Intel Drops Thunderbolt 3 Royalty, Adds CPU Integration

[Megalith]

Two big changes are coming to Thunderbolt 3 in an effort to accelerate adoption: royalty fees for the protocol specification are no more, and the technology will be integrated into future Intel CPUs. The interface has seen sluggish embrace since its debut in 2009 but became more appealing when the USB protocol and USB-C port was adopted some years ago for its third iteration. Some say that Thunderbolt 3 has now effectively won the port wars.

...Intel is announcing that it plans to drive large-scale mainstream adoption of Thunderbolt by integrating Thunderbolt 3 into future Intel CPUs and by releasing the Thunderbolt protocol specification to the industry next year. With Thunderbolt 3 integrated into the CPU, computer makers can build thinner and lighter systems with only Thunderbolt 3 ports. For the first time, all the ports on a computer can be the same – any port can charge the system and connect to Thunderbolt devices, every display and billions of USB devices. Designs based on Intel’s integrated Thunderbolt 3 solution require less board space and reduce power by removing the discrete component needed for existing systems with Thunderbolt 3.

 

[Hitti2]

 

[Uvaman2]

uhhh ahhh, more unused bandwith.. (half a joke!)

 

[-PK-]

Thunderbolt takes a lot of HSIO lanes to implement because of it's display port capability, so you only get one port where they're implemented. The USB-C connector itself has had a slow adoption because even places like monoprice sell USB-C 3.0 and USB-C 3.1 6ft cables in the double digits.

 

[Uvaman2]

Can't wait for those thunderbot 3 mice and keyboard!

 

[Uvaman2]

Thunderbolt takes a lot of HSIO lanes to implement because of it's display port capability, so you only get one port where they're implemented. The USB-C connector itself has had a slow adoption because even places like monoprice sell USB-C 3.0 and USB-C 3.1 6ft cables in the double digits.

one port?
as in my laptop has one port?.. now apple's dongle life for everyone?
Jeez if you are right I can see them winning shit, I plug all kinds of shit in my PC, and keep them there for a while most often 'cuz convenience.

 

[Poseur]

I think I was happiest with a mess of USB 2.0 and a couple of USB 3.0 ports. No use for all of that bandwidth, although I'd like 10Gb ethernet built in.

 

[CombatChrisNC]

HDMI 2.1 is faster. 100gbs over twin-ax or fiber would also like to disagree.

But I mean, what's going to be the point of this if not video? External graphics cards?

 

[Deleted member 184142]

I will always take more speed, not going to complain....But at the same time, why can't we get cheap 10Gb network gear already!

 

[-PK-]

one port?
as in my laptop has one port?.. now apple's dongle life for everyone?
Jeez if you are right I can see them winning shit, I plug all kinds of shit in my PC, and keep them there for a while most often 'cuz convenience.

You usually see additional ports alongside it, but only one USB-C port being capable of thunderbolt. It's not too big of a deal since thunderbolt gets it's fast charging from USB-C.
Thunderbolt 3 adds up to 40Gbps bandwidth, PCIe 3.0 x4, and dual 4K 60Hz displayport 1.2a or HDMI 2.0 signals.
While USB-C 3.1 supports 10Gbps, all cables support 3A 20V 60W charging (up to 5A 20V 100W with certified PD-aware cables), and alternate modes like thunderbolt where implemented.

 

[zkostik]

I will always take more speed, not going to complain....But at the same time, why can't we get cheap 10Gb network gear already!

You can get these quite cheap on eBay, including switches. 10gb is old stuff in enteprise so you can fairly easily get these at a reasonable cost to use at home. I've been thinking of that but haven't really felt the necessity.

 

[TwiceOver]

I've had 3 laptops from 3 different manufactures with Thunderbolt 3 docks made by the manufacturer, compatible with each laptop. All 3 have display problems of varying degree running dual monitors. "I want to believe" and all, but it's still so infant.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

You can get these quite cheap on eBay, including switches. 10gb is old stuff in enteprise so you can fairly easily get these at a reasonable cost to use at home. I've been thinking of that but haven't really felt the necessity.

When I can get a normal Gb switch for $19, but a used 10Gb switch is $400, I don't consider that cheap. I also don't want to have a full rack sitting on my desk. You might find some $100-200ish used switches with a 10Gb UPLINK, but not a full 10Gb switch.

If you know where to get such a thing however, do post the link.

 

[zkostik]

When I can get a normal Gb switch for $19, but a used 10Gb switch is $400, I don't consider that cheap. I also don't want to have a full rack sitting on my desk. You might find some $100-200ish used switches with a 10Gb UPLINK, but not a full 10Gb switch.

