New Thunderbolt Revision Features 20 Gbps Throughput, 4K Video Support

hooligun writes "The next-gen Thunderbolt tech (code-named Falcon Ridge) enables 4K video file transfer and display simultaneously in addition to running at 20 Gbps. It will be backward-compatible with previous-gen Thunderbolt cables and connectors, and production is set to ramp up in 2014. An on-stage demo with fresh-off-the-press silicon showed the new Thunderbolt running 1,200 Mbps, which is certainly a step up from what's currently on the market."

Comments

Adoption by Mass Market?

[AtomicSymphonic]

So, will we see OEM Windows PCs come by default with Thunderbolt ports? Or is this another fantastic, magical, extraordinary Apple Inc. exclusive?

Re:Adoption by Mass Market?

[Radagast]

Asus has a motherboard.

Re: Adoption by Mass Market?

[UnknowingFool]

I don't know what you've been smoking but Thunderbolt is an Intel invention. They worked with Apple on implementation with Apple's most obvious contribution being the VESA compliant mini-Displau port connector. For their efforts, Apple got a good six month lead on their competition as they had products the day Intel released the specs. Incidentally, Apple got the Thunderbolt trademark and then transferred it to Intel.

Re: Adoption by Mass Market?

[UnknowingFool]

Really? So Apple's marketing is sompowerul that Intel's website is spewing Apple's propaganda? Or change Wikipedia:

Thunderbolt (codenamed Light Peak)[1] is a hardware interface that allows for the connection of external peripherals to a computer. It uses the same connector as Mini DisplayPort (MDP). It was released in its finished state on February 24, 2011.[2]

On the same day, Apple released new iMacs with Thunderbolt.

Now what are your facts?

Re:Adoption by Mass Market?

[jtownatpunk.net]

I used to use firewire all the time back when I used to do a lot of video editing around the turn of the millennium. The first generation of USB was so bad that I didn't even consider USB2 for my external storage. Firewire, OTOH, was a rock. Never had a device just disappear for no reason. Throughput was better, CPU load was lower, isochronous transfer was possible. Night and day. Like comparing a Lexus to a Yugo.

Of course, now all my stuff is USB because firewire components are so rare and I have no need to move devices between computers. I've got gigabit ethernet to move files and I don't need to move a single optical drive between multiple machines. And USB is much more reliable than it used to be. My new gaming rig has two firewire ports but I haven't used them. Neither of my laptops has a firewire port and I haven't missed them. Thunderbolt seems like a solution to a problem that no longer exists [in my world].

Re: Adoption by Mass Market?

[PhunkySchtuff]

Ummm. No.
That enclosure doesn't do RAID, it's a JBOD enclosure. The peak transfer rate for the mini-SAS interface is 3Gbs (3 Gigabits, not bytes, per second) this is an absolute maximum of 375 MB/sec. The real-world performance of the unit will then depend on the RAID card you're using and will typically be somewhere lower than the peak theoretical performance of the interface. I don't know what drives you're putting in there that can each do 500MB/sec (SSD?) and I don't know what RAID card you propose to use that'll let all eight SSDs run at their peak rate.

The unit I was talking about (http://www.areca.com.tw/products/thunderbolt.htm) on the other hand, with 8 drives in it has a measured real-world performance of 650MB/sec read or write via a single Thunderbolt cable, using RAID 5 that's done in hardware in the enclosure itself.

This 650MB/sec is the actual performance that the BlackMagic Disk Speed Test gave me on a MacBook Pro 13" laptop connected to the RAID with 8x 1TB Western Digital hard drives in it.

Thunderbolt is faster than SAS, SATA and SATA II. Thunderbolt is faster than 2, 4 and 8 Gb/sec Fibre Channel - Thunderbolt is a 10Gbs full-duplex interface, so can transfer 20Gb/sec at it's peak. That's 2.5 Gigabytes per second (1.25 in each direction).

