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How many pros would like to have ethernet AND firewire AND displayport simultaneously?
How outrageous demands!
Seriously, TB is looking more and more like a "just in case port", that Apple should get rid of.
Or maybe Apple should realize, that taking away ports is not the ultimate goal for computers...

That's what the Apple Thunderbolt Display is for. The Pro models that lack built-in Ethernet and Firewire ship with HDMI ports, so Apple does seem to be responding to the need to have three devices plugged it at one time.

Apple is trying to promote Thunderbolt as the future. They did the same with the iMac 15 years ago when they dropped the floppy drive, SCSI port, and ADB port. The more they relegate the legacy ports to adapters, the more likely that peripheral manufacturers will stop using the legacy ports.

I'm not saying that there aren't inconveniences. However, given Apple's design direction for the past 15 years, it's unrealistic to expect them to reintroduce legacy port support. It would be better to push peripheral manufacturers to support the newer ports (USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt). There are lots of good USB 3.0 docks out there. It would be nice if one of the manufacturers took the time to write OS X drivers.
 
Too bad that Apple doesn't seem to care about pro market anymore.
What do many pro's ask? New MP, versatile xMac, matte screens, more ports (also legacy like fw) and less dongles with macs, more storage units by users choise (ODD taken away, nothing to replace it). How PRO is to take ethernet connection away from professional computer. Almost anybody that needs to process a lot of data, needs it. MacbookPRO isn't for pros anymore. It just tries to still ride with the impression...
Not to even consider Apple's software offerings...

Except an antiglare screen option is still available on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and both the 13 and 15-inch MBP's still come with 8x slot-loading SuperDrives, built in GbE, FireWire 800, SDXC card readers with UHS-I support, as well as USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt ports. Apple, as well as many other vendors, offer external USB ODD's if you actually need one. CD's and DVD's really have gone the way of the floppy disk though. I can download a full DVD-9 in under 25 minutes with my current Internet service, which is only twice as long as it would take to read it from an 8x drive.

Apple continues to offer the best wireless solutions of any brand across the board (802.11a/b/g/n WiFi with 3x3 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.0), their displays are better quality (higher resolutions, more IPS panels than other vendors, very good factory calibration), they have the best multi-touch trackpads in the industry, their keyboards are quite decent, battery life is excellent, the unibody chassis is top notch. I get that dongles are kinda BS, but there really is nothing you can't do with the new MBPR that you could with the old one as long as you're willing to shell out for a few external accessories.

But if you can point me to a more "Pro" oriented notebook than the MBP or MBPR, please do. The only things you really can't get from Apple at the moment are workstation or gaming class GPU options.

Very good example is express card. Every owner of sony's videocam that uses SxS cards would like to have express card reader inside their macbook. Now they have to carry expensive and bulky card reader, which is not only slower than ec-slot, but also used to need external power.

And how Apple reacted to this need? They killed the only model, that had EC.
Who real pro would care if their laptop is few millimeters thinner? Or even better, their desktop? Very few pro's need to have their tools look sleek. Most would choose function over form.

Actually, the fastest, cheapest SxS card reader available is the Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter, which also happens to be bus powered. You could also just use SDXC cards in an ExpressCard adapter instead of paying insane amounts of money for SxS cards, and then pop them in the SDXC card reader built in to all current Macs.

AFAIK, Apple thinks that TB is useful for them only to sell ATBD. Otherwise they would kill TB as fast as they could. It is cutting badly their profits and too few users even need it. It would go the same way than ODD did.

Nevertheless it looks that Apple don't care so much about anything about their mac ecosystem. Why else they would sell ATBD without usb3 after a whole year when usb3 was put to macs? Or do they really think that in first year those who really need usb3, buy new macs and in second year, those who just like to have usb3 would start updating their appleDisplays?

Except that Thunderbolt allows Apple to make much more capable PCs in very small form factors, which is in turn allowing them to continue to increase Mac sales while the rest of the industry is experiencing a contraction, thereby boosting their market share, and their profit share, which was already higher than that of any other PC manufacturer by a considerable margin.

And why would Apple possibly update the ATD just to add USB 3.0? The next revision will most likely inherit the design of the new iMacs with laminated cover glass to reduce reflections, and certainly fix the USB audio issues of the original model. I would also expect Intel to produce a Redwood Ridge Thunderbolt controller for release in Q2 of this year that has two DisplayPort sink protocol adapters so that a 2nd display can be connected directly to an ATD. And then perhaps we'll see USB 3.0 make an appearance, however Apple has yet to implement a third party USB 3.0 solution in any of their devices.

