This surprises me, and disappoints me as something they didn't fix with the 3.0 spec. Was the "additional" (even if negligible) CPU overhead of USB reduced with 3.0?
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.
USB Finalizes 10Gbps SuperSpeed+ Standard as USB 3.1
- Thread starter MacRumors
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
too bad iphone uses the lightning port, i hope they switch to usb, usb is much better at data transfers.
Game over, Thunderbolt!
Go away and die, nobody wants you!
----------
Yeah, you use Thunderbolt. That expensive useless ****. 40 bux a cable? lol. You can afford it, you're a pro.
Go away and die, nobody wants you!
----------
Yeah, you use Thunderbolt. That expensive useless ****. 40 bux a cable? lol. You can afford it, you're a pro.
I haven't read anything about Display, is USB 3.1 including display abilities? Remember it takes more than bandwidth. By combining DisplayPort with Thunderbolt, TB allows a direct link to your graphics card, along with more than enough bandwidth to support USB devices, ethernet, etc.
If USB 3.1 includes some technology for Display that'd be great but I haven't heard that? I did some googling and didn't find anything. It just appears to be a yet-faster iteration of USB, which doesn't have the ability to carry a display signal. And USB has never been anywhere close to it's theoretical speeds so it would be a little 'cramped' for an external GPU. Thunderbolt actually does run at 10gbps and is limited in the eGPU spectrum. USB 3.1 is likely to only be 60-70% of it's advertised speed (if it follows the pattern of it's predecessors) which will never be enough.
Which, by the way, is something else that is being overlooked. When USB 2.0 came out (480mbps) they said it would kill FireWire (400mbps). But, as it turned out, despite USB 2.0's 80 meg edge in theoretical speed, FireWire was actually still faster when transferring data, so it remained the De Facto standard for pro level external storage. (Followed by FireWire 800). That's because FireWire ran at 400mbps, and USB 2.0 ended up running closer to 300~350mbps. USB 3.0 also runs slower than it's 5Gbps promised speed but Thunderbolt runs at full speed. This is because of overhead and a lot of other disadvantages (disadvantages in performance but advantages in compatibility and cost, so it's worth it) to USB. So, this really is not a case where USB is going to be as fast OR as capable as Thunderbolt. It's just a case where USB is getting faster.
You seem to forget that it is USB IS the data method of transfer for lightning AND it isn't the data bus that is the bottleneck on most consumer devices, but rather it is the relatively "slow" flash memory within the device that is the bottleneck. Just because you use USB 3.0, won't necessarily cause the data to transfer faster if the device on the other end can't write faster than USB 2.0....
----------
Exactly! So you could use a relatively latency prone USB to HDMI/VGA/DVI cable, but not only will it be slower (and not GPU accelerated), but it will hog a LOT of the USB 3.0 (and 3.1) bandwidth!
In Thunderbolt, it is GPU accelerated and the Video is separate from the Data bandwidth! You get your cake and eat it too (but yes you have to pay for it)
Too bad Target Disk Mode is not possible (yet?) with USB...
It's one of the handy little things of a Mac.
It's one of the handy little things of a Mac.
You don't know that TB2's whole idea is to combine those 2 streams to one, so that each stream can "borrow" the other stream when needed?
I gave you a name; Displaylink and even straight URL and you still can't find anything? Have you heard about Wikipedia? Need new goggles?
Displaylink is nothing new, it have existed with usb2 and usb3. 3.1 just gives more speed enabling bigger resolution, faster refresh and less latency. It has always worked with idea that signal is compressed from USB and uncompressed only at display, so it won't eat so much bandwidth.
Or buy a thunderbolt adapter
----------
In a perfect world everyone would support Thunderbolt because it is inherently better in every way to USB.
If all PC manufactures settled on 1 standard to support (ala Thunderbolt) and not USB. We would see thunderbolt costs start faling quickly and really cool things like daisy chaining and external gpu's would be available to all consumers not just pros. Benefits all, but nope instead we are gonna be stuck with a ****** outdated standard of USB because companies are not willing to agree on a set of standards.
Last edited:
i hope smartphone manufacturers adapt this technology as soon as it's available, 2014 doesn't seems too far away, but it all depends on when will the manufacturers start using this tech in their products and they often delay new tech until it's becomes a bit cheaper.
Out of interest, have you seen any direct Thunderbolt > USB 3.0 adaptors? I've not seen any that arent part of a (very expensive) dock.Or buy a thunderbolt adapter
Wont happen as long as Apple are partially in control of it. Other tech companies wont pay the license fee for a start, plus they know how unreliable Apple are when it comes to working with others.
Yep. But it wont happen. Dont forget we've got AMD to throw into the mix - Thunderbolt only works on Intel. There are also very few thunderbolt devices out there, so no manufacturer with any sense will invest in Thunderbolt
Yep, sadly you are correct.
The only way Thunderbolt will ever make it into mainstream use is if:
1) They dropped the license fee
2) They opened the 'committee' up to other companies
3) They bridged it with USB 3.1 to offer plug and play the same way USB does
4) They get power working over it.
USB cant die, the lack of power over Thunderbolt is a much bigger problem than you may think.
. I'm claiming bull on this one. Prove it. Credible sources such as Anandtech have stated just the opposite. I can site numerous sites that state the opposite so you'll need to prove yourself.
You're probably trolling, but here's what we know:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)#Thunderbolt_2
http://blogs.intel.com/technology/2...ndwidth-enabling-4k-video-transfer-display-2/
Especially:
http://blogs.intel.com/technology/files/2013/06/TBT-pic-300x102.png
Nobody can prove anything yet, since TB2 doesn't yet exist.