If you know where to get such a thing however, do post the link.

Well, $400 is really not that bad; these are well into thousands new. There are smaller switches you can find for less with like 8 SFP ports, I think Zyxel has a relatively inexpensive one (had one at work at some point, I don't remember the model though). Then get used 10g ethernet tranceivers for ports you need at 10 and make others a gig. This is certainly by no means an under $100 setup but IMHO this is still an affordable setup for home if you really need this kind of speed.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

Well, $400 is really not that bad; these are well into thousands new. There are smaller switches you can find for less with like 8 SFP ports, I think Zyxel has a relatively inexpensive one (had one at work at some point, I don't remember the model though). Then get used 10g ethernet tranceivers for ports you need at 10 and make others a gig. This is certainly by no means an under $100 setup but IMHO this is still an affordable setup for home if you really need this kind of speed.

Affordable enterprise gear is not the same as cheap consumer gear. What I mean is that 10Gbe should be common now in devices, and would be far more useful than 40Gbs port for most people, outside of displays.

When a simple desktop 10Gbe switch (5 port) hits $100, I will be happy.

 

[Dan_D]

It's about time Intel dropped the bullshit royalties on this.

 

[BloodyIron]

If we could get GPUs to output USB-C, and have monitors with port replicators built in, I think we would see more uptake. I've had clients ask about these very things. We need to do more with USB-C and demand will follow. Let's really show how convenient it can get!

 

[Bandalo]

If we could get GPUs to output USB-C, and have monitors with port replicators built in, I think we would see more uptake. I've had clients ask about these very things. We need to do more with USB-C and demand will follow. Let's really show how convenient it can get!

MSI has a 1080Ti coming out soon that has one of it's DP ports replaced by a USB Type C. I'd love to see HDMI, DP and DVI all replaced by a Type-C port in the future.

 

[Vaulter98c]

I can see the purpose for HDMI and DP, those are going to take a lot longer to phase out, but DVI is like PS2, we need to replace that with Type C to start the ball rolling. DVI is still in play on some things but sooner or later we need to phase out the lesser of the 3 standards to make way for better things

 

[Dan_D]

I'd love to see HDMI, DP and DVI all replaced by a Type-C port in the future.

I would like to see this as well. Unfortunately, we are a number of years if not a decade or more away from that reality. I don't know that the drive to do it is there in the industry. USB 3.1 Type-C was always designed to be truly universal and do just that. It's a shame it isn't being leveraged better. I do think this will help, but its a long road ahead for the standard.

 

[Vaulter98c]

But on the flip side, get a decent price on a USB C to HDMI or DP cable and bam, I'd be happy with a card with just 4 USB C's

I wonder how content protection and HDMI over USB C all play together?

 

[Bandalo]

I would like to see this as well. Unfortunately, we are a number of years if not a decade or more away from that reality. I don't know that the drive to do it is there in the industry. USB 3.1 Type-C was always designed to be truly universal and do just that. It's a shame it isn't being leveraged better. I do think this will help, but its a long road ahead for the standard.

I'm sure the manufacturers would be more than happy to only have to deal with ONE port type on the cards and the monitors. Especially when it's simple, durable port like a type-C. Far fewer RMAs for bad ports, more manufacturing freedom, (it's far easier to cram a row of 4 type-C ports on a GPU than 2 DPs, 1 HDMI and a DVI). That's the incentive for the manufacturer anyway.

As long as the market can make a range of adapter cables in the meantime, it might go fairly quick. If you can pick up a $10 type-C to DP cable for your monitor for now, and then when you upgrade your monitor, switch back to type-c to type-c, the transition might go faster. That's not really incentive for a consumer, but at least it's a reasonable work-around until the future when monitors and GPUs match. And by then, maybe all the other ports on your PC will be type-C already.

 

[Dan_D]

I'm sure the manufacturers would be more than happy to only have to deal with ONE port type on the cards and the monitors. Especially when it's simple, durable port like a type-C. Far fewer RMAs for bad ports, more manufacturing freedom, (it's far easier to cram a row of 4 type-C ports on a GPU than 2 DPs, 1 HDMI and a DVI). That's the incentive for the manufacturer anyway.

As long as the market can make a range of adapter cables in the meantime, it might go fairly quick. If you can pick up a $10 type-C to DP cable for your monitor for now, and then when you upgrade your monitor, switch back to type-c to type-c, the transition might go faster. That's not really incentive for a consumer, but at least it's a reasonable work-around until the future when monitors and GPUs match. And by then, maybe all the other ports on your PC will be type-C already.

