Is this a real game changer in the new macbook pros? It may not be worth it now, but should I wait for later models to come out before trying to sell this MBP.

9/11/2011 4:47:57 PM

The only thing I saw going for Thunderbolt was that it had higher power transmission that USB3.0. Now that they've changed the USB3 spec for more juice I feel like Thunderbolt is the overpriced interface it was destined to be.

Thunderbolt does have higher speed going for it; but 5Gbps of USB3 ain't no slouch either.

9/11/2011 5:57:58 PM

i've had my mbp since march and don't own a single thunderbolt device - i haven't seen any real game changer reasons to have the port yet

9/11/2011 7:56:15 PM

You can run two monitors for a total of 3 with the builtin.

There are pcie breakouts to run pcie cards.

It's in a different field than usb3 entirely.

9/11/2011 8:07:04 PM

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9/11/2011 8:41:34 PM

The 5 Gbps thing is still theoretical... no device has achieved actual transfer speeds for USB3 yet.

9/12/2011 3:12:54 AM

its an extension of the pcie bus so its really different from USB.

The idea is that you can have a low powered portable (tablet/macbook air) and then dock it at a station via thunderbolt. The dock can provide monitors, keyboard, mouse like a normal dock, but it could also provide pcie cards or other devices to add more computing power. Like maybe a low end gpu.

thats the theory. in practice its not fast enough for 16x cards so your graphics would be pretty limited. not really helpful for a laptop which probably has a built in 16x card.

could be useful for tablets tho. make them useful for content creation instead of just consumption

9/12/2011 9:31:59 AM