I'm not trolling. You proved nothing. Your comment about stealing streams came from my point about how the video is separate from the data stream. I said prove that.
My comment:
In Thunderbolt, it is GPU accelerated and the Video is separate from the Data bandwidth! You get your cake and eat it too (but yes you have to pay for it)
Your direct response:
You don't know that TB2's whole idea is to combine those 2 streams to one, so that each stream can "borrow" the other stream when needed?
So your comment was basically to say that the video steals from the Data bandwidth. It does NOT. The two are separate.
Yes we all know that Thunderbolt 2 is nothing more than taking the 4 data streams (two up and down down) and combining this into one. This has NOTHING to do with the video stream that is included in Thunderbolt.
Edit: I think you are really confused on what those graphics you linked to are showing. They are solely about the data bandwidth. It isn't 1 stream is data and one is video, it is two data streams. They don't even represent the video stream.....
Ubelievable.
You don't understand that nobody can prove how a product works before it's released?
About mixing 10G data stream and 10G video stream:
"Thunderbolt 2 enables channel aggregation, whereby the two previously separate 10 Gbit/s channels can be combined into a single logical 20 Gbit/s channel."
These 10G channels are data and video.
" It is achieved by combining the two previously independent 10Gbs channels into one 20Gbs bi-directional channel that supports data and/or display. Current versions of Thunderbolt, although faster than other PC I/O technologies on the market today, are limited to an individual 10Gbs channel each for both data and display, less than the required bandwidth for 4K video transfer."
Is there anything that you can't understand above?
Think about it: Where do you plug that Lightning cable in your Mac? Do you plug it into the Lightning port? No, you don't, because there is no Lightning port on the Mac. Do you plug it into the USB port? Yes, that's where you put it!
----------
The license fee is quite trivial. A simple hub priced up to a three digit price won't get more affordable and mainstream if you drop a one dollar license fee. (And I'm not claiming that the license fee is that high).
3 Gbps is still fast enough for single hard drives, and is comparable to SATA at 3 Gbps. That is fast enough for most consumers. "Most consumers" is where most of the industry is right now, including Apple.
I am curious about the latency issue. At one time, FW audio multichannel ADC boxes were common, but, it seems like everybody decided USB 2.0 was good enough after all. Apparently they didn't care as much about latency as they thought they would?
Read a little about USB 3.1. The USB 3.1 "Promoter Group" itself is estimating late 2014 for the earliest products to begin to appear, with broad adoption in 2015.
http://ces.cnet.com/8301-34437_1-57562283/double-speed-usb-3.0-to-arrive-next-year/
Typically a group like that is going to paint a rosy picture, so it could well take longer than that before this becomes mainstream.
Even if Apple decides to be very aggressive (unlikely, IMO), Q2 2014 is very unlikely. I'd say late 2015 if they decide to be agressive.
yea, sure..The industry wide adoption of TB sure would indicate that right, I mean PC OEM's with their dual and quad socket workstations all have TB right. There is a S*** ton of pro peripherals on TB right.
Perhaps you talking out of your 4th point of contact??
What surprises me a bit, is that macworld didn't test speeds even with simplest way with 2 external storages. Anybody seen that kind of test?
You are correct about the video signal being part of the total bandwidth. BUT.
Remember that the channels are bi-directional. It's 20Gbps in BOTH directions.
With thunderbolt 2 this will allow you to transfer 4k video data from a camera etc, while also displaying a 4k video signal at the same time. All over one cable. This is rather impressive.
Last edited:
I'm aware of that.
But the original claim was that you can't choke video with other data and vice versa, since they have different pipes. It ain't so anymore with TB2. And I guess there's need for this bandwidth "borrowing". In some initial hands on tests (was it anandtech?) they were able to stutter audio with heavy data traffic to RAID box.
Of course these problems should be handled with data prioritizing ie. traffic shaping, but the underlying question still remains: when video data traffic is always the most rapidly growing, is it wise to mix it with all other data?
If you want to connect a laptop with TB to all-things-ever, you still need power cable also. Now usb3.1 handles data and power with single cable.
Maybe it would have been a lot wiser to keep DP and TB separate and add power to TB. Then you'd still need the same amount (2) of cables. Now TB will always be one generation behind when DP has new revision.
(Yep, Sony did this years ago combining Light Peak with usb, but they were arrogant enough not to negotiate about this with usb Forum.)
I'd guess there will be new version of DP very soon, since current version will be 4 years old in December and 4k displays are coming down with their prices. Current DP version can transfer 17.28 Gbit/s. 3840 × 2160 × 30 bpp @ 60 Hz is 21.39 Gbit/s and 16.00 Gbit/s with reduced blanking. If we want real DCI-4k it would have to be 4096 px wide, so the numbers would be 22.82 and 17.07 Gbit/s. And if there will come 16:10 screens the numbers are again a bit higher. All these are so close to the theoretical max, that there will be problems to make these work and there could also be some additional data on AUX and audio channel. Also Rec.2020 and h.265 are already planning to implement 12bit colors. And there's Multi-Stream Transport for daisy-chaining displays and we shouldn't forget 3D.
So, I'd guess that we have a new version of display port even before TB2 ships. And this new DP version might be in TB specs sometimes in around 2017 with shipping products? I think by that time Apple has decided to jump off the wagon or they have a genuine DP port next to TB port in new macs. I wouldn't be surprised that macs in 2017 had only 2 ports DP and usb3.1.
Risc cpu's were nice at one time and so was rambus. Anyway they lost...