Light Peak Ready, But Uses Copper

[exfileme]

The current ready-to-go version of Light Peak uses copper, not fiber optics.

Light Peak Ready, But Uses Copper : Read more

 

[house70]

lightpeak without light...

 

[squanto]

@house70

Copperpeak?

 

[Guest]

CopperPeak?

 

[eddieroolz]

If it isn't done with fibre optics, then it has lost the point.

 

[agnickolov]

copperpeak?

 

[jdamon113]

Still sounds okay, lesat it is faster than usb3
I still think they are short sidding them selves.(intel)
Fiber inside a server or pc would have sold, regardless the price.

But we can call this redpeak for now

 

[hellwig]

Lets see, USB 1.0 to USB 3.0 uses the same port. Yes, 3.0 technically requires a different cable/socket to enable 3.0 capability, but you can still plug in your old 1.0 and 2.0 devices using those same cables.

Light Peak comes out first with copper. Eventually it will support fiber-optics, requiring brand new sockets/ports and cables, even though the technology itself won't be changing. Doesn't sound like a good plan to me (not for consumers anyway). Imagine if Intel did this with all its technology, you'd have to buy a new socket/motherboard everytime they came out with a new processor (ok, ok, bad example there).

I also don't understand where this is needed. You can already do 10Gbit ethernet over fiber and copper (obviously, the distance with copper is greatly reduced, but Intel hasn't told us how far Light Peak can go with copper), so unless Light Peak is going to be extremely inexpensive compared to 10GigE, it's not better in anyway than an already implemented and available technology. Besides, where is the bandwidth coming from for Light Peak? Intel's consumer products are pretty much running-out of bandwidth (16 PCIe lanes on the P67/Sandy Bridge is a max of 32gbps, and you'll use at least half of that on your graphics card).

And don't tell me this is a server/data center/corporate solution. There are plenty of technologies that already exist in those sectors, and when talking server/data center/corporate, you don't bother mentioning USB. Intel is clearly trying to create a consumer technology here, and failing miserably.

No way I'm buying a copper-based Light Peak device today when a year from now my new computer comes with an optical interface only. I've been burned before (I bought SPDIF speakers a decade ago that use coax-RCA when too many sound cards and other devices use optical, how I wish I could plug them into my BluRay player).

 

[mauller07]

CopperBase

 

[mavroxur]

If they first release this on copper, and then try and change the standard to fiber at a later date, I predict a failure of the market to adopt this technology, and an associated "fail" of it shortly after release. Releasing another copper standard to "coexist" with USB 3.0 just smells too much like a "trying to replace" tactic. If it were fiber, then I could understand a coexist / complementary technology, but not copper vs copper.

 

[rhino13]

I'm not really a fan of closed standards. Particularly when they involve Intel. I'd like to see USB4 throtle this peaking standard, but we shall see.

 

[malphas]

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Imagine if Intel did this with all its technology, you'd have to buy a new socket/motherboard everytime they came out with a new processor (ok, ok, bad example there).[/citation]
Ha ha, excellent.

 

[alchemy69]

Transparent copper?

 

[scook9]

[citation][nom]TheCapulet[/nom]If they can make it so that the copper platform and the fiber platform are interchangable so that we can upgrade with just the cable later on down the road, I could see this as being a really good thing.[/citation]
Google "SFP"

 

[ares1214]

This is probably just a thing to hold us over. I highly doubt the whole point of Light Peak was to be done on copper. Its just a copper version of light peak will be ready sooner, and may yield sizable benefits over todays tech, just not AS sizable as what we would see with fiber. If fiber Light Peak is 5 years away, and they can get this ready in 1 year with copper, i dont blame them.

 

[BrightCandle]

According to Intel's spokes people the design contained copper from the start. Lightpeak was a combination of copper and fibre together (I assume for power transfer reasons). Cutting out the fibre may just mean that the cables are cheaper but the plug should be compatible.

