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Posted by lumireleon - Fri 05 Jan 2018 10:38
where is AMD and ARM alternative to Thunderbolt?
Posted by Otherhand - Fri 05 Jan 2018 11:09
lumireleon
where is AMD and ARM alternative to Thunderbolt?

It would be so much better if everyone just got behind Thunderbolt 3 now. We've finally got a pretty futureproof connection type.
Posted by Gunbuster - Fri 05 Jan 2018 11:27
Otherhand
lumireleon
where is AMD and ARM alternative to Thunderbolt?

It would be so much better if everyone just got behind Thunderbolt 3 now. We've finally got a pretty futureproof connection type.

Issue is licensing, its an Intel owned system. X399 can theoretically do it, notice the note in Anandtech's article on it https://www.anandtech.com/show/11685/amd-threadripper-x399-motherboards/8
Posted by outwar6010 - Fri 05 Jan 2018 13:14
Is usb type c the same as thunderbolt?
Posted by kalniel - Fri 05 Jan 2018 13:31
outwar6010
Is usb type c the same as thunderbolt?

No, this is some 4-8x faster than type-c
Posted by jimbouk - Fri 05 Jan 2018 13:32
outwar6010
Is usb type c the same as thunderbolt?

They can use the same port, but just because you can plug it it doesn't mean it will work…

Gunbuster
Issue is licensing, its an Intel owned system.

Part of me hopes it will go the same way as Firewire, technical supremacy is nothing compared to market penetration - which can be limited by high licensing/corresponding chipset costs.
Posted by gagaga - Fri 05 Jan 2018 14:46
outwar6010
Is usb type c the same as thunderbolt?

They share some things but not others - the physical connector is the same. Both can transmit upto 100w of power in both directions.

Where it separate is how the data lines are used. Both have a core of USB 2.0 connectivity (480mbps) but allocate the additional data pins differently:

USB-C - pins are used to provide USB 3 speeds (5 or 10 Gbps) and / or displayport. You can run USB 3 plus 1x 2560x1440 screen @ 60Hz or USB 2 plus 1x 4k or 2x 2560x1400 @ 60Hz.

Thunderbolt - 20Gbps or 40Gbps depending on cable (active or passive). 20Gbps will give you 1x 4K plus most of USB3 bandwidth. 40GBps will let you run 1x 5K or 2x 4K screens plus USB.

Thunderbolt is effectively a way to pack displayport and PCIe signals into a single cable - you can connect expansion cards to it (eg graphics cards or USB hubs) and extract out the displayport signals. Quite likely we'll get Thunderbolt screens with PCIe slots for a graphics card at some point in the future (current TB3 screen just extract the displayport bits and pass the PCIe bit to a USB chip for a hub).

If you plug a USB C device into a TB3 hub, the hub will normally still let you charge, use usb and displayport etc (my Lenovo TB3 hub will charge my Samsung S8 … try that with an iphone :p)

TB3 is awesome on a laptop - one cable for power, screens, USB hub, keyboard and mouse, everything. Having them at either side of the laptop will become more common too, so you can charge with the cable at the side that suits you best.