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Intel announce new thunderbolt (for the new Mac Pro?)
As we haven’t had a discussion about the new MacPro for a few days
https://www.engadget.com/2013/04/08/intel-announces-next-gen-thunderbolt-20-gbps-throughput/
Steve Connor
There’s nothing we can’t argue about on the FCPX COW Forum
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9 Replies
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AAAAHHH – Apple were just quietly beavering away with Intel to catapult the new MacPro into the 22nd Century!
…or its out of date already.
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New Mac Pro in April?
https://9to5mac.com/2013/04/08/rumors-claims-mac-pro-update-coming-this-month/
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“The new Thunderbolt will start ramping up in 2014”
Michael
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I hope when Intel says backward compatible they also mean that the cables use copper and carry power unlike the fibre optic cables that are planned to be used to reach 100Gb/s speeds.
With Intel production apparently slated for 2014, are they referring to their own motherboards but will it be possible for Apple to use this faster TB in their updated Mac Pro “later in 2013?” With the announcement of an UltraHD digital film camera from BlackMagic Design, can Apple keep pace with processing 4K media this year? Many questions!
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Interesting questions. Did apples first implementation of Thunderbolt in 2011 have native support on the CPU, or was it a separate controller (if that’s the right term- you get what I mean).
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Yes, TB is integrated with the i5 and i7 processor chipsets but the issue for the Mac Pro has been the lack of TB support for the Xeon processor chipsets that Apple would presumably use in their updated Mac Pro. But who really knows what will be used?
Rick Lang
iMac 27” 2.8GHz i7 16GB
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Right. And with Intel’s roadmap for the Xeon’s with TB & USB3 being this fall, it makes any rumours about an earlier launch that much more curious/suspect. But as you say, it all depends on what the guts will be.
I winder if there’s ANY alternatives to Xeon’s that would deliver comparable performance- considering how much of the work gets done on GPUs now. It’s obviously a detriment that Xeon’s seem to have this 1-2 year lag on improvements.
But I’d agree that based on what Intel announced today, the first iteration of whatever this new MacPro turns out to be is unlikely to ship with the nee 20GB/s version of TB.
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[Marcus Moore] “I winder if there’s ANY alternatives to Xeon’s that would deliver comparable performance- considering how much of the work gets done on GPUs now.”
There were the rumors that Apple would move the Mac platform over to ARM. And there’s always the POWER architecture…
I am a big proponent of GPGPU technologies, but I think it’s important we not overstate how much processing happens on the GPU. We are still a long way off on the software side from a stack of GPUs matching the performance of a dual-CPU Xeon.
[Marcus Moore] “It’s obviously a detriment that Xeon’s seem to have this 1-2 year lag on improvements. “
What improvements are these? Are you referring only to Thunderbolt, or to something else as well?
[Marcus Moore] “But I’d agree that based on what Intel announced today, the first iteration of whatever this new MacPro turns out to be is unlikely to ship with the nee 20GB/s version of TB.”
Agreed that this is unlikely — but the next version of Thunderbolt does look like a nice step up!
Walter Soyka
Principal & Designer at Keen Live
Motion Graphics, Widescreen Events, Presentation Design, and Consulting
RenderBreak Blog – What I’m thinking when my workstation’s thinking
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I’m basically talking about I/O like USB & Thunderbolt.
Like you say, the 20GB/s boost is a big improvement. But if the “i” processors get that next year, what’s the delay for the Xeon’s? It’s already been 2 years since Apple debuted TB on macs, with it still not expected on Xeon for another 6 months. That’s a pretty frustratingtechnical lag for Apple’s Professional machine.
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