Intel's long-awaited Light Peak technology, now known formally as "Thunderbolt", is finally available on its first consumer device, and the company today unveiled more details about when we'll be seeing it in consumer PCs and gadgets.
First unveiled at Intel's Developer Conference back in 2009, the data transfer tech promises to replace a handful of ports with one that can do more things, and do them faster.
Its first inclusion in a computer is in Apple's MacBook Pro line, which refreshed earlier today with Thunderbolt ports across the line. Intel followed up a few hours later with a press conference about the technology, as well as its plans to bring it to computers and devices over the next year or so.
This article will help readers to give better understanding on what the technology is and why it matters.
What is Thunderbolt?
First unveiled at Intel's Developer Conference back in 2009, the data transfer tech promises to replace a handful of ports with one that can do more things, and do them faster.
Its first inclusion in a computer is in Apple's MacBook Pro line, which refreshed earlier today with Thunderbolt ports across the line. Intel followed up a few hours later with a press conference about the technology, as well as its plans to bring it to computers and devices over the next year or so.
This article will help readers to give better understanding on what the technology is and why it matters.
What is Thunderbolt?
Thunderbolt is Intel's new input/output technology that promises to bring transfer speeds that exceed what is currently available with USB 3.0, as well as extending that speed across several devices at once. In terms of where you'll see it, Thunderbolt will appear as a new port on laptops and PCs, as well as on devices that support it.
The technology itself makes use of existing DisplayPort and PCI-Express data protocols to open up what you can do with a single port into multiple uses and at high speeds. This includes "daisy chaining" up to seven Thunderbolt-equipped devices together, while retaining full speed across all of them at once.
How fast is it?
Thunderbolt currently runs with a top speed of 10Gbps, though in future Intel expects top 100Gbps in data throughput when it moves from a copper wire to optical fiber. In the interim, copper wire has both speed and cable length limits, keeping cable length at 3 meters or less. The data transfer is also bidirectional, meaning it can both transmit and receive data at the same time, and at its top speed.
During Intel's press conference about the technology. the company demonstrated it working on a MacBook Pro, pulling four raw, uncompressed 1080p video streams through a Thunderbolt storage array, and feeding into a Thunderbolt-attached display, all the while topping more than 600MBps in its transfer speeds. An earlier test of just file transferring had gotten it up to 800MBps.
To put this in perspective of what's been available up to this point, that's twice as fast as the theoretical limit of USB 3.0, 20 times faster than USB 2.0, and 12 times faster than FireWire 800.
When can I get it?
The long and the short of it is that you can get Thunderbolt today, so long as you buy Apple's MacBook Pro, which is the first laptop to ship with a Thunderbolt port as a standard port across its entire line. As far as it arriving on PC laptop and desktop machines, the company today estimated that we wouldn't see it there until early next year given OEM design cycles.
The technology itself makes use of existing DisplayPort and PCI-Express data protocols to open up what you can do with a single port into multiple uses and at high speeds. This includes "daisy chaining" up to seven Thunderbolt-equipped devices together, while retaining full speed across all of them at once.
How fast is it?
Thunderbolt currently runs with a top speed of 10Gbps, though in future Intel expects top 100Gbps in data throughput when it moves from a copper wire to optical fiber. In the interim, copper wire has both speed and cable length limits, keeping cable length at 3 meters or less. The data transfer is also bidirectional, meaning it can both transmit and receive data at the same time, and at its top speed.
During Intel's press conference about the technology. the company demonstrated it working on a MacBook Pro, pulling four raw, uncompressed 1080p video streams through a Thunderbolt storage array, and feeding into a Thunderbolt-attached display, all the while topping more than 600MBps in its transfer speeds. An earlier test of just file transferring had gotten it up to 800MBps.
To put this in perspective of what's been available up to this point, that's twice as fast as the theoretical limit of USB 3.0, 20 times faster than USB 2.0, and 12 times faster than FireWire 800.
When can I get it?
The long and the short of it is that you can get Thunderbolt today, so long as you buy Apple's MacBook Pro, which is the first laptop to ship with a Thunderbolt port as a standard port across its entire line. As far as it arriving on PC laptop and desktop machines, the company today estimated that we wouldn't see it there until early next year given OEM design cycles.
0 comments:
Post a Comment