Also, usb3 would be quite sufficient for many pro video usage also. Decklink had usb3 devices available way before nobody knew about TB. Everybody was then just waiting when Apple care to integrate usb3 to their models. They were the last computer manufacturer on the planet to do so.

No, SuperSpeed USB is just not cut out for uncompressed video. And Apple's product stack did not allow them to introduce USB 3.0 before Intel integrated it into their chipsets. That is all history now, and every USB port on every new Mac is USB 3.0, which is far more elegant than the half-assed transition every other OEM has chosen.

Light Peak was designed to go to 100G. Would you pay 10x more for your TB gadgets than what they already cost? I'd guess almost nobody would.

Philosofy in lightpeak was to get optical interconnection so hugely popular that cost per unit would be fraction of what it used to be. Then it would have been economical to make new gen of optical ports @ 10x speed. Now TB has dead end. Active copper cables make TB probably as exensive than optical ports, but the cost of optical ports are not going down, since they are not used. It will be amazing, if they ever get TB2 out with reasonable benefit over cost ratio.

Light Peak was designed around 4x 10 Gbit/s channels. That is precisely what Thunderbolt is. It has the ability to scale in the future to higher speeds. 20 Gbit/s channels are coming in 2014, and will most likely use the same copper connectors it uses today combined with new active copper cables. The next step, to 40 Gbit/s channels, will probably see a transition to optical transceivers and cables. 100 Gbit/s per channel will require new magic, seeing as it cannot be done yet. There is no dead end or trouble ahead for Thunderbolt's evolution.

And with daisy-chaining the all devices do not saturate the last link before computer?

No. All the intermediate links in a Thunderbolt chain provide two non-blocking, full-duplex channels. It's a switched fabric architecture that provides point-to-point connectivity.

I'd like to know how many situations there are that a pro wants to use a laptop with FC.
FC is usually used with SAN and switches, which aren't very mobile.
What this of course enables, is what they did in one of my workplaces: instead of MP, they bought iMac and TB-FC-box and now I'm looking reflections on the screen and a lot of beachball...

Why would you not want to be able to connect your MacBook to your SAN when you're at your workplace? Try dimming the lights. It eliminates the reflections and creates a nice ambiance. Why a lot of beachballs?

This also leads to another amazing feature that widows users are enjoying: drivers. I just can't understand why it is so hard for Apple to make working drivers and why does it take so long? Apple has best resources for this on the planet and very closed hardware ecosystem. Still their gpu, usb and hdmi drivers seems to suck all the time and corrections might never come. Maybe this has something to do with Apple's unique working culture, where everybody are expected to be genios all the time and the allocate too little resources for drivers. Like, one guy has one week to make a driver, because they are so fast and brilliant, that it couldn't need more people or time to tha one simple thing...

Uh, what? Have you actually ever tried to install and use AMD's Catalyst Control Center on a PC? I'll take Apple's RADEON HD drivers any day of the week over that crap. The NVIDIA ones also seem just fine to me. What possible complaint do you have with Mac USB drivers? Is it that Apple's SuperSpeed USB driver is considerably faster than the one built into Windows 8? HDMI support is just an aspect of the GPU driver. And perhaps you forgot that Apple has the best GPU switching of any platform currently available.

How would TB-switch be more comical than GbE-switch. Both behave the same: one pipe defines the max for the others.

I was trying to emphasize the difference between a hub and a switch. A hub is a simple multi-port repeater which does not allow full-duplex communication. A switch creates a virtual point-to-point or point-to-multi-point link between connected nodes and supports full-duplex transmission. Thunderbolt switches already exist; Thunderbolt hubs would be hilarious to watch but not very useful. The number of collisions per second could be just staggering.
 
I guess you missed the part where I said I was talking about OVER FOUR YEARS AGO when it was actually a relevant format being one of the faster ones available. In fact, I mentioned this several times and said you might find one now for that difference, but certainly not back then and certainly not pre-packaged. I mean who cares what they are going for NOW when it's now outdated and slow as heck compared to USB 3.0 (and yet STILL costs more!) What do you want, 800Mbits for $78 or 5Gbits for $38? I'll take the latter, thank you. There isn't a single TB enclosure available that I can find to compare there, but I'm sure it'd be more like $178 if it were available.
My recollection is different, nowadays I find FW more expensive compared to USB 2 because it has become rarer than it was four years ago. But I naturally have no data to back that up.

But the key point of my post that you responded to was a completely different one. The person I was replying to claimed that the difference between USB 2 and FW was negligible (which might be wrong but it was that person's recollection) and that TB is doomed (or maybe just will never reach more than, eg, 10% of the market which in my view would be far from doomed) because it will always be too expensive.

