pretty lame if heavy PCI traffic from your soundcard + gfx card for example, could result in your Thunderbolt display hanging/missing frames and such...
 
looks great. Shame it can't be added on to my current MBP and dude on the video, get everyone in the room to shut up when you film!
 
Wow, I'm impressed

I wonder whether the industry will embrace thunderbolt though. USB3 is gaining traction and here's intel trying to kill that and replace it with thunderbolt
 
Mix said:
So that would mean that I could theoretically use two external screens plus the screen on my macbook pro to get 3 different screens showing three different things at one time.
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Somebody has to try this as soon as possible.
 
Mega cool. I know in my industry, I'm sure there are many IT guys excited about the potential here as they move lots of large files and are Mac centric.

As with many techs. It's going to be scarce and expensive in the beginning. But Intel is in the business of licensing and I'm sure they will push it out like crazy to promote adoption. So, assuming the vendor adoption happens (even on the PC side), I'm sure price will come down and customers will want it.

Looks cool. Very promising.
 
MacRumors said:
- CrunchGear notes that while Apple doesn't have an exclusive on Thunderbolt, they have a head start:
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Yeah, great, rest of world 2012 for Thunderbolt - that will improve 3rd party adoption...

The only benefit I see is that it might keep FW800 alive by having it over Thunderbolt (which I assume will trickle down to the MBA as well) - unless Apple decide to neuter such connectivity in the future to ensure that audio pros, and people that want external HDD performance can't use MBAs...

Oh, and I keep on thinking "Thunderport" instead of "Thunderbolt port".
I can imagine some lame-ass execs talking it up to the board:
'And we'll call it 'Thunderbolt', the kids are *so* gonna dig it, they'll be like "Hey man, let me Thunderbolt that new Shakira song over to you"'...
 
Popeye206 said:
Mega cool.

As with many techs. It's going to be scarce and expensive in the beginning. But Intel is in the business of licensing and I'm sure they will push it out like crazy to promote adoption. So, assuming the vendor adoption happens (even on the PC side), I'm sure price will come down and customers will want it.

Looks cool. Very promising.
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Intel was also fully behind WiMAX and that's gone nowhere apart from some niche markets.
 
maflynn said:
Wow, I'm impressed

I wonder whether the industry will embrace thunderbolt though. USB3 is gaining traction and here's intel trying to kill that and replace it with thunderbolt
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Interesting question.

Firstly, what is USB3 for? I can see it being used for storage, but it's lacking the low-latency features that would make it a good choice for high end video or audio.

For storage, a USB3 drive isn't 'really' USB3. There's a PCIe to USB3 controller in the computer, then a USB3 to SATA interface in the drive box, and the drive itself is SATA.

Thunderbolt simplifies this. You simply pipe PCIe out of the computer to the drive, then have a PCIe to SATA controller in the drive box - which will be supported by the native OS's drivers, simplifying the whole setup.

  • So, Thunderbolt will certainly be simpler conceptually than USB3 - and could be cheaper.
  • It will be useful for more types of devices, and seems an obvious choice for high end audio and video.
  • It'll be possible to make a Thunderbolt to USB3 adapter - so it actually isn't a big problem for Mac users if USB3 does gain popularity.
  • USB3 is only really good for external drives - and if Thunderbolt proves a cheaper standard for that purpose then USB3 won't seem very compelling.
  • Thunderbolt probably won't replace USB2. Too cheap and ubiquitous.
 
Simon R. said:
One question... I don't know if this is explained in Intels design documents but...

Since running a display with a normal gfx card doesn't tax the CPU at all, is the same the case with Thunderbolt? I see Thunderbolt as something like a very speedy USB and FireWire and those have always been way more flaky and unreliable than a DVI out of a gfx card, or a PCIe card IMHO. E.g. copying from external harddrives via USB or FW will use quite a bit of CPU and PCI bandwidth... I hope that is not the case with Thunderbolt - does it use its own ADDITIONAL PCIe controller or does it hook up to the existing one? If the latter is the case, I foresee some problems. It would be pretty lame if heavy PCI traffic from your soundcard + gfx card for example, could result in your Thunderbolt display hanging/missing frames and such...
Click to expand...

FireWire never required CPU, only USB does.

TB is an extension of an existing PCIe x4 lane. GPUs are usually on the x16 lane. I doubt bottlenecking will be an issue since desktops have multiple PCIe slots. laptops can't even do that now, so just because you can saturate PCIe x4 on a laptop now that there's TB doesn't mean there isn't progress.
 
MacRumors said:
- Engadget reports that Thunderbolt will be both backwards and forwards-compatible when it gets the new optical cabling:
...the port you'll find in new MacBook Pros and storage devices can actually take an optical cable when those are cost-effective enough to roll out, because Intel will eventually bake the optical transceivers into the cables themselves.
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Cable costs are going to be steep for the optical versions. :eek:
 
Im not sure why they delaying putting it in Windows 7 , they need to bring it to the pc market to ensure it has the best chance of taking off.
 
If TB is just an extension of a PCIe x4 slot, I have no idea why we won't see PCIe adapters.
It's a good old "screw you" for Mac Pro 2010 buyers.
Oh well, thankfully we still have acess to USB3.0 and eSATA adapters which are a lot more common, nowadays...
If nothing else, Apple could, at least, offer a MB upgrade for 2010 MP owners.
 
Instead of integrating technology that won't even be in use for a year, I wish Apple would add technologies to their MacBooks that exist in abundance right now, like blu-ray and internal broadband.
 
Also note that Intel will not license TB technology as such to the other vendors. Ie you have to buy all controller chips from Intel if you want to use Thunderbolt in your products. With all these limitations, lockdowns and (security) issues I don't see making any other technology obsolete, except firewire.
 
MacRumorUser said:
Yep... Apple promote the Mac Pro as the powerhouse. The 1 truly expandable piece of hardware for pro market, and yet everytime there is an upgrade we get these fecking artificial lock outs.

Video cards gimped, PCIe cards gimped ?

Other than HDD and Memory, it seems Apple basically tell mac pro users to go ****** themselves every year or two.

This current Mac Pro I have, will be the last Mac Pro I own.
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Indeed. But I think that it's easier and cheaper to just buy an iMac, and replace it every 3 years. That way you pay less, you always have the freshest possible hardware, instead of investing into RAM and video cards.

Would it be possible to somehow use an external GPU, now that Thunderbolt is so fast? It may be a stupid question though.
 
I had hopes that in the future that it would be possible to add a PCIe card, to the current mac pros. So is this fact now, that this technology is not possible to implement on the current system of mac pros due to the mother board? It almost seems to have been done on purpose.

So the most powerful and fastest transfer technology available today is not possible even in a PCIe card form, that could be released in the future for the other current professional line of products that apple makes, and this is because of the mother board, that works with the Sandy Bridge processors?

So expandability in connectivity, in this case is skewed, in a current mac pro. It is expandable only with current technology. In other words this seems to equal, that it is not expandable with the new route laid out by Intel and Apple regarding the future of transfer and connectivity.

I guess one could thank someone for that but this time one shall not.
 
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