Thunderbolt?

I had read that after Ivy Bridge came out PC's would start supporting Thunderbolt. Is there any news on when this may come to Clevo laptops?

 

Not anytime soon. ASUS has just released details on one of its motherboards that supports the technology. It is going to be a while, imo, before it comes to Clevo laptops. It is going to be much much longer before its real power is realized by hardware, in other words, external high-end GPUs. So you could have a 11 inch ultrabook that plugs into a box that houses a high end GPU and the box outputs to a FHD screen.

Obv that is still a few years away.

 

What about macs? They have them now.

Also Thinkpad S430 is going to have one and is due out shortly.

 

Captain Obvious, everybody!

The question was about when Clevo will incorporate it, not macs.

 

There's not a lot of interest in it. It isn't a matter of technical ability to support it, it is a matter of if companies feel it is worth it. I have real trouble coming up with reasons why I'd want it. Only thing I can think it would be useful for is a professional vid cap solution like an HD-SDI unit. However I can't see wanting that on a laptop.

 

My response was to Maverick not the OP.

It should be obvious that Clevo will not have it until long
after it is a staple. The big thing today with Clevo is backlit keyboards.

If you want it now need to look elsewhere.

 

The main reason I would be interested in it is for eGPU setup. Nice
ultrabook for everyday needs that can also double as a high end
gaming rig.

 

ASUS was supposed to have Thunderbolt in the G55 and G75, but Intel pulled the plug. Next year we might see a few systems with Thunderbolt support, but right now it's just not here.

The real question is, is Thunderbolt going to become FireWire?

 

Seems like it, MSI is already backing off from the GUS II

 

Thunderbolt is useless now. Why? Because the only tech capable of supporting that speed are SSDs. And the current pricing for SSDs are like $250 for 250GB, a $1/GB ratio. That's just not practical for a lot of people.

Plus, who actually NEEDS those kinds of speeds? Photographers? Programmers?

Mr. Mysterious

 

I hope not, unlike firewire (which is still used for several professionals) intel is backing it up, USB3 took a long time to take off as well, and the prices were quite high for a tech that aint as advanced as thunderbolt.

The great thing about thunderbolt is that ultraportables can have awesome when docked, I imagine that in a few years we could lose a lot of ports due to thunderbolt coupled with USB3, even the charger may only be necessary for laptops that push over 100w

 

I don't know that we'll ever see much of that. While it is a neat idea, I'm not sure there is enough interest for it to happen, considering that products would have to be specially designed for that. Also there are potential issues/conflicts with the idea. Finally there's the issue of speed. Remember GPUs are hanging off a 16x PCIe bus. While they don't need all that speed, they do need a fair bit of it, and each faster generation needs more. Thunderbolt is only 10gbit, which is about the same is 3x PCIe 2.0. That will most likely hamstring high end cards.

I think that is very likely. There's just not the need for it for most things. USB3 has plenty of bandwidth for just about everything. That means that all TB really offers is DMA, which is good for lower latency and CPU usage but bad for security and stability, and the ability to do data and display on one wire. The similarities to FW are many.

Also it wasn't helped along at all by Apple. Back when Intel was first developing it (when it was codenamed Lightpeak) it was just going to be a fast bus to hang things off of for all systems. Then Apple got in to the mix and offered to help fund development. However they wanted display over the link, which means it only works in systems where you can have it on the motherboard talkign to the Integrated graphics, you can't really add it as a new card. Also they got an exclusive on it for a time, a year I believe.

I personally think it is likely to kinda fizzle out. Macs will continue to have it for some time since Apple loves it, but but people won't care, and PC makers are likely to largely ignore it. In terms of devices the only companies that seem excited are the pro video companies like Blackmagic. Ok fair enough and I see why it is useful but that doesn't make for a big market, much as DV didn't for firewire.

 

The new G series even have the thunderbolt logo above the mini displayports, I think.

Well, it could work for eGPUs... And stuff like what blackmagic would make, which I'm interested in. Maybe clevo will have it come haswell, but it probably won't be here until intel integrates the controller onto their CPU dies. I mean, look how long it took clevo to get us GPU switching, DP and a backlit KB, stuff that has existed for several generations already.

 

What reason would Clevo have for introducing thunderbolt to their laptops? They already got rid of Expresscard for some reason, and my suspicion is that it was because of eGPUs.

They're not going to undercut their profit line just so people can buy the cheapest clevo with thunderbolt/experesscard and then just use a GTX 690 eGPU solution.

Mr. Mysterious

 

There will be a few manufacturers that pick up Thunderbolt, but when it comes down to it, these ports are Real Estate. A mobile system only has so much Real Estate for ports, and manufactures have to decide which ones they want. How do they decide? Simple: Which system is in higher demand and will adding Thunderbolt help my product sell.

If you asked a layman about USB or Thunderbolt. That layman will know what USB is. SO the short answer is, Enthusists and Pros will want Thunderbolt. The average consumer wants more USB ports, and as well all know, 3.0 is better than 2.0.

 

But sager is geared toward enthusiasts and pros...

Then why don't they just add thunderbolt on their highest end models; P150EM, P170EM, P270WM and later P370EM?

 

The P150EM and P170EM are already for sale, there is no way to add thunderbolt to it... I also doubt they will include it in any model who may be released this year (P270WM and P370EM).

All anyone can hope for is for it to be included their next generation of notebooks...

 

Intel says next year chipsets will support TB natively.


Sent from my wholly molly new iPad using Tapatalk

 

You're right, but how many companies are going to create peripherals for Thunderbolt.

Imagine if you manufactured an external HDD and you had a choice of an interface between USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt knowing that 100% of computers have USB 2.0 and almost anything that's less than two years old will have 3.0.

The choice is obvious, and therefore all computer manufactures have to look at the likelihood of consumers configuring a system around their peripherals.

Sure, you'll get the manufacturer (Besides Apple) that says, "Look I've got Thunderbolt and they don't!", and we all know how well that worked out with FireWire.

BTW: Most Professionals that use FireWire must have a Texas Instrument controller. Good luck finding that outside of an endlessly-delayed NP9270.

 

Well, people are after it to use eGPU's right now...

 

I have a Thunderbolt RAID that gets 700MB/s transfer speeds. Now that SSDs have gotten really fast it would nice to be able to use it with PC laptops as well.