I agree USB is pathetic in terms of speed. Even USB 3 sucks. Moreover it had a bigger toll on CPU cycles then TB or FW.
Imho TB is the future. The best move would have been to see an iPhone with TB connectivity instead of this new connector, and put faster flash in the iPhone and boom...
I agree USB is pathetic in terms of speed. Even USB 3 sucks. Moreover it had a bigger toll on CPU cycles then TB or FW.
Imho TB is the future. The best move would have been to see an iPhone with TB connectivity instead of this new connector, and put faster flash in the iPhone and boom...
How many thunderbolt devices and cables do you actually own and use?
I absolutely hate USB Port. I hope Apple could licenses out the Lightning Port and just use that. As the final evolution of Port Design, Before we move off to wireless everything.
And Thunderbolt will be moving to 40Gbps in 2014..... or possibly 100Gbps.....
no no no no no.
We do not have disks/systems capable of using speeds like that (price competitive).
We do not have disks/systems capable of using speeds like that (price competitive).
Right now, no one benefits from TB.
Sure we do.
External storage is now available at speeds comparable to internal. AND, it's virtually unlimited. It's possible to have an external video card for laptops. It's possible to have a one-cable docking system where everything (storage, monitor, networking, etc) all hooks up with a single cable. Again, great for laptops.
Who didn't see that coming. TB is too expensive and too hard to even find any TB devices. Even the cable is expensive. Firewire at least gained some traction before it died, far more than TB will I am afraid. The only real value might be the connection of additional displays. Great technology but too expensive and too little support.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechanic
hdmi cables and usb cables dont have microprocessors in them, to adjust for the inefficiencies of the copper cable itself do they. Hence the reason for the extra cost. Also thunderbolt cables actually have firmware lol. They can actually be firmware upgraded.
The cables your comparing to thunderbolt is just a piece of wire not a firmware flash-able micro computer at each end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg
Thunderbolt is history already. It certainly has advantages over USB 3.0 for select professional applications, but the industry caters to the masses, not the pros. USB 3.0 is "good enough" at a fraction of the cost of TB.
TB disadvantages are manifold:
1. Prohibitive cost to adapt: it's not backwards compatible, so adopters must buy all new peripherals. Peripherals are vastly more expensive than USB 3.0 peripherals due to the need for a TB controller. Want to daisy chain 3 peripherals together? That will $150 in cables alone, lol.
2. Lack of superiority. TB is faster than USB 3.0, but how much more does it really enable? External video card? Even after spending a MINIMUM of $600 for a TB video card, the thing is limited to x4 PCIe lanes. FAIL.
3. No future price reductions. TB requires four ICs on each end of a cable - that's a lot of silicon for a freakin' cable. The next advance will reduce it to two ICs on each end of a cable, which is still far more complex than a passive interface cable like USB 3.0. TB cables will be cheaper, but not significantly, and nowhere near as cheap as USB 3.0 cables.
4. Intel. They may have helped develop TB, but they sure as hell aren't interested in adding $25 to the cost of every motherboard, so it's not a standard inclusion on PCs. Apple didn't help matters by insisting that it be exclusive to Apple computers for one year. It's almost like someone at Apple didn't want TB to succeed - or more likely they have the cranial-rectal syndrome that is so prevalent in Apple's design department.
5. Connect a DisplayPort display to a Mini. Ooops, no more TB. Only way to get TB is to buy a display that can daisy chain TB, in other words, waste many hundreds of dollars on an Apple display. DUHHH!!! This is reminiscent of the ADC connector debacle at Apple. Buy an Apple display....or else! Except when people choose "or else", they just buy USB 3.0 peripherals instead of TB, resulting in lower adoption of TB. Apple shoots self in foot again.
You anti Thunderbolt people are a joke. Truly.
Only people who look for things to make problems out of could have anything bad to say about an expensive I/O that is dual channel 20Gbps bandwidth.
Do you even have the slightest concept of how far ahead of USB 2 Thunderbolt was when it launch merely 2 years ago? Do you have any concept of how far ahead it is of USB 3 which launched a year later?
