Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air • Hacker News Board

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#91

Post by beedogs » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 7:08 AM UTC

wklauss wrote: post #64

ChikkaChiChi wrote: post #47

Let's be honest: The Thunderbolt ecosystem is tragic. - We're only now seeing the first docks come available. It only took Belkin an extra year to develop it. - The hopes and dreams of internal buses being used outside the standard case is still only a dream unless you are willing to pay extreme premiums. Even then there is still no native solution for video. - I still need a special cord from Apple to run Dual-link.…

Apple also supports USB 3.0. go nuts with it if thats what you want, but they are not madefor the same kind of applications. For some professional enviroments Apple still considers Thunderbolt to be useful. Its sad that they are the only ones thinking this way becouse it truly is a good solution and having more brands on board will probably push the price of cables and docks down, but if we are going to point fingers…

Considering Intel forced them to use it as a condition of going with a complete platform solution for Apple hardware, it's not a bad idea to point a great deal of the blame at them.

But it's been nearly three goddamned years and the uptake on Thunderbolt is nothing short of pathetic; some of the blame has got to rest with Apple.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#92

Post by beedogs » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 7:10 AM UTC

ssafejava wrote: post #89

venus wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> $300 MSRP is a just a little ridiculous Is it? Sounds pretty normal to me. Belkin is a pretty good brand and charges accordingly. Like Apple, really. I think that for their target market $300 won't be a barrier at all. In fact after checking it out I'm pretty tempted...

$300 is about 3 times what it should be, in my opinion. It's not much more than a fancy USB hub with audio & a NIC. USB 3.0 hubs with NICs are about $50-60, or one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper. Even worse, the price is not really $300 - in order to use it, you'll need a thunderbolt cable which is nearly $40 (!). There ar…

The cable costs $40 because there are two discrete processors at either end. Intel charges about $20 each for those processors. The margins on Thunderbolt cables are probably a lot worse than you'd think.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#93

Post by glogla » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:05 AM UTC

baddox wrote: post #54

glogla wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$250 is too low. But the whole setup with MBA with 512 GB SSD, 8 GB RAM and i7 CPU, the GPU and then the $250 in parts is not only enough money for powerful desktop computer, it is enough money for cheaper MBA variant and then powerful desktop computer.

But then you don't have a Macbook Air for when you want a great portable OS X machine with excellent battery life.

You would have Macbook Air, just not one with 512 GB SDD.

Of course, from the MBA with 512 GB SSD we can assume the OP has unlimited amount of money :)

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#94

Post by epsylon » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 9:48 AM UTC

AsymetricCom wrote: post #78

wcfields wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Something Awful's Hardware/Software forum has a huge thread on SSDs. The thread name is pretty explicit of what NOT to use: "The SSD Megathread - Don't buy OCZ or Crucial drives, read the OP!" http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=345... To summarize if you don't have an account: I don't want to read anything just tell me what SSD to buy! (last updated: 07/25/2013) The Mushkin Enhanced Chronos Delu…

Funny, my 520 got flaky after 6 months and failed after 2 years.

Anecdotal evidence. No manufacturer has a 0% defect rate.

Still, the return rates (for some online retailers but they are probably generalizable) have shown that Intel and Samsung are your best options.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#95

Post by glogla » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 10:14 AM UTC

mosselman wrote: post #61

mosselman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am a developer and I prefer developing on my macbook by FAR over windows and I prefer it a lot over Ubuntu et al. Right now I still have my desktop PC taking up space and clutering my desk just so that I can play a few games. I'd rather sell it and for less than what I get for the whole thing buy a thunderbolt GPU and game that way. Your argument is invalid and only considered from a 'I want to game' point of view,…

@bryanlarsen and @infinita740 I don't agree and I think you lack imagination. My computer case is still a lot bigger than such a setup would be. I do agree to an extent with Bryan, saying that one could get a small case and put a computer in there, but then I'd have 2 things to keep up to date (and pay for). My Macbook has 16GB of memory and an i5 processor. My Desktop has an i5 as well and 8GB of memory plus some ha…

