Matrox DS1 is 'world's first' Thunderbolt docking station - Page 2

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffDM 


My best understanding is that you can get it all as TB data if there isn't a DP device in the chain. But you do lose half once you have a DP device.

In my understanding, in current implementation on Apple laptops the TB is a dual 10Gbps per channel port, with one channel dedicated for video and the other for data. 

So even without any DP devices connected on the TB bus, it can't use the video channel for data.

Update:

My infos seams to be incorrect, according to Apple devs notes, uses of channels is dynamically assigned, but it can't bond both channels.

https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#documentation/HardwareDrivers/Conceptual/ThunderboltDevGuide/Introduction/Introduction.html

So the DVI port on this thing isn't even dual link. So, if like me, you have an external 2560x1440 monitor attached to a MacBook Pro, without pass through, this product is useless.

It seems that Matrox has taken a limited target market and made it even smaller by not supporting dual link DVI or thunderbolt pass through. It is a shame, otherwise this product would be on my shopping list.

-kpluck

Originally Posted by JBlongz 
No FireWire? That blows!

No SCSI? That blows!

The lack of Thunderbolt out is inexcusable, however.

Quote:

Originally Posted by wizard69 

L
Low volume = high prices

Yeah, but not that high. FW800 hard disk enclosures are very low volume, but they're usually around $100, not $1000, and those actually have to include a bridge mechanism, unlike Thunderbolt which in theory should just be PCIe -> PCIe.

Heck, hardly anyone even knows what eSATA is, and eSATA enclosures (with no USB ports) go for about $40 on Newegg. That's low volume, but nowhere near a freakin' grand!

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durandal1707 

Yeah, but not that high. FW800 hard disk enclosures are very low volume, but they're usually around $100, not $1000, and those actually have to include a bridge mechanism, unlike Thunderbolt which in theory should just be PCIe -> PCIe.

 

Heck, hardly anyone even knows what eSATA is, and eSATA enclosures (with no USB ports) go for about $40 on Newegg. That's low volume, but nowhere near a freakin' grand!

External PCI chassis existed for years and because of their specifics application and needs for big power supply made those always expensive.

here is one PCI chassis for 2399$:

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2008/06/27/external-pci-express-for-desktops-and-laptops/

Beside, eSATA enclosures doesn't have much electronics in it, they generally only are passthru to the disk with a 5 watts power supply.

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffDM 

The next revision of Thunderbolt might be available when there are devices that need more bandwidth.

There is already drafts in TB specs for over 100Gbps per channel.  Thunderbolt is there to stuck around for a while.

Sheesh.  This box isn't the end-all be-all of Thunderbolt devices, and its shortcomings are more than apparent.  It is designed for someone like me, who has a monitor, wired Ethernet network, and printer at home, that gets sick of plugging and unplugging things constantly from their MacBook Air.  This device gives you a few common ports and minimizes the amount of plugging and unplugging required.  It is not for power users who need Firewire or external GPUs.

If you need these power-user features, I seriously doubt that you bought a MacBook Air in the first place.

For me, I just questioning whether $250 for the box plus another $50 for a Thunderbolt cable is really a good investment just to reduce some cable hassles.  I'm leaning towards "no."

This hub is an absolute fail.

No Firewire, but lots of USB2 (when all new macs already have a couple USB3 ports). And it's totally overpriced for what you get.

I'm not very optimistic that Thunderbolt will be around in a couple years - there are very few TB devices out there as it is, and the Pro Audio and Video industries have both basically chosen USB3 as the future for pros and semipros.

Unless Apple really kicks it into overdrive with their own peripheral and somehow locks out USB3's already dominant influence, I fear TB is a sinking ship.

Am I the only one who thinks Apple wasted a golden opportunity when they chose a new proprietary cable for iPhone/Pod instead of making them thunderbolt compatible? That would have but a Thunderbolt device (and cable) into every apple user's home kind of like how they got iTunes into everybody's home. That also would have given people hands on with TB and made syncing about 100x faster than it is now...

  I do get that this kind of box could be useful for the many people who would use only those ports.  But it seems like they're missing the niche.

 If you don't use your Mac as an entertainment center there's not much use for HDMI or audio out.  And as a home unit that gives you an ethernet port, well, I can't do without it at work (where there's no reason for HDMI) but don't use it at home.  On it's own merits it has too few USB2 and 3 ports for the money, and as a useful box to have it seems to be priced to high to be that impulse gift to oneself, like JCK75 said.

If you need HDMI and ethernet into a port starved Mac, why not?  People have thrown money at worse things in the name of video watching.  Otherwise, I dunno.  Seems like another not-home-run in the thunderbolt add-on world.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superbass 

...