It just comes down to price. You can't afford Thunderbolt devices, so it is a failure in your opinion. That is pathetic. Eventually it will even out and costs will come in line. But now that Macs have USB 3, it may take even longer. Fortunately, it doesn't matter because Thunderbolt has uses far beyond USB, so its own niche market will continue on and grow.
The only thing it won't do is go away, because it is insanely great, fast, and useful, in spite of forum bloggers wallets.
Only people who look for things to make problems out of could have anything bad to say about an expensive I/O that is dual channel 20Gbps bandwidth.
Do you even have the slightest concept of how far ahead of USB 2 Thunderbolt was when it launch merely 2 years ago? Do you have any concept of how far ahead it is of USB 3 which launched a year later?
It just comes down to price. You can't afford Thunderbolt devices, so it is a failure in your opinion. That is pathetic. Eventually it will even out and costs will come in line. But now that Macs have USB 3, it may take even longer. Fortunately, it doesn't matter because Thunderbolt has uses far beyond USB, so its own niche market will continue on and grow.
The only thing it won't do is go away, because it is insanely great, fast, and useful, in spite of forum bloggers wallets.
Many people treat technology the same way they treat food: they're willing to put up with genetic modifications, harmful pesticides, hormones, additives to make it look better/stay fresh longer, etc simply to save a buck. Then they'll spend a fortune when they're dying to try and extend their lives a bit longer. Doesn't make sense, but when has reason and logic ever been the main factor in most people's decision making?
Same goes with technology: people will tolerate poorly designed, fault prone, buggy, laggy products just to save a buck. Then spend countless hours trying to solve the problems caused by such technology and/or spend money on other products to compensate (e.g. malware scanning software which lags the computer so then they buy more RAM, SSDs, etc to compensate). Just doesn't make sense.
I'll reiterate the same point I keep making about USB vs Thunderbolt: USB requires a very complex controller (master) device to work and the communication protocol has a high amount of overhead. Meaning: it uses a lot more CPU power and bandwidth. Which is why you never get close to the maximum bus speed, and why your computer may get bogged down from time to time.
But hey, go ahead and upgrade your computer to make it work well, or waste time trying to get peripherals to perform as well as you thought they should, and continue to believe that you somehow saved money.
The price of Thunderbolt will only come down if it becomes standard on all PC's. If that doesn't happen, it will fade fast. Technical superiority is no guarantee of success. Ubiquity and price trump all. iPods used to have Firewire, PC's didn't, so USB replaced Firewire on iPods, even though it was slower.
Thunderbolt could be great, but if it doesn't catch on, it will just be niche with a limited life span.
The price of Thunderbolt will only come down if it becomes standard on all PC's. If that doesn't happen, it will fade fast. Technical superiority is no guarantee of success. Ubiquity and price trump all. iPods used to have Firewire, PC's didn't, so USB replaced Firewire on iPods, even though it was slower.
Thunderbolt could be great, but if it doesn't catch on, it will just be niche with a limited life span.
It's a catch-22 with Thunderbolt (just as it was with Firewire): no one wants to jump in because of the cost. But the cost is high because no one is jumping in (i.e. quantity drives down cost). A couple of big players need to be willing to lose money on it for a bit in order to make it ubiquitous.
Apple's adoption of thunderbolt is admirable but has shown to be too early. Very few peripheral devices are available and all are high priced. The average consumer balks at the high cost and simply makes due with sad old USB2. This is discouraging considering the potential benefit of thunderbolt. I would have thought it would have been good for Apple/Intel to subsidize the price of thunderbolt to serve as a catalyst for adoption by peripheral manufacturers. As it is thunderbolt seems lost and unknown to most. Along comes USB3 and the cheaper adoption of an almost as fast technology. It has been a while since it has come out, and correct me if I'm wrong, but still not a whirlwind of adoption as I can see it. I hope both succeed. I hope USB3 is dirt cheap to license and found in every computer and similarly thunderbolt is decreased in price to make it affordable. Odd that with such great technologies they are not adopted faster by the manufacturers and consumers. This especially considering our rabid consumption of chip speed and the increase in data transfer traffic from images and movies and the like.
