Thunderbolt Will Become Key Motherboard Spec in 2H 2012
Insiders predict the obvious: Thunderbolt will be a key competitive spec for motherboard manufacturers in 2H 2012.
This week, both Asus and MSI launched the very first non-Mac motherboards featuring Intel's Thunderbolt technology. The Asus P8Z77-V Premium and later the P8Z77-V Pro/Thunderbolt are based on Intel Socket 1155 and the Intel Z77 Express chipset as does MSI's own Z77A-GD80 motherboard.
Thunderbolt will allow these boards to provide two-way bandwidth reaching up to 10 Gbps to Thunderbolt-compatible devices. The tech supports both PCI Express and DisplayPort on a single port, but there's a drawback: Thunderbolt is more expensive than USB 3.0, limiting its future growth for the time being.
Unnamed sources in the motherboard sector are claiming that Thunderbolt is expected to become one of the the key specifications that motherboard makers will be competing with in the second half of 2012. Yet given that Thunderbolt chips are only offered by Intel with quotes of around $20 to $25, this leaves non-Intel chipmakers unable to make a profit from Thunderbolt directly, thus creating adapter chips instead.
The wave of Thunderbolt desktops, motherboards and peripherals in the second half of 2012 has been expected for some time. Even Intel said that it's shooting for around 100 Thunderbolt-based peripherals by the end of the year.
Last month, Kirk Skaugen, corporate vice president and general manager of Intel’s PC Client Group, said the number of devices is expected to grow as Thunderbolt expands from Apple's Mac OS X universe over to Microsoft's Windows-based realm starting this summer.
"We have 21 Thunderbolt devices in things like storage and displays in the marketplace. We have a hundred targeted by the end of the year, and hundreds of Thunderbolt devices targeted by the middle or end of next year,” Skaugen said.
In March Intel spokesman Dave Salvator said that the company will finally release optical cables for Thunderbolt later this year. Unlike the current copper versions, these should provide more bandwidth and longer cable runs in the "tens of meters" although devices will need their own power supply at greater lengths. Running power over longer optical cable will cause a impedance-induced power drop and thus be impractical, he said.
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UPDATE: Intel reminded us that there's also the DZ77RE-75K, the chipmaker's first Z77 chipset motherboard with Thunderbolt and optimized for the 2nd and 3rd generation Intel Core –K processors in the LGA1155 package. The DZ77RE-75K board features the Intel Visual BIOS, which enables performance tuning and overclocking of the CPU core, graphics and memory speeds with unlocked Core –K processors.
Kevin Parrish has over a decade of experience as a writer, editor, and product tester. His work focused on computer hardware, networking equipment, smartphones, tablets, gaming consoles, and other internet-connected devices. His work has appeared in Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide, Maximum PC, Digital Trends, Android Authority, How-To Geek, Lifewire, and others.
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elcentral hell yeah it will be, think of all the 1 beta product for the next 2 years you will miss out on. its still scars for the usb 3.0 options out there.Reply -
bison88 Meh, can it supersede USB in the market or will it go the route of FireWire with only a niche market. That's the ultimate question. Either way for a long time it'll be nothing more than a complimentary technology to USB until it has full market saturation.Reply -
segio526 Meh. I barely use USB 3.0. I use it for my 2TB backup drive. I don't use it for anything else. That drive isn't saturating the 3.0 bus, so doubling it does nothing for me and won't for many years. Also, the cables will ALWAYS be more expensive than USB until they can (?) move the cable circuits into the device/controller. This may be short sighted of me, but I see no benefit for 90% (or more) of consumers.Reply -
shloader Exactly. USB3 covers what we need in the desktop segment for now. Thunderbolt is more niche than necessary. bison88 is right. FireWire was relevant in PC space ten years ago because of Sony's early adoption on Digital 8 and DV devices. I think I had FireWire before I ever had USB2.0. Because of Mac popularity with Video Editing back then it was essential on that platform. FireWire costs a little more but that's something Apple and its customer base could hardly care about.Reply
Here we are in a similar situation. Apple is getting the jump on it and they don't care about a $25 chip considering their markup margins. It also makes more sense on their platform; it gives them more flexibility for aesthetic design aspects.
However FireWire made immediate sense for Video transfer on PC and Mac at its introduction. Here's Thunderbolt. I've heard everything about how great it is and what it would be nice for. Now just what is Intel stressing that we need this for? Not a few years from now... I mean right now. -
Thunderbolt will be a niche at best if it can convince audio/video interface makers to support it. Then it wili be as (un)succesful as Firewire was.Reply
If it can't do that, then there won't be many Thunderbolt devices, and it will pretty much be one of those things like SPDIF and 1394 that are on every motherboard, but nobody ever uses them. -
andromeda I like the potential of TB but until it can power devices that they flaunt like LED monitors then I don't really care. USB is far superior in this segment.Reply
I want TB devices that power media devices 1 plug for data and power until then I stick with what works -
jackbling the only thing that interest me about thunderbolt, is getting an external graphics card for laptops. aside form that, it seems like a waste of money on desktop systems.Reply