So, my real point here is that TB would be a minority player even if did cost exactly the same as USB (on a technical level) just because USB has the much bigger install-base. And thus that the argument that TB will not beat USB 3 because it is too expensive is using a completely unrealistic position (TB beating USB 3 in usage) to make the very limited success of TB appear as a bigger 'failure'.

In a sense I was carry out a hypothetical discussion with Nightarchaon, challenging him to explain to me why things would be so much better if TB was cheaper when, as he put it, FW lost out big time despite being only negligibly more expensive.

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Seriously, TB is looking more and more like a "just in case port", that Apple should get rid of.
Yeah, replacing TB ports with mDP port would be such a big gain.

Seriously, what harm exactly is the presence of a TB signalling part in the mDP-shaped port causing? And don't come me with that one of the TB ports on the rMBP is replacing a FW800 port. That port had to go anyway because it was too thick, just like the ethernet port.

Or maybe Apple should realize, that taking away ports is not the ultimate goal for computers...
Well, sometimes it takes a little bit of self-sacrifice to move the world forward. Why would any projector offer DVI, DP, or HDMI if all laptops still came with VGA ports.

And Apple always designs for the majority. And the majority wants thinner, lighter, and longer-battery-life laptops. Would I love to have the retina screen combined with two 2.5" bays? Sure, but I am a minority.
 
Really hope thunderbolt can take off unlike firewire did, considering that the retina MBP i have has two of them and I don't want them to end up useless after a few years :(
 
The point is that IF you need to change them, it becomes a pain in the butt very quickly and hence my argument against daisy-chaining. I have USB hubs and banks of Ethernet switches in my house and IF I had to daisy-chain them instead, I think I would go insane.
No, the point is that you should just plan ahead so you don't have unplug anything, ie, only buy devices that leave the end of the chain open, buy a USB hub that gives you enough ports etc.

I currently have a three HDD FW setup that I plug into the cable coming out of my always connected TM FW drive. That is plugging in one cable instead of three. But I also have a USB hub which connects to two printers and cable with a USB mini connector to plug in temporary things.
 
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Really hope thunderbolt can take off unlike firewire did, considering that the retina MBP i have has two of them and I don't want them to end up useless after a few years :(
They will always serve as mDP, FW or Ethernet ports. Having two ports that serve these three purposes makes them unlikely to be useless (unless you think that you won't need any of them but then Apple putting a FW or Ethernet port instead of second TB port would also leave with one or two useless ports).

Of course, the radical position is to put only USB 3 ports on a computer because they will never the useless. (But do you want video through USB? And if not how many video ports vs. USB ports?)
 
Really hope thunderbolt can take off unlike firewire did, considering that the retina MBP i have has two of them and I don't want them to end up useless after a few years :(

Firewire did take off. There are tons of firewire devices out there. Sure, you won't find a FW cup warmer, that's true. But it's been used wherever USB couldn't deliver.
 
For the computer or the user, it doesn't matter what the bandwidth between the devices is. Nevertheless you only have the max bandwidth (from the link from your computer) shared to all your devices together. So for the effective bandwidth, there's no difference between daisy chain or star topology.
The difference comes, if there ever will be TB.v2 and then the star topology will be the winner. Just like with ethernet.

It does, because it can be used to expand a system. Let's say you have a dsp as your first device, you then expand with 2 more of the same. Now communication between these devices can happen at full bandwidth. But regardless of all this, the ability to daisy chain is better than not having it as the alternative would force you to buy a switch to use more than 1 device.
 
I already said Thunderbolt itself is utterly dead due to its high prices.

But that is the contradiction in your argument, because it's relates to our discussion about daisy chaining. You would prefer a solution that required a switch to use more than 1 device which would be much more expensive.


About your opinion? I don't. :D

No, about Thunderbolt silly. You just explained that usb is enough for your needs, then why do you care.


Since Firewire was never popular to begin with, that explains why it's going NOWHERE and why prices are through the stratosphere. Firewire had a replacement approved. It was called Firewire 3200 and it's maximum throughput is right about where USB3's usable output is and thus they deemed it would also fail and so there was no point implementing it. Sadly, I guess Intel didn't get that message. ;)

It's been used extensively over usb in in multi channel audio interfaces for example, a daisy chain has typically been used to attach either a disk or a second interface to the first. In the case of Thunderbolt it would also be a replacement for express cards for things like PCIe expansion boxes (say Magma), the difference again is that several can be attached and that hot plugging is added. The high bandwidth also means that application that previously was out of reach now can be done with external expansion.
 
But regardless of all this, the ability to daisy chain is better than not having it as the alternative would force you to buy a switch to use more than 1 device.
I totally agree that option for both is always better than just one or the other. I was just saying that daisy-chaining does not give better bandwidth from/to computer/host when compared to star topology.