Who didn't see that coming. TB is too expensive and too hard to even find any TB devices. Even the cable is expensive. Firewire at least gained some traction before it died, far more than TB will I am afraid. The only real value might be the connection of additional displays. Great technology but too expensive and too little support.
The cost isn't that high really. Have you looked at other technologies with that kind of bandwidth? Most are quite expensive. It exceeds the fastest eSATA, which you can't use outside of a mac pro. I'm not sure how its current adoption aligns with intel's goals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrayven
It should read.. USB 3.0 to rival OLD 10GB thunderbolt spec in 2014, TB to be 100GB in 2013!
You have your facts wrong on this one. Intel hasn't promised a speed boost of any kind until 2014, and they did not promise 100Gb (gigabits, you wrote gigabytes) until much later. They also hinted it would be more expensive than what is currently offered. The idea that it will appear on everything is nonsense. It's good for things with high bandwidth requirements. It's just a few extremely silly people on here want to view it as a usb replacement without ever having read about the cost to implement thunderbolt variants or what is required for certification. As an example people have gotten external gpus to work over thunderbolt, but none of those solutions would be certified by intel as they haven't met certain criteria such as plug and play drivers.
Why do I fill it to actually only increase 2% speed, this is there claim, but if thunderbolt was to be adopted more we would need it on idevices(not the device but the cord) sold on iTunes separately.
Why do I fill it to actually only increase 2% speed, this is there claim, but if thunderbolt was to be adopted more we would need it on idevices(not the device but the cord) sold on iTunes separately.
1) Thunderbolt being adopted more doesn't mean that USB would be un-adopted.
2) You can't make iDevices use Thunderbolt unless you add the appropriate HW to the iDevice. Thunderbolt is protocol independent but it still needs the proper components for processing even if you wish to use USB data. That could happen which would improve charging times but data is still limited to the internal NAND. NAND is slow. Unless we can get it much faster than 20-25MB/s it's pointless to add so much cost without any gain in syncing performance.
1) Thunderbolt being adopted more doesn't mean that USB would be un-adopted.
2) You can't make iDevices use Thunderbolt unless you add the appropriate HW to the iDevice. Thunderbolt is protocol independent but it still needs the proper components for processing even if you wish to use USB data. That could happen which would improve charging times but data is still limited to the internal NAND. NAND is slow. Unless we can get it much faster than 20-25MB/s it's pointless to add so much cost without any gain in syncing performance.
I guess you have a point but it is still a major lacking part to it, if apple were to eliminate its macs line soon, then thunderbolt a apple (and intel I believe) designed port would seize to exist, it has no real world dominance, and at that point it's only hope is it appear on windows.
Comments
Imho TB is the future. The best move would have been to see an iPhone with TB connectivity instead of this new connector, and put faster flash in the iPhone and boom...
Quote:
Originally Posted by AndreiD
I agree USB is pathetic in terms of speed. Even USB 3 sucks. Moreover it had a bigger toll on CPU cycles then TB or FW.
Imho TB is the future. The best move would have been to see an iPhone with TB connectivity instead of this new connector, and put faster flash in the iPhone and boom...
How many thunderbolt devices and cables do you actually own and use?
Quote:
Originally Posted by ksec
I absolutely hate USB Port. I hope Apple could licenses out the Lightning Port and just use that. As the final evolution of Port Design, Before we move off to wireless everything.
And Thunderbolt will be moving to 40Gbps in 2014..... or possibly 100Gbps.....
no no no no no.
We do not have disks/systems capable of using speeds like that (price competitive).
Right now, no one benefits from TB.
Sure we do.
External storage is now available at speeds comparable to internal. AND, it's virtually unlimited. It's possible to have an external video card for laptops. It's possible to have a one-cable docking system where everything (storage, monitor, networking, etc) all hooks up with a single cable. Again, great for laptops.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
Who didn't see that coming. TB is too expensive and too hard to even find any TB devices. Even the cable is expensive. Firewire at least gained some traction before it died, far more than TB will I am afraid. The only real value might be the connection of additional displays. Great technology but too expensive and too little support.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mechanic
hdmi cables and usb cables dont have microprocessors in them, to adjust for the inefficiencies of the copper cable itself do they. Hence the reason for the extra cost. Also thunderbolt cables actually have firmware lol. They can actually be firmware upgraded.
