Alleged MacBook Pro pictures reveal Apple's high-speed 'Thunderbolt' port - Page 4

Perhaps ThunderBolt is the name of the not so light "Copper LightPeak". Thunder can be guided with copper while Light needs optical cables.

LightPeak has never been about replacing other standards (at least not in the first round). It's been about running all standards over the same cable. So theoretically those USB ports we see there, wouldn't need to be there if they all branched out in a ThunderBolt HUB with multiple inputs.

Anyways, let's hope it'll stick around.

To the best of my knowledge Intel has neither launched or announced a 2nd generation Core i5 processor at 2.3 Ghz.. I don't believe this is real, and I would be shocked to see no SSD boot drive on all the models. The mini display port also functioning as Light-Peak, IMO is a stupid move what about external display, projectors, etc. if you need to use your Light-Peak accessory, assuming there will be any during the products lifetime with a mini display port connector other than maybe iOS devices..

If this is real -- HOW STUPID THAT THE USB IS NOT 3.0!!! Same comment about FireWire not being bumped to 1600 if they are going to still ship the port!!!

It would make more sense to have five Thunderbolts and cheap adapters...

But Apple having cheap adapters is as likely as Apple licensing OS X, it seems

Blame Intel.


LightPeak is 10x faster than FireWire 1600. You'll live.

I would love to see how fanboys like you will explain that this supposed upgrade is a major one

Sounds like a drag name.

That was for the low quality scores. When they bumped up to medium quality, Sandy Bridge was slower than the 320M and 5450. They got an unplayable frame rate from Mafia 2, which would suggest 20FPS whereas the 320M manages close to 30FPS also Notebookcheck couldn't even get the game to run at all.

The main concern is that Intel has now locked people back into the same cycle of empty promises and lower quality graphics performance. With the Ivy Bridge die shrink, they could have made a huge increase but they are obviously focusing on getting everyone on quad-core CPUs and it seems they plan to increase from 12 to 16 EUs and not 24, which means just 30% increase in performance.

So basically, games like Mafia 2 will be playable next year. Apple's decision here can't just be to do with cost because Asus have a 2.66GHz i5 with a 1GB Geforce 540M for $700:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16834115987

Apple charge $1000 for just an Intel IGP and a slower i5. There's no reason for them to choose to give poor quality chips to people buying a Macbook 'Pro'. Why put a DVD drive in there over a dedicated GPU?

I'm ok with the name Thunderbolt for the new connection though. It's not as good as Firewire but it works and gets across the impression of speed. If they use an optical connection (which the name would imply) then they might have a faster connection than Light Peak, which comes in a copper implementation first.

It does seem odd why they'd put this new feature on the laptops alongside ethernet and FW800 though.

I was hoping that SL would actually use GPU to some task as was advertised by SJ. However, it turns out that it was just a hype and nothing significant has ever happened. I also don't expect this will change in Lion OS X, otherwise SJ would have proudly touted it as a distinct feature of the Lion OS X. May be Apple has realized that they can't do much with GPU, that's why apparently there is no discrete GPU in the upcoming 13" MBP. SB graphics could, in the best case, match up to nVidia 320 GPUs, but they can never outperform it. This actually gives a clear hint that idea of utilizing GPUs as coprocessors hasn't taken off and that why Apple is again coming back to CPUs.

Yes. http://www.9to5mac.com/53346/low-end...410m-processor

Right?! Why would Apple invest in some 3rd-party Toshiba controllers for USB3.0 when they have a better solution that also works with the USB protocol? Obviously they wouldnt.

somehow I dont see Apple putting a LIGHTNING BOLT as the symbol for a port seeing as it looks like a fraking POWER ADAPTER PORT

This is a long post, but I want to introduce (for those not already aware) the viewpoint from a video professional perspective.

Concerns about the MBP line for Video/Film professionals is a much more critical discussion since we buy the vast majority of high-end custom MBP's.