Overall Apple should give these options to their customers to choose what suits better for their needs.
Now the options are pretty much to buy or not to buy.

But where are those TB-switches?
 
I was just saying that daisy-chaining does not give better bandwidth from/to computer/host when compared to star topology.

It depends, strictly looking at the topological difference all traffic has to pass through one vertex in a star shaped graph, this could lead to congestion even if the final destination is not the host.

Overall Apple should give these options to their customers to choose what suits better for their needs.
Now the options are pretty much to buy or not to buy.

But where are those TB-switches?

I guess that the majority who has thunderbolt devices, either don't own more than 1, but regardless, would owning 2 really be simplified much by getting a 3rd (the switch). Those who may have more than 3, I guess are pretty stationary (case or rack setting) in which case a switch is not going to help much either. But if there is a great demand for a switch then I guess that will be made by someone.
 
It depends, strictly looking at the topological difference all traffic has to pass through one vertex in a star shaped graph, this could lead to congestion even if the final destination is not the host.

In a daisy-chain, all traffic has to pass through the first device - I fail to see the difference.
 
In a daisy-chain, all traffic has to pass through the first device - I fail to see the difference.

Only if the final destination is your computer. Take a midi setup with 4 devices added to one port as an example, device 4 can then send sysex to device 3 at full bandwidth without any involvement of any of the other devices. The same can be said for my dsp example previously, where additional processing power can be had by adding one more dsp box.
 
Except an antiglare screen option is still available on the 15-inch MacBook Pro, and both the 13 and 15-inch MBP's still come with 8x slot-loading SuperDrives, built in GbE, FireWire 800, SDXC card readers with UHS-I support, as well as USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt ports. Apple, as well as many other vendors, offer external USB ODD's if you actually need one. CD's and DVD's really have gone the way of the floppy disk though. I can download a full DVD-9 in under 25 minutes with my current Internet service, which is only twice as long as it would take to read it from an 8x drive.

