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Thunderbolt

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Re: Thunderbolt

#31

Post by rythie »

yread wrote: post #28
hop wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB2 and FireWire were close to the same speed. Thunderbolt is twice as fast as USB3 and can push DisplayPorts, so I doubt it will be the same.

Yes, but 1) USB3 has a 1 year lead - check out how many products are out already 2) 5Gbps vs 10Gbps. There are just a couple of SSDs that need SATA III (6Gbps) because the 3Gbps isn't enough. You just don't need the speed for disk I/O. What for then? Current DisplayPorts 1.2 has 17Gbps so I don't really see the Thunderbolt replacing it. also Firewire 800 was substantially faster in theoretical and particularly in pra…

Firewire was 400MBits for 5 years before USB2 was released (USB1 was only 12MBits). Look who won that one.

Re: Thunderbolt

#32

Post by sudont »

_delirium wrote: post #5

Pleasantly surprised that it's backwards-compatible with the mini-DisplayPort. Was expecting another round of buying dongles.

Since there's only one port, you'll most likely need a splitter to use both the data and video simultaneously, unless you want your existing monitor to be at the end of the daisy chain. (DP was brought to market for terminal devices, not pass-through like Firewire, any Thunderbolt devices will most certainly have two ports.)

I assume most monitors will transition from DP to a Thunderbolt pass-through quickly, but in a daisy-chain situation, the monitor would be disconnected the least, meaning it would need to either be the first in line, or split off, allowing the other peripherals to be removed without re-connecting the monitor.

Re: Thunderbolt

#33

Post by pyre »

rythie wrote: post #31
yread wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but 1) USB3 has a 1 year lead - check out how many products are out already 2) 5Gbps vs 10Gbps. There are just a couple of SSDs that need SATA III (6Gbps) because the 3Gbps isn't enough. You just don't need the speed for disk I/O. What for then? Current DisplayPorts 1.2 has 17Gbps so I don't really see the Thunderbolt replacing it. also Firewire 800 was substantially faster in theoretical and particularly in pra…

Firewire was 400MBits for 5 years before USB2 was released (USB1 was only 12MBits). Look who won that one.

IIRC, it was because Intel made USB chipsets really cheap vs IEEE1394a (aka FireWire) chipsets.

Re: Thunderbolt

#34

Post by kbutler »

marknutter wrote: post #17

How long before we can buy external graphics cards that utilize thunderbolt? It'd save me the hassle of having to build gaming PCs every couple years.

If you're serious enough about your gaming hardware that you're currently building gaming PCs every couple of years, you're still going to be replacing your CPU and your graphics card every couple of years, whether graphics are inside the case or not.

Besides, Thunderbolt = 10 G_b_ps, PCIe x 16 = 8 G_B_ps. No idea on latency/transfers per second, though. (http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/index.htm, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PCI_Express)

Re: Thunderbolt

#35

Post by rudiger »

yread wrote: post #13

So the whole USB2.0/Firewire is going to repeat? Sigh.

Thunderbolt aims to replace nearly every kind of single-use connectors (HDMI, DisplayPort, eSATA, USB, Ethernet). Unifying the connector for displays, peripherals, network and power is a great idea, so I can't complain if they're going up against USB 3.0.

Re: Thunderbolt

#36

Post by pyre »

Is this peer-2-peer like FireWire was or it is a client-server model like USB? I see people talking about this being copper or fibre. If this is fibre, then it can't supply power to the device like USB? I don't see that catching on for most portable devices (e.g. hard drives). It's extremely convenient to just have one cable for a device that needs connectivity and power when it comes to portable devices.

Re: Thunderbolt

#37

Post by Anechoic »

tghw wrote: post #20
yread wrote: post #13

So the whole USB2.0/Firewire is going to repeat? Sigh.

Seriously. As a non-Mac user, I really can't see going out of my way to use anything other than USB at this point, especially with USB3 being in the same ballpark in terms of speed.

> especially with USB3 being in the same ballpark in terms of speed.

For some uses it's not just a matter of speed - USB2 and FW are similar in terms of speed but USB2 is pretty much unusable for multi-channel audio recording purposes.

Re: Thunderbolt

#38

Post by robin_reala »

sudont wrote: post #32
_delirium wrote: post #5

Pleasantly surprised that it's backwards-compatible with the mini-DisplayPort. Was expecting another round of buying dongles.

Since there's only one port, you'll most likely need a splitter to use both the data and video simultaneously, unless you want your existing monitor to be at the end of the daisy chain. (DP was brought to market for terminal devices, not pass-through like Firewire, any Thunderbolt devices will most certainly have two ports.) I assume most monitors will transition from DP to a Thunderbolt pass-through quickly, but in…

Display Port has allowed daisy chaining monitors since 1.2 at least, if not earlier back.

Re: Thunderbolt

#39

Post by robin_reala »

pyre wrote: post #36

Is this peer-2-peer like FireWire was or it is a client-server model like USB? I see people talking about this being copper or fibre. If this is fibre, then it can't supply power to the device like USB? I don't see that catching on for most portable devices (e.g. hard drives). It's extremely convenient to just have one cable for a device that needs connectivity and power when it comes to portable devices.

It’s copper, for the time being at least. Intel’s document says it can transmit up to 10W of power.

Re: Thunderbolt

#40

Post by Uchikoma »

rythie wrote: post #31
yread wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but 1) USB3 has a 1 year lead - check out how many products are out already 2) 5Gbps vs 10Gbps. There are just a couple of SSDs that need SATA III (6Gbps) because the 3Gbps isn't enough. You just don't need the speed for disk I/O. What for then? Current DisplayPorts 1.2 has 17Gbps so I don't really see the Thunderbolt replacing it. also Firewire 800 was substantially faster in theoretical and particularly in pra…

Firewire was 400MBits for 5 years before USB2 was released (USB1 was only 12MBits). Look who won that one.

I don't care who won, I like my FireWire CF card reader.
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