 

Am I the only one who thinks Apple wasted a golden opportunity when they chose a new proprietary cable for iPhone/Pod instead of making them thunderbolt compatible? That would have but a Thunderbolt device (and cable) into every apple user's home kind of like how they got iTunes into everybody's home. That also would have given people hands on with TB and made syncing about 100x faster than it is now...

I would have liked that too, but it was impossible: TB requires a number of things (Intel's blessing for one, PCI for another) that ARM currently lacks.

http://forums.appleinsider.com/forums/posts/add/threadId/155046/toquote/2248214

Quote:

Originally Posted by JeffDM 

I think I'll hold out for the next Thunderbolt display. The device variety for Thunderbolt (at 20 months and counting) is disappointing to say the least, and the fact that most of them don't have a second port for chaining is a huge cause for concern.

I'd have to agree here. I just bought a Retina MBP, and more USB2 is the last thing I need! I'd expect, though, that a new TBD would lose the FW800 port, particularly since there is the $29 TB-FW dongle from Apple. Dare we dream of 6 Gb/s eSATA on the new TBD?

All of my drives that were connected over FW800 to my 2006 MBP are now on TB-eSATA (LaCie hub) or USB3-eSATA, and their throughput has tripled. I have the dongle for those devices that have only FW, but otherwise, USB3 or eSATA are where it's at!

I think this Matrox will be a great addition for Macs that have TB but not USB3. But like Jeff, I'll be waiting for the new Thunderbolt Display from Apple...

Quote:

Originally Posted by nagromme 

 

I would have liked that too, but it was impossible: TB requires a number of things (Intel's blessing for one, PCI for another) that ARM currently lacks.

 

http://forums.appleinsider.com/forums/posts/add/threadId/155046/toquote/2248214

And let us not forget that the one change that Apple made to the iPod that really blew the top off the market was including USB2. Back when all Macs came with FW, adding USB2 meant that it could be connected to PCs without a FW card, opening up the market to millions more consumers. Putting in Thunderbolt instead of Lightning would mean far, far, fewer consumers could use it, not to mention the TB connector itself is almost as tall as an iPhone is thin!

Now, they should have included USB3, though. One annoying "feature" of the rMBPs USB3 ports is how they get configured. If the first device plugged in is USB3, you have (until the next boot) a USB3 port that can handle USB2 or USB1 devices. If the first thing plugged in is a USB2 device, then you only get USB2 speed until you reboot and try again.

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigMac2 

 

External PCI chassis existed for years and because of their specifics application and needs for big power supply made those always expensive.

 

here is one PCI chassis for 2399$:

http://www.sonicstate.com/news/2008/06/27/external-pci-express-for-desktops-and-laptops/

 

Beside, eSATA enclosures doesn't have much electronics in it, they generally only are passthru to the disk with a 5 watts power supply.

That's kind of what I'm asking, though; shouldn't Thunderbolt -> PCIe be generally passthru to the card as well? Thunderbolt is PCIe. Why is it expensive to go from PCIe to PCIe? Yeah you'll need a power supply, but you can buy a whole computer with like 5 PCIe slots in it for $350 that will have to have at least as big of a power supply. You're telling me that when you take a $350 machine, strip out the motherboard, GPU, RAM, disk, video card, and everything else except for the PCI slots, and add a Thunderbolt interface, the price suddenly jumps to $1000?

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durandal1707 

That's kind of what I'm asking, though; shouldn't Thunderbolt -> PCIe be generally passthru to the card as well? Thunderbolt is PCIe. Why is it expensive to go from PCIe to PCIe? Yeah you'll need a power supply, but you can buy a whole computer with like 5 PCIe slots in it for $350 that will have to have at least as big of a power supply. You're telling me that when you take a $350 machine, strip out the motherboard, GPU, RAM, disk, video card, and everything else except for the PCI slots, and add a Thunderbolt interface, the price suddenly jumps to $1000?

Thunderbolt is to PCIe what Sata is to ATA, what I mean is Thunderbolt serialize the PCIe signal to pass it thru a serial daisy chained BUS, so you need the Intel dedicated Thunderbolt controller in each Thunderbolt devices and a PCIe controller to bridge between Serial and parallel PCI interface in a chassis

Even so, regular PCI chassis have been always expensive, at $1000 for a Thunderbolt to PCIe chassis is pretty much what you have to expect for. 

Here is a product list of plain old PCI chassis, starting at $1199 up to $12000

http://www.magma.com/catalog/classic-pci-expansion

Quote:

Originally Posted by BigMac2 

Thunderbolt is to PCIe what Sata is to ATA, what I mean is Thunderbolt serialize the PCIe signal to pass it thru a serial daisy chained BUS, so you need the Intel dedicated Thunderbolt controller in each Thunderbolt devices and a PCIe controller to bridge between Serial and parallel PCI interface in a chassis

 

Yes, but that's true of all Thunderbolt devices. Not all of them cost $1000.