There is a lot less incentive to switch to a single port than you think. The reason why they won't do that anytime soon is the same reason why they still build motherboards that use D-SUB / VGA and legacy PCI slots to this very day. Companies like ASUS, MSI, and GIGABYTE think on a global scale. In many emerging markets, hardware without legacy ports does not sell.

 

[dgingeri]

When I can get a normal Gb switch for $19, but a used 10Gb switch is $400, I don't consider that cheap. I also don't want to have a full rack sitting on my desk. You might find some $100-200ish used switches with a 10Gb UPLINK, but not a full 10Gb switch.

If you know where to get such a thing however, do post the link.

I got a 28port switch with 4 of them 10Gb for $400 new. The SFPs were $25 more each, so it's $500 for 4 ports. (I only use 3 ports: main machine, storage server, VM/router host.) What home user needs more than that? I also see my Qlogic 10Gb NICs for less than $100 each on ebay these days. 10Gb is coming down in price these days.

 

[ccmfreak2]

.... Some say that Thunderbolt 3 has now effectively won the port wars.

Yup all those Android devices with Thunderbolt justifies this claim dramatically. All those Windows and Linux machines with Thunderbolt ports and accessories....

 

[dgingeri]

There is a lot less incentive to switch to a single port than you think. The reason why they won't do that anytime soon is the same reason why they still build motherboards that use D-SUB / VGA and legacy PCI slots to this very day. Companies like ASUS, MSI, and GIGABYTE think on a global scale. In many emerging markets, hardware without legacy ports does not sell.

With as cheap as DP to VGA adapters are, they could, if the MB manufacturers would include the cheap adapters. https://www.amazon.com/VicTsing-Gol...1495737329&sr=8-8&keywords=displayport+to+vga

 

[Bandalo]

There is a lot less incentive to switch to a single port than you think. The reason why they won't do that anytime soon is the same reason why they still build motherboards that use D-SUB / VGA and legacy PCI slots to this very day. Companies like ASUS, MSI, and GIGABYTE think on a global scale. In many emerging markets, hardware without legacy ports does not sell.

True, but this would start with the higher-end products and work it's way down. The "1080 and above" crowd wouldn't have the same concern with legacy ports.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

I got a 28port switch with 4 of them 10Gb for $400 new. The SFPs were $25 more each, so it's $500 for 4 ports. (I only use 3 ports: main machine, storage server, VM/router host.) What home user needs more than that? I also see my Qlogic 10Gb NICs for less than $100 each on ebay these days. 10Gb is coming down in price these days.

So $500 for the gear plus $100 for each computer you want to add it into, laptops not even possible. So at least $1,000 for my home setup, still not seeing how this relates to cheap?

 

[Lakados]

I will always take more speed, not going to complain....But at the same time, why can't we get cheap 10Gb network gear already!

There is almost no need for 10Gb on the desktop, even using SSD's at this point you can't really max out a 1Gb copper link, if it is a specialized task that you need the faster speeds and you have the hardware to move the data at those speeds it is easier to go fibre and bump straight up to 40Gb.

 

[Semantics]

So many things to daisy chain so little time.

 

[Deleted member 184142]

There is almost no need for 10Gb on the desktop, even using SSD's at this point you can't really max out a 1Gb copper link, if it is a specialized task that you need the faster speeds and you have the hardware to move the data at those speeds it is easier to go fibre and bump straight up to 40Gb.

What slow ass SSDs are you using? My storage pool that has no SSD's in it will do 3 times that.

 

[Vaulter98c]

There is almost no need for 10Gb on the desktop, even using SSD's at this point you can't really max out a 1Gb copper link, if it is a specialized task that you need the faster speeds and you have the hardware to move the data at those speeds it is easier to go fibre and bump straight up to 40Gb.

Um, it's really not hard to max out a gigabit network connection lol. Maybe not 24 /7 but when I transfer encodes en bulk to my media server I can easily max out that gigabit connection for a while, and that's not even counting looking at backups or replication (and no where in that equation is an SSD, most of those are slower WD Reds or cheap 7200 RPM spinners on Sata 6Gbps). There should be no reason we can't get an 8 port 10Gb ethernet switch for $100

That and new 10Gb NIC's also need to be well under $100. Last I looked even the realtek chips were over 200 for a 1 port NIC. I've already got the house wired in anticipation for 10Gb, now I just need the prices to catch up with reality

There's no reason why the moving pieces in my data flow are getting bottle-necked by the non-moving pieces, we should be pretty much always at the point where we are bottle-necked by the drives themselves, especially since every upgrade in the network is at least a 10 fold increase, you don't see gains like that in ANY other computer component

On topic tho, I wonder if you could get external 10Gb NICs for cheap on this new thunder3 port.. annoying but could serve as a short term fix

 

[Bandalo]

There is almost no need for 10Gb on the desktop, even using SSD's at this point you can't really max out a 1Gb copper link, if it is a specialized task that you need the faster speeds and you have the hardware to move the data at those speeds it is easier to go fibre and bump straight up to 40Gb.