The cables your comparing to thunderbolt is just a piece of wire not a firmware flash-able micro computer at each end.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg
Thunderbolt is history already. It certainly has advantages over USB 3.0 for select professional applications, but the industry caters to the masses, not the pros. USB 3.0 is "good enough" at a fraction of the cost of TB.
TB disadvantages are manifold:
1. Prohibitive cost to adapt: it's not backwards compatible, so adopters must buy all new peripherals. Peripherals are vastly more expensive than USB 3.0 peripherals due to the need for a TB controller. Want to daisy chain 3 peripherals together? That will $150 in cables alone, lol.
2. Lack of superiority. TB is faster than USB 3.0, but how much more does it really enable? External video card? Even after spending a MINIMUM of $600 for a TB video card, the thing is limited to x4 PCIe lanes. FAIL.
3. No future price reductions. TB requires four ICs on each end of a cable - that's a lot of silicon for a freakin' cable. The next advance will reduce it to two ICs on each end of a cable, which is still far more complex than a passive interface cable like USB 3.0. TB cables will be cheaper, but not significantly, and nowhere near as cheap as USB 3.0 cables.
4. Intel. They may have helped develop TB, but they sure as hell aren't interested in adding $25 to the cost of every motherboard, so it's not a standard inclusion on PCs. Apple didn't help matters by insisting that it be exclusive to Apple computers for one year. It's almost like someone at Apple didn't want TB to succeed - or more likely they have the cranial-rectal syndrome that is so prevalent in Apple's design department.
5. Connect a DisplayPort display to a Mini. Ooops, no more TB. Only way to get TB is to buy a display that can daisy chain TB, in other words, waste many hundreds of dollars on an Apple display. DUHHH!!! This is reminiscent of the ADC connector debacle at Apple. Buy an Apple display....or else! Except when people choose "or else", they just buy USB 3.0 peripherals instead of TB, resulting in lower adoption of TB. Apple shoots self in foot again.
You anti Thunderbolt people are a joke. Truly.
Only people who look for things to make problems out of could have anything bad to say about an expensive I/O that is dual channel 20Gbps bandwidth.
Do you even have the slightest concept of how far ahead of USB 2 Thunderbolt was when it launch merely 2 years ago? Do you have any concept of how far ahead it is of USB 3 which launched a year later?
It just comes down to price. You can't afford Thunderbolt devices, so it is a failure in your opinion. That is pathetic. Eventually it will even out and costs will come in line. But now that Macs have USB 3, it may take even longer. Fortunately, it doesn't matter because Thunderbolt has uses far beyond USB, so its own niche market will continue on and grow.
The only thing it won't do is go away, because it is insanely great, fast, and useful, in spite of forum bloggers wallets.
Quote:
Originally Posted by pmz
You anti Thunderbolt people are a joke. Truly.
Only people who look for things to make problems out of could have anything bad to say about an expensive I/O that is dual channel 20Gbps bandwidth.
Do you even have the slightest concept of how far ahead of USB 2 Thunderbolt was when it launch merely 2 years ago? Do you have any concept of how far ahead it is of USB 3 which launched a year later?
It just comes down to price. You can't afford Thunderbolt devices, so it is a failure in your opinion. That is pathetic. Eventually it will even out and costs will come in line. But now that Macs have USB 3, it may take even longer. Fortunately, it doesn't matter because Thunderbolt has uses far beyond USB, so its own niche market will continue on and grow.
The only thing it won't do is go away, because it is insanely great, fast, and useful, in spite of forum bloggers wallets.
Many people treat technology the same way they treat food: they're willing to put up with genetic modifications, harmful pesticides, hormones, additives to make it look better/stay fresh longer, etc simply to save a buck. Then they'll spend a fortune when they're dying to try and extend their lives a bit longer. Doesn't make sense, but when has reason and logic ever been the main factor in most people's decision making?