Apple continues to offer the best wireless solutions of any brand across the board (802.11a/b/g/n WiFi with 3x3 MIMO and Bluetooth 4.0), their displays are better quality (higher resolutions, more IPS panels than other vendors, very good factory calibration), they have the best multi-touch trackpads in the industry, their keyboards are quite decent, battery life is excellent, the unibody chassis is top notch. I get that dongles are kinda BS, but there really is nothing you can't do with the new MBPR that you could with the old one as long as you're willing to shell out for a few external accessories.
Encouraging to buy old models doesn't have bright future.
Pretty comical is also suggesting that a pro should buy TN screen for visual work in 2013.
Can you tell why Apple can't put IPS screen and two mass storages in one laptop? Why retina screen can't be anti-glare? Is the answer again to streamline the production to get bigger profits, that doesn't transfer to better products for pros?
I agree that cd & dvd are old tech, but they are widely used, just like fm-radio and OTA television signal. And I use happily external bus powered bd-burner with both my laptop and desktop. Just like we don't talk about firewire here, if we are talking about ODD, we should talk about blu-ray. Last year over 500 million bd-movies were sold in North America and you can't get that quality to your home in any other way. Next step will be bd-xl2 with 4k and this will come with much bigger probability than TB2. If all content that is now purchased/rented in physical copies, would be downloaded/streamed, you wouldn't be able to download 9 GBs in half an hour. Infrastructure would be choked.
Nevertheless I find it tragicomedial that with most advanced "pro" model from Apple, you can't connect 3 basic things (GbE, fw, dp) with this amazing TB. You need help from usb3 and after this you have just one usb port left, which lead instantly to need for usb3 hub and then you are in this problem: which usb3 hubs work with mac...
Mac desktops are even bigger problem for pro use, but I guess when pros ditch Apple's software they can also ditch hardware at the same time...
Neverthess it is quite strange that in every other aspect people here and there say that Apple can't focus on pros, since the market is so small, but when ever TB is mentioned, suddenly it's there only because Apple wants to focus on pro market.
Actually, the fastest, cheapest SxS card reader available is the Sonnet Echo Pro ExpressCard/34 Thunderbolt Adapter, which also happens to be bus powered. You could also just use SDXC cards in an ExpressCard adapter instead of paying insane amounts of money for SxS cards, and then pop them in the SDXC card reader built in to all current Macs.
You can't call that Echo Pro very price efficient way, at least when comparing the situation before, when reader was included in the price of laptop. Using sdxc would be good idea, but I don't buy the cards for my workplace...
Using adapters won't be possible in the future for SRMemory or AXSM.
Except that Thunderbolt allows Apple to make much more capable PCs in very small form factors, which is in turn allowing them to continue to increase Mac sales while the rest of the industry is experiencing a contraction, thereby boosting their market share, and their profit share, which was already higher than that of any other PC manufacturer by a considerable margin.
For many professionals, putting small form factor over functionality (also cooling, which leads to noise) is negative development. And there's no proof that Apple's bigger profits return in better computers for professionals. Especially when more than 90% of profits come from iOS devices...
And why would Apple possibly update the ATD just to add USB 3.0? The next revision will most likely inherit the design of the new iMacs with laminated cover glass to reduce reflections, and certainly fix the USB audio issues of the original model. I would also expect Intel to produce a Redwood Ridge Thunderbolt controller for release in Q2 of this year that has two DisplayPort sink protocol adapters so that a 2nd display can be connected directly to an ATD. And then perhaps we'll see USB 3.0 make an appearance, however Apple has yet to implement a third party USB 3.0 solution in any of their devices.
I never said "just usb3". Of course they bundle updates together to achieve bigger and longer volumes. Nice that Redwood chips corrects the design flaw that shouldn't exist from day one.
Btw, new glass can reduce the brightness of reflections, but they are still annoyingly sharp, so I don't feel much improvement in that sence. Maybe, for me, if the reflections remain sharp, they should be dimmed about 99% not to be annoying. Very light matte coating woulf blur the reflections enough for me and this would be vety easy to do, like Apple did with old ACDs.
No, SuperSpeed USB is just not cut out for uncompressed video. And Apple's product stack did not allow them to introduce USB 3.0 before Intel integrated it into their chipsets.
Most of us don't need uncompressed video.
And usb3 handles hd-sdi(1.4Gbps) well enough.
All other computer manufacturers had no problem with their product stacks.
Light Peak was designed around 4x 10 Gbit/s channels. That is precisely what Thunderbolt is. It has the ability to scale in the future to higher speeds. 20 Gbit/s channels are coming in 2014, and will most likely use the same copper connectors it uses today combined with new active copper cables. The next step, to 40 Gbit/s channels, will probably see a transition to optical transceivers and cables. 100 Gbit/s per channel will require new magic, seeing as it cannot be done yet. There is no dead end or trouble ahead for Thunderbolt's evolution.
I wouldn't bet on 20Gbps in 2014 macs. Maybe there's tech, but cost might be too much. Going to optical 40Gb will be major PITA for cost effectiness. If first generations of LP would have lowered the cost of optical interconnect, this wouldn't be so hard.
No. All the intermediate links in a Thunderbolt chain provide two non-blocking, full-duplex channels. It's a switched fabric architecture that provides point-to-point connectivity.
Intermediate links doesn't change that overall bandwidth from/to computer is just one link's max bandwidth.
Why would you not want to be able to connect your MacBook to your SAN when you're at your workplace? Try dimming the lights. It eliminates the reflections and creates a nice ambiance. Why a lot of beachballs?
You want me to count all reasons why especially in professional enviroments, desktop computers are preferred for desktop computers more than laptops?
I surely don't know why there's beacballs. Maybe it's about TB or FC drivers or just how badly FCP7 behaves in new iMac with ML. Or just the switch to fullHD video. Sadly I can't make the interior designs of those workplaces.
Uh, what? Have you actually ever tried to install and use AMD's Catalyst Control Center on a PC? I'll take Apple's RADEON HD drivers any day of the week over that crap. The NVIDIA ones also seem just fine to me. What possible complaint do you have with Mac USB drivers? Is it that Apple's SuperSpeed USB driver is considerably faster than the one built into Windows 8? HDMI support is just an aspect of the GPU driver. And perhaps you forgot that Apple has the best GPU switching of any platform currently available.
Nevertheless Apple has problems now with both hdmi and usb3 drivers. They should be the most less likely manufacturer in the world to have this kind of issues, but they do have these issues. I'd say this is all the time eating the image that very limited amount of models and having all strings (hard and software) leads to more stable system. Somehow this has been more and more not so. Maybe they just don't care so much about mac ecosystem.
I was trying to emphasize the difference between a hub and a switch. A hub is a simple multi-port repeater which does not allow full-duplex communication. A switch creates a virtual point-to-point or point-to-multi-point link between connected nodes and supports full-duplex transmission. Thunderbolt switches already exist; Thunderbolt hubs would be hilarious to watch but not very useful. The number of collisions per second could be just staggering.
Where are those TB-switches?
 
Only if the final destination is your computer. Take a midi setup with 4 devices added to one port as an example, device 4 can then send sysex to device 3 at full bandwidth without any involvement of any of the other devices. The same can be said for my dsp example previously, where additional processing power can be had by adding one more dsp box.