 

Apple's Thunderbolt -> Ethernet adapter has to include the Thunderbolt controller and the logic to extract the PCIe signal from it, and it also includes a working Ethernet card. And that costs $30. Why does this one cost almost two orders of magnitude more than that?

 

Even so, regular PCI chassis have been always expensive, at $1000 for a Thunderbolt to PCIe chassis is pretty much what you have to expect for. 

 

Here is a product list of plain old PCI chassis, starting at $1199 up to $12000

http://www.magma.com/catalog/classic-pci-expansion

I kind of have the same question there. Why does a 5-slot PCI chassis plus all the other parts of a computer cost $350, but a 3-slot PCI chassis by itself costs $1000?

To me it just seems more like this Magma stuff is morbidly overpriced than anything else.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Durandal1707 

I kind of have the same question there. Why does a 5-slot PCI chassis plus all the other parts of a computer cost $350, but a 3-slot PCI chassis by itself costs $1000?

 

To me it just seems more like this Magma stuff is morbidly overpriced than anything else.

I do agree with you, those stuff seams to be overpriced, but an external PCI chassis have always been over $1000.

It makes absolutely no sense that you would have USB 2.0 ports instead of all USB 3.0 since they would be backwards compatible and the best solution while waiting for TB storage devices to come down significantly in price. Absolutely stupid move... IMHO

Quote:

Originally Posted by nagromme 

Glad to see more TB products out there, but how about a TB external GPU—or slot in which to install one? Whatever card the drivers can handle! (Meaning, I suppose, whatever OS X expects a Mac Pro to handle.)

 

I can’t give up Air portability, but TB has held out the promise of greater GPU power when I’m at home at my desk. All promise... no reality, so far. A GPU made for Mac Pro would be FAR better than you’d expect an ultrathin laptop to be able to offer. Come on, TB, let me have my cake and eat it too! Plus then I could choose to keep the same (home-base-only) GPU when getting a new Air.

I found a nice reference for you. It's basically what I've been telling people. There are some individuals who get these things working on a case by case basis, but standard parts won't meet intel's certification due to drivers or possibly firmware. If we see eGPU support, I expect it to be driven by something like Windows gaming as a likely scenario. I'd also expect that if these companies do certify gpu cards for thunderbolt use, they'll make them in the form of breakout boxes. I don't expect to see anything like this until bandwidth increases to something closer to a normal card allocation. The minimum would be something like 8 lanes, as that is what is typically allocated on mobile cards. This is just speculation, but it should help explain why it wont happen today.

http://www.sonnettech.com/support/kb/kb.php?cat=451&expand=_a1_b664_a2&action=b663

Originally Posted by Bengt77 
I only buy games from Steam and then only in Windows. So for me, Windows GPU/Thunderbolt drivers would suffice. Would those be easier to obtain than Mac OS X GPU/Thunderbolt drivers, you think?

You'd think no, given that no PCs have Thunderbolt, but the only working external Thunderbolt graphics cards can only be used in Windows (Boot Camp) right now. 

Originally Posted by SolipsismX 
The only wrench in that hypothesis is Apple's history of letting their display languish.

I think that's in the past. The speed of the Thunderbolt update and the 27" update before it sort of tell me they'll be moving faster.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Superbass 

 

I'm not very optimistic that Thunderbolt will be around in a couple years - there are very few TB devices out there as it is, and the Pro Audio and Video industries have both basically chosen USB3 as the future for pros and semipros.

Really?  Is that why Aja, BlackMagic, Motu, etc are releasing thunderbolt pro video products?  

Or Avid releasing Pro Tools with a thunderbolt adapter?  Universal Audio now has a TB daughtercard for the Apollo and Apogee has a TB bridge for their Symphony line. 

"Nevertheless, if you're looking at the difference between integrated graphics in an Ultrabook or a slightly-degraded GeForce GTX 460 on the same machine, the minor performance loss is pretty inconsequential."

http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/pci-express-graphics-thunderbolt,3263-7.html

Going over a x4 lane TB link with a mid-grade GPU works fine...if we only had the drivers for it.

A TB dock with a GPU, ethernet, FW, USB3 out would sell if it were $400 IF Apple supported it in OSX.  But they don't so all the eGPU products (GUS II, etc) have been limbo waiting for more TB based ultrabooks.

If Apple released a 27" TB display with a built in 650M that would actually make the display worth $999 for a lot more MBA buyers.