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External Thunderbolt Graphics Card On Its Way
An anonymous reader writes "Last week, as the result of a straw poll on Facebook, Village Instruments agreed to begin development of an external Thunderbolt-connected graphics card enclosure. Village Instruments already has experience with its ExpressCard-connected ViDock graphics card chassis, which provides extra GPU juice for Windows and Mac laptops, and the Thunderbolt version is expected to be the same kind of thing — but faster. The only problem is, Thunderbolt is only 4x PCIe 2.0, so you won't be using this to connect modern, desktop-class GPUs to your laptop — and more importantly you need to carry around a second monitor to actually use a ViDock. So why not just buy a proper gaming laptop?"
So why not just buy a proper gaming laptop?
It's not exactly a gaming laptop... but it does have a Core i7 2ghz CPU, Radeon HD 6770M 1GB, 8GB of RAM, and a 17.3" LCD... Oh and when I get bored of gaming it also came with a BD-ROM.
Costco has them for $999 and I bought two :)
Totally agree. I mean, a single connector that can drive a monitor, external disks, and a range of peripherals and is small enough to fit on something like a mobile phone? What possible use case is there for that?
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Thunderbolt is protocol agnostic. It's not meant to compete with USB, but express card. In fact you can run USB devices over thunderbolt.
Non impediti ratione cogitationus.
You've completely missed the point. Don't think MacBook Pro, think the new Thunderbolt equipped MacBook Airs that lack a decent built in graphics card.
And to answer the summary's closing question: because it means I can carry an ultra-portable (MacBook Air) when I travel and plug it in at home to give it a much needed graphics boost for use at home.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
For docking stations and such. Plenty of us plop our laptop onto a docking station or a USB hub + monitor + speakers + keyboard + mouse anyway.
It beats the hell out of hauling an overpriced 10-pound beast to the same office desk every day, when you can just keep better equipment (with better ergonomics) neatly arranged and haul a lighter machine to/from work.
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Thunderbolt is only 4x PCIe 2.0, so you won't be using this to connect modern, desktop-class GPUs to your laptop
For multi-GPU systems in current desktops at least, there's little to no performance penalty going from 16x to 4x.
For hundreds of years written English managed perfectly well without having to sign-post everything with tags.
I certainly got the sarcasm inherent in the gp's post, indeed it was more effective without the silly sign-posting.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
It isn't exactly protocol agnostic, it's essentially an external 4x PCIe cable. Assuming the device in question doesn't flip out at finding itself a bit further than usual from the PCIe controller, there is certainly a lot of stuff you can plug in to it(with the addition of a case and one of those fancy custom Intel converter chips); but it isn't "agnostic"...
One RAID box? Their are several now, Lacie released one a couple of weeks back. Apple also have their Thunderbolt display, you might want to look at what it does.
Thunderbolt is not competing against USB either.
I just don't understand the purpose of a high end gaming laptop. It's always quite more expensive than the equivalent desktop; and ultimately you're playing with a small screen, a cramped keyboard, and an imprecise pointing device, in a far less comfortable way... unless you plug the laptop to an external screen, keyboard, and mouse, so what was the point of a portable anyway?
Circumcision is child abuse.
They are bloody heavy and expensive. And when you drop it in an airport... :sob: (x-Alienware laptop owner).
This seams like an interesting idea, get a mid-range laptop (£500 will get you an i5 with a smallish screen) and then add this and a nice big monitor for home use. That way I can get a the odd game of TF2 and about and get my work done while out and about, but get home and play something a little more taxing.
Wow, I should not post when knackered.
As someone else has already pointed out, it is not a competitor to USB.
As to the RAID box, well, something has to be first. But there are already three others I'm aware of:
There is already also a Sony laptop with a Thunderbolt connector to docking station which has an optical drive, a graphics chip, *and* USB 2.0 and 3.0 sockets. The newer Apple monitors, as well as the new iMacs, use it for USB and DisplayPort. The laptops with it can use a powered-down iMac as a monitor. You can't do a lot of that with USB.