Do you know for a fact that peer-to-peer can truly go between the nodes on the chain (with possibly intervening nodes).

In an internal implementation, all "peer-to-peer" traffic has to go through the PCIe controller (or perhaps the PCIe switch) -- it cannot go between devices. Since PCIe is(are) a point-to-point serial lane(s), it should be apparent that device-to-device communication is impossible. (external proprietary cables like are used for SLI don't count as PCIe peer connections)

I suspect that the T-Bolt controller chip on the mobo has to arbitrate peer-to-peer traffic - that the daisy-chain pass-throughs aren't able to do peer-to-peer routing.

There's little public technical information on T-Bolt to answer these questions.
 
Do you know for a fact that peer-to-peer can truly go between the nodes on the chain (with possibly intervening nodes).

In an internal implementation, all "peer-to-peer" traffic has to go through the PCIe controller (or perhaps the PCIe switch) -- it cannot go between devices. Since PCIe is(are) a point-to-point serial lane(s), it should be apparent that device-to-device communication is impossible. (external proprietary cables like are used for SLI don't count as PCIe peer connections)

A node either accepts (being the destination) or pass through down the line from a network perspective. Thunderbolt itself encapsulates both video and pcie, so it's not strictly pcie.
 
A node either accepts (being the destination) or pass through down the line from a network perspective. Thunderbolt itself encapsulates both video and pcie, so it's not strictly pcie.

That's a non-answer. Even if relevant, it implies that peer-to-peer is uni-directional - if the peer is "up the line" it wouldn't work. (Unless it goes "down the line" to the T-Bolt controller on the mobo, which realizes that the target is "up the line" and reflects it back onto the wire.)

Direct "any-peer to any-peer" capability would probably make the pass-through T-Bolt controllers much more expensive.

And if, from the point of view of the device, T-Bolt isn't strictly PCIe things won't work.
 
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Do you know for a fact that peer-to-peer can truly go between the nodes on the chain (with possibly intervening nodes).

In an internal implementation, all "peer-to-peer" traffic has to go through the PCIe controller (or perhaps the PCIe switch) -- it cannot go between devices. Since PCIe is(are) a point-to-point serial lane(s), it should be apparent that device-to-device communication is impossible. (external proprietary cables like are used for SLI don't count as PCIe peer connections)

I suspect that the T-Bolt controller chip on the mobo has to arbitrate peer-to-peer traffic - that the daisy-chain pass-throughs aren't able to do peer-to-peer routing.

There's little public technical information on T-Bolt to answer these questions.

PCIe absolutely does support peer-to-peer communication without traversing the root complex or touching system memory. Similarly, Thunderbolt also allows peer-to-peer, and all controllers are created equally. The host silicon is no different from the device silicon in most cases. This feature may not be frequently used in normal PCIe scenarios, but one fairly common example is for GPU compute: https://developer.nvidia.com/gpudirect

Encouraging to buy old models doesn't have bright future.
Pretty comical is also suggesting that a pro should buy TN screen for visual work in 2013.
Can you tell why Apple can't put IPS screen and two mass storages in one laptop? Why retina screen can't be anti-glare? Is the answer again to streamline the production to get bigger profits, that doesn't transfer to better products for pros?

The regular MacBook Pros may not have gotten a complete redesign in 2012, but there is nothing "old" about them. The 13-inch MacBook Pro is still the top-selling Mac model, so I'm not sure why you'd be reluctant to purchase the model that has most of the features you're looking for.

It's pretty comical to suggest you have a choice about TN vs IPS in notebook PCs. Go ahead and list every notebook you can buy that has a better screen than what's available in the current Mac line-up, it shouldn't take very long.

Anti-glare coatings create a blurring effect. Why would you do that to the highest resolution displays ever to be put in a notebook? Bonded glass is the way things are going and it is not a bad solution. If you do color work, why the heck are you doing it in a room with light sources strong enough to be an issue?

You can't call that Echo Pro very price efficient way, at least when comparing the situation before, when reader was included in the price of laptop. Using sdxc would be good idea, but I don't buy the cards for my workplace...
Using adapters won't be possible in the future for SRMemory or AXSM.

ExpressCard slots were only ever found on 15-inch and 17-inch MBPs. Now all new Macs have Thunderbolt, so for $174 you can get an Echo Pro and read cards at full speed on any Mac whenever you care to.

For many professionals, putting small form factor over functionality (also cooling, which leads to noise) is negative development. And there's no proof that Apple's bigger profits return in better computers for professionals. Especially when more than 90% of profits come from iOS devices...

Regardless of the staggering amount of money Apple rakes in off of iOS devices, they are still the #3 PC manufacturer in the US, hold more than 5% of the global marketshare, and are far and away #1 when it comes to PC profit share. That's all just based on the Mac.

