no thunderbolt on Clevo ?

I have been researching on external gpu (TB & express card) and I thought why aren't the Clevo models getting TB this year ?
Though P150EM is getting "DisplayPort 1.2" according to this specification page
http://www.computex.com.tw/PhotoPool2/201201/201211713145015652.pdfv

And as far as I know, TB is a mix of PCI-express and DisplayPort protocols.
I know the Clevo models all have high end dGPU and some may say why eGPU when there's a dGPU already but I just simply wonder .

 

I may be a bit behind the news, but isn't TB still only available on Macs?

 

For the most part. Most PC vendors went USB 3.0 for a few reasons, not the least of which were lower cost, decent performance (especially after Thunderbolt switched to copper instead of fiber), and full backwards compatibility. I personally think Thunderbolt may turn into an HD DVD/Bluray type fight with USB 3.0.

 

Sony's LightPeak is a mix of USB3 + PCIExpress, they have it in the 2011 Z series.
Lenovo is launching S430 with TB, which I'm contemplating between that with Vidock G4 + Clevo.

The Vidock G4 adds Thunderbolt compatibility along with current ExpressCard. And it will be able to dock a 325 watt GPU

 

There is no point to thunderbolt just yet, even thought it's much faster and might make you future proof, but just yet nothing supports it

 

that doesn't make any sense. HD DVD and Bluray were very very similar and it's a very different thing from a pc interface.
Also thunderbolt is way way better then usb3.0. And if they were competing the current and upcoming notebooks wouldn't have a mix of thunderbolt and usb3.0. it's like firewire and usb. firewire exists in many notebooks as well as usb.

 

Indeed, the market target of thunderbolt and USB3 is completely different

 

egpu tottaly bottlenecks thunderbolt. not even with twice the performance would make it bottleneck free.
The fastest interface you have now is usb3.0. And the THEORETICAL maximum is 480mbps, real life is way less. right NOW you have SSD's that are bottlenecked by the theoretical maximum of usb3.0. Also most implementations of usb3.0 are in form of a hub, so if you connect for example 2 SSD's to 2 usb ports they are even more bottlenecked.
And in the future it will be a lot worse.
imo thunderbolt is extremely needed and it's not even sufficient for some today needs.

 

That's not at all true.

USB 2.0 = 480Mbps
USB 3.0 = 5Gbps (or 10x the speed of USB 2.0)
Thunderbolt (as is now, with copper) = 10Gbps per channel

USB 3.0 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderbolt_(interface)

The original specification using Thunderbolt was supposed to be much faster, but was really expensive to produce (and couldn't push as much output power).

 

yes you are right I confused things.

but there's still a huge bottleneck for some devices.

the argument that the original specification was expensive is just an excuse from intel. the current thunderbolt implementation in notebooks costs just $20. and pushing more power? that doesn't even make sense.

just check the first thunderbolt egpu
Product :: RED ROCKET
no way it would be possible with usb3.0

 

This link better explains the issue with power:

Intel Thunderbolt Rollout Won't Be Lightning Fast | News & Opinion | PCMag.com

Or more specifically

The point being that they had to switch to a copper implementation so that they could include 10w of power. The original lightpeak plans could not send any power to external devices (they had to be self-powered).

Thunderbolt is made up of 4 channels- 2 upstream and 2 downstream, 10GB/s per channel. However, a single device is only able to make use of 1 channel in each direction, so total throughput is only 20Gb/s (4x USB 3.0). It's not a significant difference, and because it's a modified PCI-E 4x bus, it's still not the best option for external GPU's (as you stated).

I hope this clarifies what I meant, as I didn't explain it very well.

 

As far as I have looked into this Thunderbolt eGPU fluctuates between 5-20% loss in performance comparing to a full desktop rig. I don't know what you think, but take a GTX 560 Ti, that should be twice faster than a 560m if I'm correct.
Nevertheless, it's up to personal preference, one may consider it's too "adventurous" and rather stick with a bulky laptop.

And seriously $4,000 for that thing you posted in the link. Nuts.
The Vidock G4 Micro that I mentioned has interchangeable adapters to fit mPCIe (I assume P150 has a spare slot), ExpressCard, Thunderbolt and more. And it can house upto a 375 watt desktop GPU.
It seems like a future proof solution

We may see TB on Clevo by then

 

It depends greatly on the screen res you have because that will increase insanely the bandwidth. Also it depends a lot on the program you are running. For medium class desktop graphic cards the loss fluctuates between your numbers. But if you try a high end one, even of previous generations, the bottleneck will be much bigger. That's why sometimes with an egpu you can't get much better results with a much better card.
It will get a lot worse in the future with pci-3.0.
imagine an egpu using usb3.0. it will be even more limited then thunderbolt. Imo there's the real need of a fast interface for this sort of things. usb3.0 has a limit of 600 MB/s. Thunderbolt more then doubles that @2500 MB/s.
In my avatar you can see external cables of pci-e 1.0. The specifications are from 2007. @16x those cables provide 4000 MB/s. And there's already since many time ago specs for 2.0 cables.