Unless I am going to get 10Gbit/s over 50m or so I am not interested in just the copper version. I wanted to replace the dual bonded LAN with something faster but without the enterprise cost of 10Gb Ethernet. The fact that Intel wasn't showing this off at CES suggests they know the current implementation is a lemon.

 

[Guest]

why would anyone buy into this if they know there's a optic version arriving not too far down the line, why not just wait and do it right the first time, especially seeing as that according to the statement, this is not a rival format to USB3 but rather could be used to even carry UBS3 signals.....

 

[Guest]

Again Intel boels hits around.
I work in industrial automation and fibre optics is know for so many years now but why the hell does it takes ages to get reality in the consumer world?
Copper,wt f!As always they just want to make money again and again.
Its already there-100Gb/s,believe me,but its always that !@#$% money.
Super fast light computers have been invented yet where are they,we are being fooled yet again.

 

[jimmysmitty]

[citation][nom]rhino13[/nom]I'm not really a fan of closed standards. Particularly when they involve Intel. I'd like to see USB4 throttle this peaking standard, but we shall see.[/citation]

You do realize that Intel is one of the major players in the USB standard, right? In fact one of the two guys who created the USB standard works for Intel.

As for Light Peak, I didn't see this coming. I know Intel was working on a way to embed copper with the fiber in order to be able to also charge devices since charging with light isn't quite possible.

Maybe its a start and the older copper based cables and devices will be able to plug into newer ones but will have limited performance, much like plugging in a USB1.1 device into a USB2.0 device only produces 1.1 speeds.

[citation][nom]hellwig[/nom]Imagine if Intel did this with all its technology, you'd have to buy a new socket/motherboard everytime they came out with a new processor (ok, ok, bad example there).[/citation]

I can understand the frustration of having to completely upgrade your system but TBH, its not that bad and carries good reasons. Its why AMD had to kill off S939 and 940. Even though S940 was the same pin amount as AM2, they needed to kill it in order to take advantage of the full potential of the CPUs. They are doing it again with AM3+. Bulldozer wont work in AM3 because it would severely limit the CPUs potential.

Sandy Bridge required a completely new pin layout because, well the GPU is integrated onto the CPU die itself and if you look at the reviews its power usage is amazing. It stays near a dual core Core i5/i3 while having 2x pretty much everything and a much faster GPU.

I think if it was this way in the car industry we would have had better alternatives to gasoline a long time ago. Without the push to keep evolving a platform it would be dead in terms of performance gain. Honestly I don't think Socket 478 could give us the same level of performance as LGA775 did or current sockets do even if they found a way to shove a quad core Sandy Bridge into it.

 

[thejerk]

Optical is new technology? Since 25 years ago?

 

[mikem_90]

Now is time for AMD's chipset to ramp up Sata 6g/sec and USB 3.0 Adoption. Even if Lightpeak is a faster and better technology, Intel would have to create a new chipset and very likely a new CPU to better take advantage of all these things (USB 3.0, Sata6g/sec and Light peak). The PCI-E squeeze on Intel's mainstream platform is going to constrain them unless they're going to pull an extra 8x or 16x out of nowhere.

AMD can push harder on their platform to take up the slack. Or maybe Intel will just use some sort of PCI-E switch kind of like how Asus did their SATA3/USB3 Add-on card. Still not ideal though.

 

[Guest]

@Hellwig, you can use your coax SPDIF speakers with your bluray player, a coax to optical SPDIF adapter is about $20.

I'm guessing the same will be true with light-peak, no reason a copper to optical adapter couldn't be made very easily and cheaply if that is what worries you.

 

[Guest]

I didn't imagine this happening with lightpeak.. Is it really that expensive? Seriously Intel? If this was a problem going on in R&D, then you should have got behind USB3, and release the lightpeak in a year or two. LIGHTPEAK is the name, ugh.

 

[Usersname]

What a rip-off decision. Typical of PC technologists. Always out for screwing the consumer...They could change the tech name to SeeYouCumming

 

[tayb]

Okay so change the name then. May as well call it USB 3.1.