Personally I like the ThunderBolt connection in theory since it can handle the bandwidth needed for multiple connection types with ease and has a great upgrade path to make it future proof.

MBP's are used pimarily in conjunction with a couple of I/O devices used for video/film manufactured by AJA and Matrox. These devices are EXTREMELY bandwidth heavy. i.e. my AJA I/O HD requires all the bandwidth on a FW port and bus. Nothing else can be connected to the same bus. At the same time, drive speed requirements to work in HD and 2K resolutions are very high - the very baseline of which is FW800 7200RPM SATA external drives. When using my AJA, I utilize the Express 34 port to use faster eSATA RAID drives which provide me with sufficient bandwidth for all but the most bandwidth-hungry uncompressed 12-bit HD/2K video.

The adoption of a new high-speed connection is very enticing indeed since video professional for years have been communicating with Apple to ensure their MBP lines include a true PRO option. In the redesign for '08 there was an outcry when it was declared that the 15" model would no longer be a true PRO design in the elimination of the Express 34 slot. I prefer the 17" models, but the smaller form factor of the 15" is widely needed for on-the-go professionals for whom a 17" is to weighty. Apple ignored these pleas and basically has made the 15" MBP into a consumer platform with integrated graphics and an SD slot - Yuk! There are workflows that utilize SD, but that is only for file transfers and not for direct editing so it's hardly a feature professionals desired above the Express 34 slot.

Last year I upgraded my original MBP Intel Core Duo 2.16 after a solid 4.5 years of use. It was a fantastic machine with FW800 as well as FW400 ports on separate busses (at least it operated as if it were) that allowed me to hook everything up as I needed since the AJA is designed to also work through dedicated FW400. I upgraded to the i7 2.66 MBP reluctant to give up the extra FW port and the full DVI port (which allows for true color correction suitable for broadcast and film calibration). However the enticement of the new processors was at the heart of my decision.

Since then, I've enjoyed the speed increase and extra RAM as well as a larger system HDD, however, I find my workflow is more difficult since I have to arrange everything just-so in order to switch between utilizing either my AJA or Matrox products. Ideally I need both working together since one is useful for I/O capture and the other is needed for H.264 faster than real-time encoding.

As the MBP line evolves, I am keeping a close watch for indicators of when it could be time to simply drop the MBP from my studio entirely. I work with OSX and Windows 7 Ultimate and the fact I can use both with bootcamp makes the MBP and Mac computers in general the best of the best. However, with Adobe's CS5 Creative Suite, I can work equally well and at times better than I can with the FCS2 suite. By switching to Adobe and Avid, I can find a laptop solution which will provide me with everything a desktop replacement should be. For years before 2006, I used HP laptops with great success and will return to Windows products if Apple continues to consumerize their Pro line of laptops.

What I really want as an option is where I can connect FW and eSATA without need of a third-party card to do so. It seems a no-brainer since the MBP's now utilize only a portion of the SATA connections available and I'd gladly sacrifice two of the USB ports for eSATA ports (four would be ideal, but I'd go for two). Currently I use a self powered 7-port USB hub anyway - I only need one or at most two USB ports for peripherals and backup/transfrer storage. I'd also readily give up the internal DVD drive since I have an external BR burner that far exceeds the specs of the pitiful 8x DVD burner.

I personally would be willing to pay up to an extra $1K premium for the features I need. Apple really needs to adopt a better strategy in working with it's pro customers or risk defection to Windows and Adobe. I hope they are listening, but all pleas seem to fall on deaf ears... to their peril.

Thunderbolt name might be a problem. There's a new HTC phone out called "Thunderbolt". Apple using Thunderbolt technology to sync the iPhone would be too close for comfort.

GPU computing on OS X is not really taking off yet, can't say I'm impressed either. But you'll have to keep in mind that OpenCL is still relatively new technology and that there are still many Macs and PC's with GPU's that don't work too well with OpenCL (bad performance) or don't support it at all (older ATI cards, all Intel GPU's). Developers don't seem too be jumping on it either for now. But it's still very interesting technology that is definitely here to stay, and we will see more applications of it in OS X Lion, I'm pretty sure about that.

