Am i the only one who doesn't care about thunderbolt?

[mjsmke]

I know faster external connections are nice. But the hype is getting insane.

I only use external drives for backups so FW800 is fast enough for me. Ive never needed to daisy chain drives, i just make sure i have enough ports. Im always explaining to friends when you daisy chain several FW800 drives they cannot all run at 800Mb/s at the same time.

Does anyone else think thunderbolt is overhyped?

 

[miles01110]

Does anyone else think thunderbolt is overhyped?

It's Apple. By Apple standards, Thunderbolt is actually quite under-hyped.

 

[Tailpike1153]

TB's 10Gbps vs FW800's 3.2Gbps bandwidth. I guess the extra bandwidth has people geeked. And the possibilility of 100Gbps in next 10 years probably has people going as well

 

[IceMacMac]

It's still a few years away from making much difference. These new standards take time.

But yeah...I get excited about having a networked server that is capable of multi-stream HD editing in real time.

And I like the idea of thinner, lighter, fewer cables.

 

[GoCubsGo]

No you're not. I couldn't care less about it, right now.

 

[cube]

It is overhyped because it crippled DisplayPort. If it used a different, separate connector it would be OK.

 

[Transporteur]

Personally, I'd love to see third party PCIe Thunderbold cards, provided that they support ad-hoc connections to other computers.

A 10Gb connection to another computer for cheap, that would be awesome, cause 8Gb/s as well as 10GbE cost a fortune!

 

[mjsmke]

Personally, I'd love to see third party PCIe Thunderbold cards, provided that they support ad-hoc connections to other computers.

A 10Gb connection to another computer for cheap, that would be awesome, cause 8Gb/s as well as 10GbE cost a fortune!

A PCIe card would be nice. That way we all have a choice. The thought if having one port for multiple HDD's and monitors ect just seems silly to me. What happens if that one port has an issue? You cant even plug a monitor into the Mac to run a diagnostics test.

 

[Transporteur]

A PCIe card would be nice. That way we all have a choice. The thought if having one port for multiple HDD's and monitors ect just seems silly to me. What happens if that one port has an issue? You cant even plug a monitor into the Mac to run a diagnostics test.

One single port would indeed be silly, considering that you can only run two 30" screens from that single port, which would leave another ~3Gb/s for other peripherals.

That's why I think Apple will leave us the standard graphic outputs on graphics cards we've got today (for multi monitor purposes) + separate TB ports for peripherals.

 

[cube]

One single port would indeed be silly, considering that you can only run two 30" screens from that single port, which would leave another ~3Gb/s for other peripherals.

Thunderbolt is even worse. Similarly, you cannot run a single 30" deep color 3D monitor, or a single quad-HD monitor.

DisplayPort 1.2 can, and AMD already chips and cards with this tech, including the ones in the new MBP. They can run 4 or 6 monitors.

 

[Hellhammer]

One single port would indeed be silly, considering that you can only run two 30" screens from that single port, which would leave another ~3Gb/s for other peripherals.

Can you even run dual 30" via one TB port? What I've read, it has 10Gb/s for DisplayPort (DP 1.1a) and 10Gb/s for PCIe (so a total of 20Gb/s). A single 30" monitor with 2560x1600 @60Hz and 24-bit color needs 8.75Gb/s on its own. Two of them would require 17.5Gb/s and that is way over what DP 1.1 can provide.

 

[Transporteur]

Can you even run dual 30" via one TB port? What I've read, it has 10Gb/s for DisplayPort (DP 1.1a) and 10Gb/s for PCIe (so a total of 20Gb/s). A single 30" monitor with 2560x1600 @60Hz and 24-bit color needs 8.75Gb/s on its own. Two of them would require 17.5Gb/s and that is way over what DP 1.1 can provide.

I thought Apple's current TB implementation already uses the 1.2 standard (17GB/s).
Does it not?

Anyhow, even if it uses 1.2, the daisy chaining of 30" screens is still not applicable as of this date since there are no screens available that support this feature and neither are miniDP or TB hubs/switches available.

Given that the 30" development is really slow, it should take at least another year till such monitors show up. Most manufactures just updated their 30" line and the announced Samsung P850 doesn't even support display port if one can trust the rumours.

 

[Hellhammer]

I thought Apple's current TB implementation already uses the 1.2 standard (17GB/s).
Does it not?

Not according to Intel.

With Thunderbolt products, performance, simplicity and flexibility all come together. Users can add high-performance features to their PC over a cable, daisy chaining one after another, up to a total of 7 devices, 1 or 2 of which can be high-resolution DisplayPort v1.1a displays (depending on the controller configuration in the host PC).

http://www.intel.com/technology/io/thunderbolt/325136-001US_secured.pdf

 

[alust2013]

I like it just for the fact that it will support multiple displays out, something not possible with earlier models without laggy USB adapters. It's not perfect, but it is an improvement over just having a normal MDP

 

[Sodner]

At this point its pretty easy not to be to excited by thunderbolt. Only the newest MBP's have it (which i don't have) and there are no devices on the market yet. In a year it will be something. For now, eh...