Re:What could I connect this to?

[Radagast]

That's simply false. There's a large amount of Thunderbolt accessories, including video gear, PCIe expansion chassis (very useful for laptops), and docks. Sonnet just announced this Thunderbolt dock, which seems to be a pretty great deal for laptops.

New Standards are nice and all....

[iamwhoiamtoday]

But in the end, it all comes down to cost. Current Thunderbolt displays are rather expensive. Heck, I picked up a dual-link DVI monitor of the same resolution for $275 on ebay! why pay three to four times as much for something with only a small few bells and whistles added on?

Thunderbolt, overall, is great in terms of performance, but it just seems to be well beyond what most folks are willing to pay. It's like that guy who brags about how "My car has a Turbo Kit option from the dealer" but he NEVER SPENDS THE MONEY TO GET IT.

The external drives, the only situation that I'd actually be interested in, are also stupid expensive. In the long run, just better off either using E-SATA, USB3, or internalizing the drives. Same goes for daisy chaining monitors. Want to run tons of monitors? Install more video cards! woo.

no more coffee for me after 5pm, k? ._.

Re: New Standards are nice and all....

[Mad Merlin]

Compare a thunderbolt cable to a Cisco 10 gig copper cable and tell me thunderbolt is overpriced.

Sure, but even Denon's $500 ethernet cable looks like a great deal compared to Cisco gear.

There are already several options

[SuperKendall]

What could I connect this to?

Several RAID arrays, gigabit ethernet, multiple monitors, misc external storage (like single disks or a DROBO).

All with one connector...

Yes Thunderbolt stuff was slow to come out, but the rate of arrival has picked up.

watch units please

[v1]

Mbps != MBps

Please stop doing that in article summaries. When you start getting up into large numbers like that you can't just expect everyone to "read what you meant to say."

"20Gb/s" will bring useful 10GbE

[GrumpyOldMan]

I do 10GbE drivers, and the previous generation of tbolt did not really offer 10Gb/s of usable bandwidth to PCIe devices, it was more like 8Gb/s:

If you recall, tbolt muxes PCIe and Display Port. On the PCIe side, the thunderbolt bridge passed 2 lanes of Gen2 PCIe through to devices. Since Gen2 is "5GT/s" per lane, you'd think you'd have 10Gb/s. But not really, as "10Gb/s" does not take into account PCIe overhead, which can be about 20% of the data transfer rate. So on the original "10Gb/s" thunderbolt, you were lucky to get 7Gb/s transfer rate from 10GbE NIC, once you also add in network protocol overheads.

Having a bus-constrained NIC leads to all sorts of weird problems when receiving data.. With flow control disabled in combination with bursty transfers, you often see far less than the 7Gb/s peak, as TCP hunts around to find the constraint and recover from frequent packet loss events.

It sounds like they've built the new part from 2 lanes of Gen3 PCIe, which should be good for ~16Gb/s of usable bandwidth. This is a very welcome change, as 16Gb/s should be enough for a single-port 10GbE NIC running at full speed, and a disk controller talking to a fast SSD or an external RAID array that can deliver ~750MB/s (bytes) of I.O.

Just don't try to use a bonded 2 port 10GbE NIC, or you're back at the bandwidth constrained problem.
 

Macbook vs Mac Pro

[fyngyrz]

But imho the mac pro is obsolete and has been replaced by a macbook with a thunderbolt port.

If you wanted to configure your macbook to match a *current* mac pro, you'd need 8 more full i7 cores (assuming you have four in the macbook), four hard drives, four external graphics engines, and 48 gb (I think) of RAM... all strung out on your thunderbolt cable. And a *lot* of power supply wiring. Not sure that's an equivalence that is worth much.

And add to that whatever they do with the next Mac pro upgrade they say they're working on... More cores? More ram? Faster system bus? All of the above? No, don't think your macbook is quite there, lol.