While both laptop and desktop may have i5, the desktop i5 should be about 50 % faster on single threaded tasks, and almost three times faster on multi threaded tasks. Of course, you won't notice that when browsing or doing similar light tasks, but otherwise, three times difference is huge. It means waiting 20 minutes for video to transcode instead of hour, for example. When doing data crunching or building big software, desktops are really useful.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#96

Post by Freaky » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 10:29 AM UTC

StavrosK wrote: post #83

AsymetricCom wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny, my 520 got flaky after 6 months and failed after 2 years.

I have an Intel (not sure which model, X-25M? Does that exist?) I got in 2009, it started failing last year (SMART warned me). I emailed Intel about it and they asked me to send them SMART results, I did, they told me to mail them the drive, I backed everything up just fine and sent it in, and a (hellish, HDD-slow) week later I got a brand new one. Restored the data, it's still going like a champ.

> not sure which model, X-25M? Does that exist?

Yup, famous for being pretty much the first range of affordable SSDs that didn't suck.

The year before you'd be lucky to get more than double digit random writes/sec with anything. One OCZ I tried around that time couldn't even get past one digit - it managed something like 6 writes/second. Then the X-25M/E, came out and suddenly we get tens of thousands.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#97

Post by lechevalierd3on » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 11:56 AM UTC

extra88 wrote: post #80

wcfields wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ugh, don't get me started on the $300 Belkin Docks. ($250 for the Matrox DS1 / $400 for the Sonnet Echo 15!) I feel like I'm living in the early days of VHS (USB3) vs. BetaMax (ThunderBolt) right now: Expensive, and while BetaMax is technically better, VHS will win on price & availability.

I'm waiting for the $200 CalDigit Station. No FireWire port but multiple USB3 and you can attach 2 monitors, 1 HDMI & 1 Mini DisplayPort.

Still a bit pricy.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#98

Post by commandar » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 1:43 PM UTC

beedogs wrote: post #92

ssafejava wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

$300 is about 3 times what it should be, in my opinion. It's not much more than a fancy USB hub with audio & a NIC. USB 3.0 hubs with NICs are about $50-60, or one could easily use a regular USB 3.0 hub and attach a USB NIC, sound card, etc. Perhaps not as clean but a hell of a lot cheaper. Even worse, the price is not really $300 - in order to use it, you'll need a thunderbolt cable which is nearly $40 (!). There ar…

The cable costs $40 because there are two discrete processors at either end. Intel charges about $20 each for those processors. The margins on Thunderbolt cables are probably a lot worse than you'd think.

It doesn't matter why the cable is $40, just that you need a $40 cable to use a $300 dock.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#99

Post by extra88 » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 2:39 PM UTC

lechevalierd3on wrote: post #97

extra88 wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm waiting for the $200 CalDigit Station. No FireWire port but multiple USB3 and you can attach 2 monitors, 1 HDMI & 1 Mini DisplayPort.

Still a bit pricy.

Compared to what, USB3 DisplayLink docks? $200 is competitive with dual video DisplayLink docks and can out-perform them in video display (not to mention OS X support for DisplayLink sucks). It can also daisy chain other Thunderbolt devices that can out-perform the USB3 devices you could use on a DisplayLink dock.

Re: Attaching a Thunderbolt GPU to a Macbook Air

#100

Post by ChikkaChiChi » Wed, Jul 31, 2013, 5:56 PM UTC

extra88 wrote: post #99

lechevalierd3on wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Still a bit pricy.

Compared to what, USB3 DisplayLink docks? $200 is competitive with dual video DisplayLink docks and can out-perform them in video display (not to mention OS X support for DisplayLink sucks). It can also daisy chain other Thunderbolt devices that can out-perform the USB3 devices you could use on a DisplayLink dock.

To be fair to Apple, DisplayLink kind of sucks on everything.