Most of us don't need uncompressed video.
And usb3 handles hd-sdi(1.4Gbps) well enough.
All other computer manufacturers had no problem with their product stacks.

I certainly prefer uncompressed video to drive a display. And other computer manufacturers' product stacks are the antithesis of Apple's. Apple only has 10 models in their line-up with a total of 29 distinct variants. If you don't see how this makes their decision making process different, then you're just being obtuse.

I wouldn't bet on 20Gbps in 2014 macs. Maybe there's tech, but cost might be too much. Going to optical 40Gb will be major PITA for cost effectiness. If first generations of LP would have lowered the cost of optical interconnect, this wouldn't be so hard.

Intermediate links doesn't change that overall bandwidth from/to computer is just one link's max bandwidth.

I'd be willing to bet on it. And the overall bandwidth is 20 Gbit/s, full-duplex for PCs with a single Thunderbolt port and 40 Gbit/s for those with two. In other words, a lot. More than any other PC I/O interface by a country mile.

Where are those TB-switches?

There's an 8-port Thunderbolt switch in every 4-channel Thunderbolt controller.

toke, you complain a lot about the shortcomings of the current Mac lineup. I don't see anything wrong with holding Apple to a high standard and constantly asking for more improvements. And not that the laziness or failures of others should exonerate Apple in any way, but who else is pushing the PC industry as hard as Apple right now? I do realize a fair number of creatives are switching to commodity PC's because of the lack of a solid Mac tower solution or compelling software to differentiate Mac OS, but have you used Windows 8 on a desktop machine? It is also less than stellar. I guess it's just that in the iOS vs Android religious war, there are a lot of devices that are giving Apple a serious run for their money. In the notebook, all-in-one and USFF arena though, who is making better gear than Apple at the moment?
 
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That's a non-answer. Even if relevant, it implies that peer-to-peer is uni-directional - if the peer is "up the line" it wouldn't work. (Unless it goes "down the line" to the T-Bolt controller on the mobo, which realizes that the target is "up the line" and reflects it back onto the wire.)

With a very literal reading of what I said yeah, I probably should have said "pass it along" or something similar.

Direct "any-peer to any-peer" capability would probably make the pass-through T-Bolt controllers much more expensive.

And if, from the point of view of the device, T-Bolt isn't strictly PCIe things won't work.

From the point of the controller it isn't.
 
PCIe absolutely does support peer-to-peer communication without traversing the root complex or touching system memory. Similarly, Thunderbolt also allows peer-to-peer, and all controllers are created equally. The host silicon is no different from the device silicon in most cases. This feature may not be frequently used in normal PCIe scenarios, but one fairly common example is for GPU compute: https://developer.nvidia.com/gpudirect

Thanks. Where can we find specs and descriptions of the virtual PCIe topology of a T-Bolt daisy chain? Is there something analogous to STP to create the virtual topology?

And I never mentioned the root complex - I was asking if the mobo T-Bolt controller needed to behave as a PCIe switch.
 

That sort of just reinforces my point though. Yes you can get mobile workstations with Quadro graphics, but aside from that what else can you get beyond what Apple offers?

The notable differences are that the screens are all 16:9, which is not an improvement. The 1680x1050 antiglare option on the 15-inch MBP or the 2880x1800 IPS on the MBPR both trump Lenovo's offerings.

You can get a Core i7-3920XM as a $750 option, which would be a bit silly.

Lenovo's storage options are appalling, but at least upgrading yourself is easy. Why are there any options besides 500 GB, 750 GB and 1TB 7200 RPM HDDs (OK so maybe a 5400 RPM 1 TB option since the Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000 only just hit the market) and 128, 256 and 512 GB SSDs with a solid 6 Gb/s controller for notebooks in this class?

There are 4 SODIMM slots, so you can install 32 GB of RAM, which is a legitimate difference.

You do have larger battery options.

And then there's the K1000M/K2000M GPUs which I already touched on and are essentially the same Kepler K107 hardware as the GeForce GT 650M, just with workstation drivers and 2GB of VRAM (although Lenovo doesn't mention whether it is DDR3 or GDDR5.

So is that worth toting a notebook 33% larger volumetrically than the heftiest MBP?

Thanks. Where can we find specs and descriptions of the virtual PCIe topology of a T-Bolt daisy chain? Is there something analogous to STP to create the virtual topology?

And I never mentioned the root complex - I was asking if the mobo T-Bolt controller needed to behave as a PCIe switch.

As subsonic mentioned, there's a PCIe switch in every Thunderbolt controller. Thunderbolt creates a more or less transparent link between the PCIe switches, so they behave as if they were directly connected to each other.
 
