?Thunderbolt pci-e card for cMP?

[Philocetes]

I have done some searching here for thunderbolt discussion, but did not find an answer. Basically wondering if there is a thunderbolt pci-e card that will work in 2010-2012 mac pro?

The mac forums say no, but we do have some things here that mac says are not possible. My understanding thus far is that thunderbolt is a cpu-motherboard technology, but still hoping there is a pci-e card that can fill this role.

Any information is much appreciated. Thanks.

 

[scott.n]

No, not possible.

 

[rawweb]

I have done some searching here for thunderbolt discussion, but did not find an answer. Basically wondering if there is a thunderbolt pci-e card that will work in 2010-2012 mac pro?

The mac forums say no, but we do have some things here that mac says are not possible. My understanding thus far is that thunderbolt is a cpu-motherboard technology, but still hoping there is a pci-e card that can fill this role.

Any information is much appreciated. Thanks.

Why do you need thunderbolt for a cMP? It has PCIe slots. I bet whatever you think you need thunderbolt for can be accomplished with the PCIe slots.

 

[rodedwards]

Why do you need thunderbolt for a cMP? It has PCIe slots. I bet whatever you think you need thunderbolt for can be accomplished with the PCIe slots.

I think Thunderbolt is controlled via motherboard so cannot be added to classic Mac Pro. I tried, but ended up using a pcie USB 3 card, which is great. Got it off Amazon ... Think it was Imation or similar. Go for 5 slots not two like i did.

Occasionally, some peripherals don't work when using pcie usb 3 - like my Drobo 3rd Gen. So just initially use USB 2 from non pcie slot and then everything seems to work once it's activated.

I think the latest USB 3 is as fast or maybe faster than Thunderbolt anyways and far more universal. I'm surprised Apple don't fade out the expensive Thunderbolt as 'it ain't all that.'

 

[deconstruct60]

I have done some searching here for thunderbolt discussion, but did not find an answer. Basically wondering if there is a thunderbolt pci-e card that will work in 2010-2012 mac pro?

No. Thunderbolt cards generally require three connections. PCI-e , DisplayPort, and an appropriate GPIO. The vast majority of motherboards (both Apple's cMP era and most older as well as current, mainstream ) do not have the GPIO connection. There has been some slack granted by Intel on whether a DisplayPort is necessary ( on some iGPU-less Xeon E5 set-ups have been given a psss in some relatively recent ). But the motherboard has to be designed explicitly for Thunderbolt and pass TB certification.

Basically all motherboards that predate Thunderbolt ( ~2011) cannot. Period. The cMP design dates from 2008-2009. Even after 2011 it is still a very narrow subset. Thunderbolt support has to be built into the motherboard itself. Period.

Thunderbolt is not simply "external PCI-e". So a PCI-e slot, soely by itself, is insufficient to provide a solution.

 

[Philocetes]

Why do you need thunderbolt for a cMP? It has PCIe slots. I bet whatever you think you need thunderbolt for can be accomplished with the PCIe slots.

I do audio recording and newer interfaces are coming out that use thunderbolt. I can't think of anything else of interest to me. I will note that I just installed a pci-e card that has 4 usb 3.0 interfaces, so anything I buy will be usb based.

Thanks, folks, for the explanations. It is has I thought, but just wanted to make sure I had all the information I could.

PS. I couldnt' find this subject when I did a search of posts, but now that I have a thread, I see a number of similar threads in the similar thread list...