About the power issue in thunderbolt that's bs. you can power devices externally just as it happens with any 3.5 external hdd or many other devices. It's an excuse from intel. People would pay for better even if it were 3 times more expensive. I would.
I'm not liking the way this is going. AMD already announced a competing technology with thunderbolt called 'Lightening Bolt'.
They could just implement external pci-e. Actually it's already implemented, the notebook manufacturers just have to use it. Obviously they don't want that because it's way more profitable just selling new notebooks.

Clevo clearly doesn't care about it. They don't sell directly to the consumer. They just produce according to what they are ordered to. They produce a "standard" one and nothing more. That's why for example they didn't had the trouble of implement nvidia optimus even with all the hardware needed.
From a company that buys thousands of notebooks from Clevo, I mean high performance portable machines, it's not wise to bundle them with thunderbolt. That would mean that the user could fully upgrade a notebook. When the costumer needs more performance it will have to buy another one. Just like mxm was never truly implemented. spec since 2001. yet you can't go to any store, select your mxm card from a very wide choice, buy it and install it plug and play. Just like people do with desktop graphic cards.
Not complaining about Malibal and other resellers, I'm talking about the major ones that buy thousands directly from Clevo. Resellers here on forum have no power in those decisions and would actually make much more profit selling upgrades. It's a great market niche. At least, I hope they think that way.

 

Great reasoning there, I don't want to turn this thread into a eGPU thread :d . I heard TB will become standardised in 2013. That will just open possibilities I suppose

 

you should really do some homework

AnandTech - The Radeon HD 7970 Reprise: PCIe Bandwidth, Overclocking, & The State Of Anti-Aliasing

 

I read that couples of days ago

end of the argument for single card PCIe 2.0 vs 3.0

 

But imagine dual gpu graphic cards. they would be very bottlenecked because the bandwidth would much higher.

I bet Clevo will only adopt thunderbolt when and if it becames mainstream like usb3.0. They don't even implement basic things like nvidia optimus. And they weren't among the first to introduce usb3.0.
Also during CES I saw nothing about TB in new Clevos unlike other manufacturers that widely advertised it's introduction in their products.

 

Because it's not needed, simple as that.

 

On this forum you have thousands of people, including me, that disagree with you and that wish for a faster interface to be implemented in every notebook.
Just go see the egpu topic with over 8k posts.

 

I will search for a dual gpu bandwidth tests, it was done using 2 gtx 480, and there was little performance loss.

However I do agree that there will be a performance difference, yes, will it matter if you can get a ultrathin lightweight laptop with more power than a 18'' gaming behemoth? yes.

But indeed thunderbolt has many other applications than an egpu solution, high speed connection with pro cameras, data transfer between hubs, clusters of networks based on that, and so much more.

 

Last time I check the massive 8k thread, TB solution can achieve 85% of a full 16x 2.0 . That's pretty good. By the way, I think the new P150EM has an extra mPCIe slot, so those "enthusiasts" probably can do something for eGPU.
By the way TB successor will feature 50Gbps/sec according to Intel, that's 5x what we have now.
What do you think if they use fiber optic cable, would that make a big difference than current copper wire

 

the rollout of the new thunderbolt should be around 2014, they are holding it for adoption purposes, since tb aint existant outside apple. Dunno about the specs.

however tb is linked to a pcie x4 2.0, and gives around that in terms of performance, just check the anandtech reviews about pegasus nas.

 

Thunderbolt with power would be retardedly simple to do though. You have a connector with fibre and copper in the same cable. The copper is used for low bandwidth applications and to provide power and the fibre when the extra bandwidth is needed.

Considering 10Gbps is almost enough for full blown graphics cards I don't see much that would NEED the fibre link. You could possibly work out a method of connection teaming over copper if fibre is vastly more expensive.

On topic though - yup, waiting for Clevo to go with thunderbolt. Once that happens I kiss desktops goodbye.

Laptop with thunderbolt + full blown dock at home. eGPU, sound card + raid card on thunderbolt to PCIe adapters. Twin monitors plugged into the GPU, a smallish hardware raid 5 for bulk media on the card and soundcard plugged to headphone amp + dolby encode to decent speakers.

The whole kit I have, just waiting on the first cheap laptop with thunderbolt. At the moment i'm actively delaying my next purchase while it gets sorted. Going to ditch having a desktop+laptop and just have the one base machine with most things on it.

I'd probably even get one of the optical to 2.5" adapters and go twin SSD's and a big WD black. With the raid sat waiting to be hooked up when I go home the difference in feel from it being a "proper" desktop would be negligible.

JUST NEED THUNDERBOLT DAMMIT

 

Thunderbolt owns, but nothing uses it. I like USB, but if I could make every device use Thunderbolt right now, including all computers and mobile devices, I would do it in a heart beat. It can handle more back and forth data and transfers data double the speed of USB 3.0.