There's really no need for SSDs...or 1080 graphics cards.

I do know I routinely saturate the 1Gb link between my desktop and NAS when moving files back and forth or doing backups. The only reason I haven't upgraded is it would cost >$1k right now to upgrade my PC, NAS and get a decent 10Gb switch.

 

[drescherjm]

There is almost no need for 10Gb on the desktop, even using SSD's at this point you can't really max out a 1Gb copper link

A single hard drive is faster than a 1Gb copper link when moving a large file.

 

[Lakados]

Um, it's really not hard to max out a gigabit network connection lol. Maybe not 24 /7 but when I transfer encodes en bulk to my media server I can easily max out that gigabit connection for a while, and that's not even counting looking at backups or replication (and no where in that equation is an SSD, most of those are slower WD Reds or cheap 7200 RPM spinners on Sata 6Gbps). There should be no reason we can't get an 8 port 10Gb ethernet switch for $100

That and new 10Gb NIC's also need to be well under $100. Last I looked even the realtek chips were over 200 for a 1 port NIC. I've already got the house wired in anticipation for 10Gb, now I just need the prices to catch up with reality

There's no reason why the moving pieces in my data flow are getting bottle-necked by the non-moving pieces, we should be pretty much always at the point where we are bottle-necked by the drives themselves, especially since every upgrade in the network is at least a 10 fold increase, you don't see gains like that in ANY other computer component

On topic tho, I wonder if you could get external 10Gb NICs for cheap on this new thunder3 port.. annoying but could serve as a short term fix

What's that media server using for HDD's that is can write faster than 1Gbps, and if it can write faster than 1Gbps why does your media server not use Aggregate nic Teaming?

 

[Deleted member 184142]

There's really no need for SSDs...or 1080 graphics cards.

I do know I routinely saturate the 1Gb link between my desktop and NAS when moving files back and forth or doing backups. The only reason I haven't upgraded is it would cost >$1k right now to upgrade my PC, NAS and get a decent 10Gb switch.

Add in DLing a number of files off a 1Gbps/1Gbps internet connection and then moving files or streaming off of that computer etc etc, you notice when the DLs slow or stop as the transfer speeds up.

What's that media server using for HDD's that is can write faster than 1Gbps, and if it can write faster than 1Gbps why does your media server not use Aggregate nic Teaming?

I think you are confusing 1Gb with 1GB. Many normal HDD today will do 125MBs, which is 1Gbps, and that's a single drive, moving my drive pool over the other day from the slow Windows pool to Stablebit I was at 260MB's before all my drives were added.

 

[Bandalo]

Add in DLing a number of files off a 1Gbps/1Gbps internet connection and then moving files or streaming off of that computer etc etc, you notice when the DLs slow or stop as the transfer speeds up.

I would pay an unbelievable amount of money to have that problem. I'm stuck with 10/1 internet where I live.

 

[drescherjm]

Many normal HDD today will do 125MBs

Looks like the 8TB externals (WDC reds) do around 185 MB/s raw in the outer tracks.

 

[Vaulter98c]

Um, yea, I was going to point out the Gb to GB thing that somehow people on this forum are still messing up but see above

Even slow ass Reds will do more then that lol, and that's before you even factor in normal network overhead which pretty much promises that you won't see 125 MBps in real life, for me I usually top out around 113-119 real world

 

[drescherjm]

They are down to 120 to 130 at 67% into the drive:

 2401 be/4 root      138.75 M/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 % 95.80 % badblocks -wsv -b 4096 /dev/sdc
 2395 be/4 root      120.25 M/s    0.00 B/s  0.00 % 95.51 % badblocks -wsv -b 4096 /dev/sdb

user@debian:~$ sudo badblocks -wsv -b 4096 /dev/sdc
Checking for bad blocks in read-write mode
From block 0 to 1953506559
Testing with pattern 0xaa: done
Reading and comparing:  67.07% done, 24:36:27 elapsed. (0/0/0 errors)