As usual with technologies like this, as soon as it's integrated into chipsets and/or standard motherboards, the products will follow. Just the fact that Apple are selling hundreds of thousands of units with this integrated will help stimulate companies to produce more products that use it...
So Apple and Sony are backing it.... sign me up
external pci-e is in the works and does not have the over head at Thunderbolt has and will not be Intel locked.
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/computers/look-out-thunderbolt-external-pci-express-spec-being-developed/6220
http://www.molex.com/molex/products/family?key=external_pci_express_pcie&channel=products&chanName=family&pageTitle=Introduction
http://www.andovercg.com/datasheets/molex-74546-0813.pdf
Thunderbolt may be good for external HDD's and other high data stuff. But for PCI-e add in cards and video cards better to go with pci-e also the mac's with on board video have like 8-12 unused pci-e lanes any ways so why not run a video card off of them as 1 video card just maxes out the Thunderbolt bus and still does not let it hit it's full power. Maybe in 2013 you can have a mac mini with a good cpu and a pci-e box with a good video card in it.
> If anything, we need LESS of cable solutions and more slots.
'Cause that's what consumers are looking for, great big huge desktops with loads of slots. That's what's filling the aisles at Best Buy.
No, the majority of consumers want tiny, unobtrusive PC's that they have to mess with as little as possible.
> Look up at what's missing inside laptops in comparison to desktops.
Uh-huh. That's why nobody buys laptops. Oh wait, laptops are almost more popular than desktops these days. If only there was some technology that would bring PCIe level expandability to laptops without eating up a bunch of space like ExpressCard...
My Other Computer Is A Data General Nova III.
Actually, I think that USB 3.0 is a technology in search of a solution. The only thing USB 3.0 does better than 2.0 is move large quantities of data. This pretty much means that its utility is limited to storage devices such as hard drives, SSDs, etc. (Printers are already served much better by Ethernet, IMO, and most other devices don't need that much bandwidth.)
For storage purposes, eSATA utterly spanks USB 3.0 because of the lower protocol overhead, and is cheaper because of the lower silicon requirements. Further, with the (unofficial standard) combination eSATAp ports, USB 3.0 provides no real benefit over eSATA.
As far as I can tell, by the time USB 3.0 finally made it into silicon, the only reason for USB 3.0 to even exist is to push manufacturers to build enough power handling into their USB ports to make eSATAp possible. I don't expect a USB 4.0. Ever. By contrast, eSATA will continue to get faster.
If everything is perfectly optimal, USB 3.0 is half as fast as a single Thunderbolt channel. On most Macs, each cable has two channels, for a total of four times as fast. So no, it's nowhere near as fast.
The reason for Thunderbolt is actually pretty obvious if you look at Apple's history. Apple has consistently looked for ways to allow a single cable to connect from your monitor to your computer and still provide USB and FireWire ports on top of your desk. Prior to Thunderbolt, this required either an Apple-proprietary video cable (the ADC connector) or running a bundle of wires that broke out into multiple connectors near the computer end. With Thunderbolt, they can do the same thing with a single, industry-standard cable. And have. It has FireWire 800, Gig-E, and USB (2.0—Apple hasn't gotten on the USB 3.0 bandwagon) ports.
If I were placing bets on what ports Apple will lose by 2014, my money would be on pretty much all the other ports. With Thunderbolt, Apple could provide a single USB port, a headphone jack, and a single Thunderbolt port, and it would take care of everyone's needs. Apple or a third party could provide FireWire, Ethernet, and USB breakout dongles for the few people who really need those other ports in the field, and Apple could sell its existing monitors for the 99% of people who only need them while tethered to a desk.
Given how much more flexibility Thunderbolt gives Apple, someone would have to be crazy not to take you up on your 2014 bet if you weren't posting as an A.C. Even if no one but Apple adopted Thunderbolt, and even if no non-Apple Thunderbolt peripherals made it to market, it would already be as successful as necessary to all but guarantee long-term relevance.
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