It is very irresponsible and flat out stupid of Apple to not use the USB/Lightpeak connector.

This is a Thunderbolt:

If I remind correctly, they also said this could be a software optimization problem. And then there is the Turbo...

But you are right. Apple should either launch this as a replacement for the Plastic MacBook and put in dedicated graphics on the $1200 MBP... possibly chopping off the ODD. I don't care whether it lives or dies, I just want my dedicated graphics

The latest DisplayPort standard already supports monitor daisy chaining.

http://www.displayport.org/consumer/?q=content/faq

OMG, that sounds sooo nasty!
(Of course, everything does in German)

How about the Mac Mini? Previous model had both MIni DVI and MIni DisplayPort. Now it has both Mini Displayport and HDMI.

If these rumors turn out to be true, it would seem to be a win-win for everyone. Extending the functionality of an existing connector is certainly a lot less controversial than eliminating all previous connections from the laptop and leaving only the single new connector.

Turns out they can firmware fix all the current MiniDisplayPort Macs? /wishful thinking.


These are the current 13.3" MBP specs except for the Thunderbolt port, processor and bus speeds.


No, your sentences make no sense. I only missed wireless-syncing pre-MobileMe. Now i'm just not bothered.


So buy a MacBook Air 13" then.


I'll be disappointed if Apple miss a chance to spread the magsafe love a little further. All future ports should be "magsafe" and if every port out there earns Apple $0.01 so much the better.


+1. I'm generally very skeptical, but this I could see. Do you remember TubePort - which actually was AppleTV. A clear false rumour leaked...


Come on the C2D are overdue replacement on this "Pro" lineup. Actually I regret that the fact that its the same port adds more weight to it being real than fake. A faker would have mocked a brand new port up.


Do any displays actually implement this though?

You said you recently decided to go with Apple but then you add four IF statements. The 4 if qualifiers mean you are kidding or lying to yourself and never really decided on squat or you would have already bought.

I kept reading about Sandy Bridge IGP...

1/4 of 320M's pipelines, no DirectX 11 support, no OpenCL support....


DO NOT WANT.

Is that a real connector or just something you saw demoed? Often technology advances in a way that it would be irresponsible and flat out stupid to support tech simply because its common. Was it irresponsible for Apple to support USB when Serial and Parallel we so common? Of course not.

The picture is probably doctored as the article says. Looks too much like the display port to me, but maybe that is what apple is going for.

I think that the image might be genuine for the reason that the computer is wrapped in plastic from half way through the magsafe connector forward and so I think it would be too difficult to photoshop the image of a port and then add a plastic wrap effect seamlessly. (This might explain the shadow on the left-hand USB port.) If this is a valid image, I think that:

The new port has an all copper architecture. Would it be possible to have a fibre connector in a mini display port arrangement? I would have thought not.

The name 'Lightpeak' would therefore be inappropriate.

(Sorry if I have missed other relevant contributions )

Sandy Bridge IGP is just shit. There is no other word to be used for it. Intel got away with their rubbish GPU BundleGate. Paid off Nvidia and what nots in settlements but that's chump change compared to what they're cleaning up laughing all the way to the bank.

well played, sir.

Not sure a month-old thread needed bumping for this.

After a bit of honest test it is pretty clear the GPU in Sandy Bridge is crap - again. It is one reason to hope for AMD products in future Macs like the Mini. Oh - yes I know about the relatively poorer performance of AMD's CPU's but frankly that isn't what is important for many uses.

On the flip side it looks like Intel will have a variety of GPU free Sandy Bridge processors so maybe Apple can squeeze a real GPU into some of these machines. It is't like the SB GPU doesn't have a place, but really how many secretaries does Apple sell computers to?

sandy bridge is 1-7 core 3.2ghz??? really
damn sam