USB 3.0 is left in the dust once again. http://www.bit-tech.net/news/hardware/2013/04/09/intel-falcon-ridge/1
That's Intel's plan: Redwood Ridge is already going to be cheaper - well, cheaper to manufacturers, which hopefully means cheaper to consumers too rather than just boosting people's profits - and Intel's presence at NAB spoke volumes: "Buy Thunderbolt, 'cos it's chuffin' quick when it comes to shuffling 4K video around the place." When you're spending £5K-£500K on a display, the cost of the interconnect isn't really a prime concern. If Intel can sell enough expensive Thunderbolt gear to that kind of customer, economies of scale kick in and it will be able to sell cheaper Thunderbolt gear to the consumer who just wants to connect his monitor, camera and external hard drive over a nice quick bus. At least, that's the theory. Remind me about this post some time towards the end of 2015, we'll see if Thunderbolt is in any way affordable as a mainstream alternative to USB 3.0 then...
I tested a LaCie 4TB d2 with Thunderbolt and USB3 in the Apple-Store a few weeks back. Datatransfer was around 10% faster with Thunderbolt than with USB3, but that doesn't justify the costs for such a device. Thunderbolt isn't really that interesting imho, allthough it has some cool features like daisy-chaining all your periphal devices (screen, NAS, etc). The price for the devices and the cables is simply too high.
What a coincidence! Only because USB-IF announced today 10Gb/s + 100W on USB Intel decided to do that too (with Thunderbolt of course) !
Reminds me too much of the Firewire/USB2 situation where the Firewire group really priced themselves out the market. By the time they lowered the licence fee it was too late. Manufacturers have to sell at a price being in a competitive market - ultimate speed isn't the only concern. Manufacturers realised with camcorders that selling on one point and raising the price wasn't enough, hence the huge switch from Firewire camcorders to USB2 ones in the past. Oddly enough it was mainly Apple that adopted Firewire in the early days just as they are now with Thunderbolt. I think that they are going about it from the wrong end of the pricing spectrum (though it's understandable with Apple involved). They need to offer a similar speeds to USB but at a lower price point, with extra speed possibly for higher price points. Their current strategy is heading for high end niche product status and I think it will be stuck in that bracket - not selling enough to recoup development costs and lower the price - though the interested parties may be happy at that with Apple having a unique 'selling point' and Intel have both sides covered.
Before that it looks like we will be getting SuperSpeed USB (USB 3.0) upping the speed to 10Gps and 100w
Why link to an external site when this very article has a link to a story on that subject, written back in January?
Well it looks like it wont make a difference to the average PC consumer then. Heres me thinking pre reading article USB was already suceeded. Thank god its getting to much to upgrade an entire motherboard just to have USB 3 capability, its bad enough to keep up with CPUs and GPUs and DDRx. This will however will be a nice welcome to though univserities that need this kind of transfer speeds for all the devices they use at once
Because the article that was written back in January does not mention. And And If i knew posting updated details would offend you so much i wouldn't have bothered.
Apologies if that was the impression I gave: my post was terse because I'm on my phone, and the forum text input box doesn't play terribly well with the browser...
