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Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

arstechnica.co.uk

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Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#141

Post by mikeash »

jawngee wrote: post #139
mikeash wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That only works in one direction. You can use it to connect FireWire devices to a computer with Thunderbolt, but you can't use it to connect Thunderbolt devices to a computer with FireWire. Contrast with USB. I can go out and buy a USB storage device brand new off the shelf in 2015, plug it into an iMac from 1998, and it will work. It will be slow but it will work out of the box.

He said he was "out of luck completely". He's not.

That comment is entirely about using newer peripherals with older computers. He is.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#142

Post by asdf99 »

pachydermic wrote: post #112
Roritharr wrote: post #53

I'm kinda disapointed about the whole Type-C scenario. Now when you've got a Type-C Port, you just don't know what it can do. It could be anything from a USB 2 Port, up to a USB 3.1 + 20A Power + Thunderbolt Port. You can't see this from looking at it, and Spec Sheets today have a problem of listing the version numbers of HDMI and DisplayPort Ports, I don't see them suddenly becoming very concise about this. The prom…

Good thing computer prices are so ruthlessly deflationary! It just doesn't really make sense to worry about this kind of stuff from a practical point of view. Sure, maybe it'll be a pain for historians and conservationists. But for everyone else, we'll just be constantly buying new computers anyways, right?

that's very similar the home computer boom. if you look at the offerings at the time, everyone was running in a different direction. so many wonders. and in the end, cheap and available won.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#143

Post by TazeTSchnitzel »

the8472 wrote: post #132
TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB 3.0 has DMA too.

But is that remote DMA? Controller/driver-managed DMA transfers in the fashion of "shovel the next X incoming kilobytes to this memory range" is not the same as arbitrary writes to host memory initiated by a device.

Ah, maybe it isn't, fair point.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#144

Post by jessaustin »

jordanthoms wrote: post #47
pgeorgi wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB Type C provides a standardized protocol for protocol negotiation. I assume that Thunderbolt uses that. It's already used in Type C to enable plugging in USB, chargers (PD spec), HDMI or DP adapters ( https://www.chromium.org/chromium-os/dingdong ) and I think even to route PCIe over Type C. Adding Thunderbolt to the mix shouldn't be too hard.

I think the issue is, that if you have a thunderbolt over USB-C display, and plug it into a normal USB-C port on your laptop (say the latest macbook), it won't work, since the laptop doesn't support the thunderbolt signaling. So it's a new point of confusion - USB devices which are physically compatible but not electrically. It's something that could possibly be solved through the markings on the devices etc and I st…

I don't think you're allowed to sell a device with a USB jack that won't work with USB, because the consortium has a trademark on it. Or perhaps you just can't advertise it as USB?

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#145

Post by jessaustin »

rikkus wrote: post #117
Already__Taken wrote: post #10

Seems to be trading all our different ports with the problem of having all levels of different cables? This port is going to be very expensive for the manufactures. If it does everything I'm going to need a bunch. Does anything stop OEMs making a row of identical ports that only 1 charges my laptop, only a couple take can use the fastest cable and I'm sure all sorts of potential shenanigans,

It's a good point. With my current USB devices, I know that the short cable will charge my phone properly and the long one won't. I know that I've seen a 'charge only' cable. I'm not sure this will be fixed with the newer USB standards.

In my experience, many micro-USB cables that won't charge simply have worn plugs. That is, if you wiggle it just right, it will charge, but when you leave it lying on the desk it won't. However a new cable of the exact same SKU will fit so tight you can hang the phone from a wall socket with it. I think this is good engineering, because something will wear out, and it's much less bother to replace a $2 cable than it is to fix a worn-out USB jack in your phone.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#146

Post by unfamiliar »

hendersoon wrote: post #126

Sadly, the blocker for external graphics isn't the power draw, it's that Intel steadfastly refuses to license Thunderbolt for external GPU enclosures. That's why you can't buy a macbook air and plug in a little $300 box with a GeForce 970 and play high-end games on it right now. There are no technical reasons why this won't work-- in fact, people have hacked together solutions that work great. Intel doesn't want to l…

I suspect this is because they think thunderbolt 1 and perhaps even 2 do not have the bandwidth to give satisfying graphics performance. This might change with thunderbolt 3.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#147

Post by the8472 »

lvh wrote: post #102
the8472 wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Considering the DMA vulnerabilities of thunderbolt, that's not too far off. At least until we have some sort of IOMMU-based hotplug device firewalls in our operating systems.

Isn't that already the case? Current-gen Intel and AMD platforms have IOMMUs; Linux supports them. Linux and Windows support disabling DMA without disabling the rest of e.g. Firewire.

That's for a specific firewire protocol.

Thunderbolt exposes PCIe-lanes, so you can pretty much attach any pcie-device that has drivers. If there are any drivers that do not use the IOMMU properly (just pass through everything?) then we're back to square one. And I don't think all drivers are iommu-aware.

The system should only hotplug devices/drivers with user approval.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#148

Post by stephenr »

grecy wrote: post #129

Given that it supports dual 4K displays at 60Hz with one cable, or a single 5K display at 60Hz with one cable, I think it's safe to say Apple are waiting for this to announce their new cinema display. Anyone think they'll pre-announce it at WWDC (like they did the Mac Pro)?

With any luck that will mean the return of a ~24" 4k screen along side a new ~27" 5k

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#149

Post by DannoHung »

wilsynet wrote: post #122
tw04 wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just so we're clear, you'd rather have to carry around 10 different dongles just so you can know, visually, what a port is capable of? I'm sorry - when I buy the laptop, I look at what the port can do, and I remember it. If I'm in a meeting and I have to use someone else's, I ask if they know. If they don't, I try it, and if it doesn't work, we move on. I can't come up with any scenario in which this is a bad thing,…

But he's OK that you can't tell USB v1 from USB v2 visually. Somehow he's able to discern or recall the date of manufacture but won't be able to remember that it's a Thunderbolt port.

They probably should come up with some way to simply mark things though, so you can easily tell by looking at what you're plugging in that everything is good.

Re: Thunderbolt 3 embraces USB Type-C connector, doubles bandwidth to 40Gbps

#150

Post by yellowapple »

DannoHung wrote: post #149
wilsynet wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But he's OK that you can't tell USB v1 from USB v2 visually. Somehow he's able to discern or recall the date of manufacture but won't be able to remember that it's a Thunderbolt port.

They probably should come up with some way to simply mark things though, so you can easily tell by looking at what you're plugging in that everything is good.

Many USB 3.0 ports have blue inner connectors to indicate that they're 3.0 ports, and some USB ports will have yellow connectors instead to indicate a variety of things (from better charging rate to supplying power even when the host device is powered off). I think the logical extension of this would be resistor-style color code bands to indicate different sets of functionality (yellow for Thunderbolt, red for charging, etc.).
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