Thunderbolt Ready Program Lets You Add Thunderbolt Card to Your Mobo

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That is without a doubt a silly, hacked together looking solution... Thunderbolt is *not* that important. How many motherboards have a GPIO pin header anyway? I suppose they couldn't have used a USB 2 header instead of GPIO, because that would have been embarrassing?
 
With USB3/3.1 for high-speed data, I can't say I'm in much of a hurry to get Thunderbolt... I'll get it when it eventually gets built into mainstream chipsets and becomes one more of those things available on the rear IO plate.

Besides, Intel is still using the old DMI bus between the CPU and chipset so going through the x4 slot fed from the chipset could turn into a bottleneck before Thunderbolt gets a chance to flex its muscles. Intel needs to step that up a notch.
 
Me too, I would just like USB 2.0 and 3.0 to perform anywhere near the standard before we move on to something else. :)

 
Thunderbolt IS fast enough to accept a desktop GPU externally without a hit in performance. Buy a desktop with thunderbolt, or install this work around, also use a laptop with thunderbolt and you can use the same GPU with both machines, saves cash. THAT IS ONE AWESOME THING THAT THIS IS GOOD FOR...
 
as an IT pro, I will take every bit of transfer speed I can get. Imaging from USB3 is spotty and there are frequent errors. External SSD with thunderbolt is beautiful.
 

The original Thunderbolt is only 20Gbps or equivalent to PCIe 2.0 x4. Many GPUs will start to bottleneck on that and the DMI bus between the CPU and chipset can barely handle that much so you get extra latency and potential bottlenecking there.
 
Why the hell should I care about thundacrap when USB is right there and it is open too? Proprietary tech like thunderbolt should never be given a chance to establish a foothold in the market, or it just leads to stupid high prices.
 
Can we please dispense with all the stupid comments about USB 2 and USB 3? Thunderbolt is capable of so, so much more. Apple is selling awesome thunderbolt monitors that use Thunderbolt for docking stations for all of their equally awesome MacBook computers. PC makers are stuck hopelessly using antiquated connectivity standards like USB and ugly proprietary docking station solutions.

This is one area where I feel PC makers have completely dropped the ball. Every Apple laptop is equipped with a Thunderbolt port and almost no PC "ultra"-books have them. There is nothing "Ultra" about PC ultra books!!!! Especially considering that al MacBooks now have ultra-fast PCI Express SSD's as well. Why can't PC users have these things? Because PC users don''t want them! Why don't PC users want enhanced connectivity? Because they are stupid iHaters!
 

I would say mostly because most people neither need them nor want to pay a premium for stuff they are unlikely to ever need. Having data and display in one cable may sound neat but there are plenty of people who don't feel like this is worth the $50-200 premium.

Thunderbolt won't replace USB for my mouse, keyboard, tablet, phone, printer, scanner, headset, etc. and USB3 is already much faster than my external HDDs will ever need. USB is not going to go away any time soon with so many devices for which the extra cost, power and bandwidth make no sense.
 

OR every mac has TB ports because Intel had a exclusive deal with them at first.

If you want to release something that uses more expensive active cables(not that I think active cables are bad.) adds more overall cost do you ask acer or another maker who sells 300 dollar computers or do you ask the one of the companies that already knows how to get users to spend more to begin with?

It is called business.

Firewire was the same thing, cost more(and was superior to usb), but for most users did not add enough to be worth the entry price.

When Apple sells a 300 dollar system for the average facebook user(a honest majority of users now do not use the internet for anything else) let me know.

Do not take this wrong, they design some great machines, but like anything else, variety is always good and you get much more on the pc side of things. Some users want to pay lots of money for a computer to use for everything, others just want it for occasional use and do not need all these extras.
 


Nuke is correct, better does not mean it will be mainstream.

@InvalidError my comment was not to point blame for the overall failure of firewire. Although, I think Apple dropping support for ipod to firewire connections is what ultimately killed it. It was meant to point out that thunderbolt is on the same shaky path as 1394. Also there were other connections in the past with Apple that did not fare well. Such as in the 90s when Apple decided on scsi over ide. Sure scsi was better but it cost to much to implement....a scsi cable could set you back $50+. This might have been why it never caught on with home users.

This also gives light to an overall stigma in the industry....that anything Apple must cost more. This causes a negative domino effect, the peripherals cost more, cables cost more. Intel would have been better off not having an exclusivity deal. It would have created a better market mix of devices from low to high end.
 

SCSI drives also typically cost over twice as much as similar capacity ATA drives and the add-on controllers cost a small fortune too while ATA was integrated in the chipset.

How many design wins did FireWire get for chipset integration? None that I can remember.

The funniest thing about USB1 is that it was designed as half-duplex to make cheaper cables and connectors but now, with USB3, the USB-SIG had to add two extra pairs to accommodate higher speeds and double-simplex which makes everything more expensive than it would have been if USB hadn't been designed to shave pennies in the early days. Of course, USB1 was never intended to become a high-speed storage and raw video interface.
 
Firewire was a bit more complex too. I think its power system has a variable voltage regulator to allow for different voltages to use used for different devices. I am not sure if this made implementation in the chipset harder or not.
 
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