 

[philipma1957]

At this point its pretty easy not to be to excited by thunderbolt. Only the newest MBP's have it (which i don't have) and there are no devices on the market yet. In a year it will be something. For now, eh...

This port has great possibilities. It really will make

iMacs

Mac minis

Macbook pros much better.


For mac pro users it is less important unless they sell pcie cards for it.

Or have 3 ports built in leaving the 4 pcie slots empty for other options.

Remember if it does not allow booting it is also not that big of a deal. Especially for the mac mini and the imac which right now do not have the ability to hang on a fast boot drive.

If this port allows booting it will allow a lot of options. just carry your boot drive from home to office have an iMac in each location. if you have to go on the road hook it up to an ipad.

 

[MacBookPr0]

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I don't really care yet because there aren't any devices that have the connection yet

 

[cube]

I like it just for the fact that it will support multiple displays out, something not possible with earlier models without laggy USB adapters. It's not perfect, but it is an improvement over just having a normal MDP

It is not an improvement, it is sandbagging. The MBPs support 2 displays, one of which is the built-in, when the graphics chips support 4 or 6 using normal DP 1.2.

 

[Hellhammer]

It is not an improvement, it is sandbagging. The MBPs support 2 displays, one of which is the built-in, when the graphics chips support 4 or 6 using normal DP 1.2.

Well, GPUs have supported multiple displays for ages but Apple has only supported one external display. For example the GPU in high-end iMac supports up to 6 displays but you can only use two with the iMac as it only has one video output.

Thunderbolt is still an improvement over the DP in previous gen MBPs. Besides, you can use more than one external with the new MBPs, provided that you get a hub or display which supports daisy-chaining (and neither of these exist yet) and don't go over the 10Gb/s limitation.

If you really want/need that many externals anyway, you are in the right forum, get yourself a Mac Pro. I don't even want to know how well Intel HD 3000 would run three external monitors for instance. People who would be limited by the 10Gb/s bandwidth wouldn't be pleased by the GPU performance in MBP anyway.

 

[JavaTheHut]

I only hope that the R&D dollars sunk into the project will not got to waste. It seems that Apple may have learn't in the past from the FW Bull by opening the MDP lic. to other manufactures although they should have opened it up years ago, example Display Port from other manufactures being larger requiring a adapter cable? One thing that seems unprofessional about the MDP/TB connection is it does not lock?

 

[Hellhammer]

It seems that Apple may have learn't in the past from the FW Bull by opening the MDP lic. to other manufactures although they should have opened it up years ago, example Display Port from other manufactures being larger requiring a adapter cable?

Actually, DisplayPort is not Apple's technology like FireWire is. Apple did, however, design the Mini DisplayPort but Apple has done the same with Mini-DVI and so on. MDP is also getting more popular all the time, e.g. most of the AMD 68xx GPUs come with two MDP ports (less models come with normal DP) and now that Thunderbolt uses MDP connector, it will be even more popular.

 

[Transporteur]

One thing that seems unprofessional about the MDP/TB connection is it does not lock?

Which connector does? Other than miniSAS, PCIe and ethernet, I don't know any connector that locks and I don't think that it is much of an issue on a desktop machine.
The miniDP port connection is very sturdy and pretty hard to disconnect by accident. I don't expect TB to be any different from this.

 

[JavaTheHut]

Which connector does? Other than miniSAS, PCIe and ethernet, I don't know any connector that locks and I don't think that it is much of an issue on a desktop machine.
The miniDP port connection is very sturdy and pretty hard to disconnect by accident. I don't expect TB to be any different from this.

Display Port http://images2.monoprice.com/productlargeimages/60063.jpg

It may be an issue (slim though) if you have multiple peripherals daisy chained together and your mucking about.

 

[JavaTheHut]

Actually, DisplayPort is not Apple's technology like FireWire is. Apple did, however, design the Mini DisplayPort but Apple has done the same with Mini-DVI and so on. MDP is also getting more popular all the time, e.g. most of the AMD 68xx GPUs come with two MDP ports (less models come with normal DP) and now that Thunderbolt uses MDP connector, it will be even more popular.

Your are right about DP not being Apples tech. It just seemed that when they came out with MDP it was not open tech immediately. I could be wrong?

I see multiple monitors NEC, Dell...etc using the DP but fail to see the MDP being used. Don't get me wrong I think MDP belongs in the future of computers interconnectivity - small and efficient.

 

[PenguinMac]

I only use external drives for backups so FW800 is fast enough for me.

eSATA is even more of a reason that Thunderbolt is less of an issue on Mac Pro's. Backing up my 10TB Mac Pro went from a 2-day process on FW800 to about 12 hours with eSATA. But remember that Thunderbolt is a true 10Gbs each way interface - I've never gotten over 40MBs with FW800 or 120MBs with eSATA (1Gbs I think?), so Thunderbolt could lower my backup times to a few hours.