That sort of just reinforces my point though. Yes you can get mobile workstations with Quadro graphics, but aside from that what else can you get beyond what Apple offers?

The notable differences are that the screens are all 16:9, which is not an improvement. The 1680x1050 antiglare option on the 15-inch MBP or the 2880x1800 IPS on the MBPR both trump Lenovo's offerings.

You can get a Core i7-3920XM as a $750 option, which would be a bit silly.

Lenovo's storage options are appalling, but at least upgrading yourself is easy. Why are there any options besides 500 GB, 750 GB and 1TB 7200 RPM HDDs (OK so maybe a 5400 RPM 1 TB option since the Hitachi Travelstar 7K1000 only just hit the market) and 128, 256 and 512 GB SSDs with a solid 6 Gb/s controller for notebooks in this class?


There are 4 SODIMM slots, so you can install 32 GB of RAM, which is a legitimate difference.

You do have larger battery options.

And then there's the K1000M/K2000M GPUs which I already touched on and are essentially the same Kepler K107 hardware as the GeForce GT 650M, just with workstation drivers and 2GB of VRAM (although Lenovo doesn't mention whether it is DDR3 or GDDR5.

So is that worth toting a notebook 33% larger volumetrically than the heftiest MBP?



As subsonic mentioned, there's a PCIe switch in every Thunderbolt controller. Thunderbolt creates a more or less transparent link between the PCIe switches, so they behave as if they were directly connected to each other.

and the 95% Gamut display, 16x9 being the standard (1920x1080) and Matt, nice to see you discount any graphics which are important in a computer where they are non-replaceable, 20 hr battery life that in the real world drops to 17, express card, external power, 720p Camera with face tracking, finger print unlock, a VGA port (handy for me), internal RAID supported by Lenovo, mobile broadband this is a pro computer…

If you want sexy they also have that covered with the x1 Carbon.

When Apple EOL'd the 17" which was the last computer to have an express card slot they EOL'd the idea that MBP's are Pro. That is not to say that you cannot do professional work, but pro in the respect that you can buy a mobile power house and expect to keep it and have it expand and contract with your work. It's great for Apple bad for everyone else.

Personal rant: I use eSATA on the MP for external storage it's an industry standard and it's fast right now I have an eSATA express card that is no longer an option with a Mac which means that I'll get an Elite Book or one of thiose Lenovo's being that my portable will need replaced sooner than the MP..
 
It's dead...let it die. With the improvements coming to USB3, there is no reason to adopt TB for a majority of hardware vendors. USB3 is cheap, fast, getting faster, and supports waaaaay more devices than the handful of TB items out there.

We can ship TB to the Island of Misfit Technologies where it can run and play with OpenDoc, Pippin, Taligent, Pink, and Copland.


-P

hmm.. improvements coming to USB3.... I'm not saying anything.....

quoted from the 'Front Page'.... all these points are basically undeniably true....

Firewire was not a flop and if Thunderbold does as well as Firewire is then I'll be a very happy Mac user for the forseeable future. Thanks to Firewire, Macs have been able to do things PC users could only dream of.
Thanks to FW the original iPod loaded music at least 10 times as fast as USB1, and was able to charge the battery in no-time.
Thanks to FW external harddrives have been constantly at least twice as fast as their contemporary USB counterparts, until the adoptation of extrnal SSDs attached to USB3.
Thanks to FW there's been bus powered external harddrives, many many years before USB could handle that.
Thanks to FW we could hook up digital videocameras years before those with USB.
Thanks to low latency FW with priority traffic FW enabled audio and video hardware that could never be attached to anything USB.
Thanks to FW we could daisy chain external units like harddrives, CD/DVD-burners, videocameras and a whole world of audio and video gear that USB users to this day can only dream of.
Thanks to FW we can target boot our Macs. That's something that USB will never be able to do.
Thanks to FW we could have our peripherals in another room, supporting cable lenghts of 100s of feet far beyond the range of USB.

Most of these features are replicated with Thunderbolt but not challenged by USB3 like much longer cable length, much higher bandwidth, lower latency, daisy chaining and target mode, and more electrical power. And Thunderbolt adds a lot of features to FireWire that's not supported by USB3, like monitor support, external PCIe expansion and protocol agnosticity.

Stuff we'll never see on USB are 4K (aka Retina) displays, 10 Gb Ethernet-ports (or multiple Gbit Eth) and bidirectional 10 Gb links is just the _first_ implementation of Thunderbolt. This technology is actually designed for 100 Gbps so it has room to grow.

So, no, it's just not designed to support the stuff like external harddrives so if that's your narrow scope of problems, USB is the solution.
 
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