Same goes with technology: people will tolerate poorly designed, fault prone, buggy, laggy products just to save a buck. Then spend countless hours trying to solve the problems caused by such technology and/or spend money on other products to compensate (e.g. malware scanning software which lags the computer so then they buy more RAM, SSDs, etc to compensate). Just doesn't make sense.
I'll reiterate the same point I keep making about USB vs Thunderbolt: USB requires a very complex controller (master) device to work and the communication protocol has a high amount of overhead. Meaning: it uses a lot more CPU power and bandwidth. Which is why you never get close to the maximum bus speed, and why your computer may get bogged down from time to time.
But hey, go ahead and upgrade your computer to make it work well, or waste time trying to get peripherals to perform as well as you thought they should, and continue to believe that you somehow saved money.
ADB, SCSI and Firewire lasted forever too.
The price of Thunderbolt will only come down if it becomes standard on all PC's. If that doesn't happen, it will fade fast. Technical superiority is no guarantee of success. Ubiquity and price trump all. iPods used to have Firewire, PC's didn't, so USB replaced Firewire on iPods, even though it was slower.
Thunderbolt could be great, but if it doesn't catch on, it will just be niche with a limited life span.
Quote:
Originally Posted by cnocbui
ADB, SCSI and Firewire lasted forever too.
The price of Thunderbolt will only come down if it becomes standard on all PC's. If that doesn't happen, it will fade fast. Technical superiority is no guarantee of success. Ubiquity and price trump all. iPods used to have Firewire, PC's didn't, so USB replaced Firewire on iPods, even though it was slower.
Thunderbolt could be great, but if it doesn't catch on, it will just be niche with a limited life span.
It's a catch-22 with Thunderbolt (just as it was with Firewire): no one wants to jump in because of the cost. But the cost is high because no one is jumping in (i.e. quantity drives down cost). A couple of big players need to be willing to lose money on it for a bit in order to make it ubiquitous.
Originally Posted by OriginalMacRat
Keep in mind that ThunderBolt is 10Gbs each direction.
So 200 Gbps total. Across ONE CABLE!
Originally Posted by cnocbui
Ubiquity and price trump all.
Apple should probably just throw in the towel, then. Their computers aren't catching on.
Thunderbolt's coming natively with Haswell, so we'll see PCs with it.
Originally Posted by caribousteaks
Apple's adoption of thunderbolt is admirable but has shown to be too early.
How can it possibly be too early to adopt a port? No one would make accessories for a port that doesn't exist anywhere.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gwmac
Who didn't see that coming. TB is too expensive and too hard to even find any TB devices. Even the cable is expensive. Firewire at least gained some traction before it died, far more than TB will I am afraid. The only real value might be the connection of additional displays. Great technology but too expensive and too little support.
The cost isn't that high really. Have you looked at other technologies with that kind of bandwidth? Most are quite expensive. It exceeds the fastest eSATA, which you can't use outside of a mac pro. I'm not sure how its current adoption aligns with intel's goals.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Adrayven
It should read.. USB 3.0 to rival OLD 10GB thunderbolt spec in 2014, TB to be 100GB in 2013!
You have your facts wrong on this one. Intel hasn't promised a speed boost of any kind until 2014, and they did not promise 100Gb (gigabits, you wrote gigabytes) until much later. They also hinted it would be more expensive than what is currently offered. The idea that it will appear on everything is nonsense. It's good for things with high bandwidth requirements. It's just a few extremely silly people on here want to view it as a usb replacement without ever having read about the cost to implement thunderbolt variants or what is required for certification. As an example people have gotten external gpus to work over thunderbolt, but none of those solutions would be certified by intel as they haven't met certain criteria such as plug and play drivers.
1) Thunderbolt being adopted more doesn't mean that USB would be un-adopted.
2) You can't make iDevices use Thunderbolt unless you add the appropriate HW to the iDevice. Thunderbolt is protocol independent but it still needs the proper components for processing even if you wish to use USB data. That could happen which would improve charging times but data is still limited to the internal NAND. NAND is slow. Unless we can get it much faster than 20-25MB/s it's pointless to add so much cost without any gain in syncing performance.