Thunderbolt 3 connector. Thunderbolt technology: how it works and what are the advantages
Let's face it: ports are boring.
USB, Firewire, ESATA and others: They're not exciting, but they're important. They decide what you can do with your device and how quickly you can do it. So when Apple unveiled its latest MacBook laptops Pro with Thunderbolt 3 ports, you probably haven't thought about it, but Apple has ditched all the ports on the older machines, replacing them with new Thunderbolt 3 ones. So, what do they do?
Well, if you want to connect anything to your MacBook Pro, you'll need to do it through the Thunderbolt 3 ports. You can't just connect your devices using existing cables and connectors. If you want to do anything with the new MacBook Pros, you'll need new cables and connector adapters USB Type-C. Why did Apple do this?
The answer is simple: Thunderbolt 3 is the only port needed for all devices and tasks. Here's everything you need to know.
What is Thunderbolt 3?
Intel introduced the Thunderbolt platform in 2011, at the same time USB 3.0, capable of transferring data at speeds of up to 5 Gbit, came into fashion. Thunderbolt could offer twice the speed, plus it could transfer multiple types of data, not just serial data, to storage devices. The port can, for example, provide a video link to a display. You can use it as a bus, for example for hard drive computer.
Thunderbolt 3 is the latest version of Thunderbolt and uses the same design as the familiar USB Type-C. Intel is using the new connection for a number of reasons. Early versions Thunderbolt relied on a Mini DisplayProt connector, and Apple was the only major manufacturer to use Thunderbolt. Now that Thunderbolt uses the USB Type-C connector, it appears not only on the new MacBook Pro, but also on Ultrabooks and laptops from other manufacturers.
Thunderbolt 3 first appeared with Intel's Skylake chips sweeping the market in 2015, which is why you're seeing tons of devices showcasing Thunderbolt 3 ports this year. Apple prefers Thunderbolt 3 because the port can do so much with just one cable. It supports DisplayPort, for example, so you can use one cable for serial connection chains of several 4K monitors with a frequency of 60 Hz.
Thunderbolt 3 provides connections at speeds of up to 40 Gbps, doubling the speed of the previous generation, and also supports USB 3.1 at 10 Gb/s and DisplayPort 1.2, HDMI 2.0. It also offers USB speeds of up to 10Gbps, can connect two 4K displays, and output video and audio signals simultaneously. Additionally, Thunderbolt 3 is backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 2.
What is USB Type-C?
Thunderbolt 3 is the first connector based on USB Type-C. USB Type-C is Last update USB connectors. This is an alternative to the Micro-USB connectors used by most Android tablets and even USB Type-A, which remains the most common USB on the market. 12" MacBook Apple also equipped with a single USB Type-C.
USB Type-C is well known for providing fast data transfer. By default, USB Type-C offers 7.5W and 15W transfer, while USB 3.0 offers 4.5W transfer. USB Type-C allows you to charge your devices at up to 100W, which is enough to charge most laptops. This means you can use one USB Type-C cable to transfer data while you charge it.
But the most interesting thing about USB Type-C is that the connector is reversible: you cannot insert it the wrong way. You can blindly plug it into the port on the device, and it will slide in smoothly and work.
Why did Apple switch to Thunderbolt 3?
Apple chooses Thunderbolt 3 not only because of its USB Type-C connector, but also because of Thunderbolt 3's features.
One Thunderbolt port can connect any display and billions of USB devices. The port carries four times the data and doubles the video bandwidth of any other cable, along with 100 watts of power. You can use it to connect your Mac to a monitor, transfer data between computers and hard drives, external devices and power – all with one physical connection.
For many years Mac computers used USB ports and Thunderbolt ports, and now they have merged. It's important to remember that Thunderbolt 3 uses a connector shaped like USB Type-C, but provides support for a wider range of different standards (HDMI, USB, DisplayPort), and it does it all faster, along with power delivery. You just need the right cable to connect.
Not all USB Type-C ports support Thunderbolt 3. While smartphones and tablets can use the connector, the Thunderbolt platform is only available on devices with Intel processors. So while you can technically plug any USB Type-C device or cable into a Thunderbolt 3 port, it won't support Thunderbolt features. Also, a Thunderbolt 3 peripheral connected to USB Type-C will not support Thunderbolt features.
In addition to Apple's latest MacBook Pro laptops, many machines support Thunderbolt 3. ASUS Transformer 3 and Transformer 3 Pro, Alienware 13, Dell XPS 13, HP Elite X2 and Folio, HP Specter and Specter x360, Razer Blade Stealth, Lenovo ThinkPad Y900, and dozens of others with Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Whatever design features The interface for connecting peripherals did not differ; it must have two characteristics: versatility and high data transfer speed. The combination of only these two qualities makes it truly effective. An example of such an interface is Thunderbolt - a new connection technology peripheral devices, created jointly by two leading companies Apple and Intel.
What is Thunderbolt?
So what is Thunderbolt and what benefits does it offer? Without going into technical details, it can be characterized as a universal standard that provides the most convenient and efficient communication between computers and tablets with different external devices. Speaking more accessible language, Thunderbolt is an alternative to USB technology, only, as Apple claims, even more advanced.
Thus, the goal of creating a new standard is to eliminate the shortcomings of USB, and in the future, replace it. Among manufacturers computer equipment The idea of such a replacement, however, did not receive widespread support, and the main reason for this was the relatively high cost of Thunderbolt components, which has a significant impact on the final price of computers. Currently, the new standard is used mainly in Mac computers.
Pros of using Thunderbolt
The main advantages of the new technology are the ability to sequentially, that is, without using a hub or switch, connect several high-performance peripheral devices to one compact dual-channel port, as well as high data transfer speeds. Combining DisplayPort and PCI Express, the new standard allows you to connect external hard disks, monitors high resolution, video cameras and other peripheral devices, without fear for the stability of their operation and the safety of the transmitted data.
Thunderbolt transfer speeds are at least twice as fast as USB, and that's just the beginning. And although the technology has not become widespread among computer equipment manufacturers, it continues to develop successfully. The first version was followed by a second, and then a third, capable of supporting data exchange at speeds of up to 40 Gb/s.
It should also be noted that the standard allows you to simultaneously transmit and receive data. Thunderbolt supports connecting displays with Mini DisplayPort or with a DisplayPort adapter, HDMI, DVI, VGA, compatible with USB devices, FireWire 400 and FireWire 800 (connection is made via an adapter). However, it must be understood that new interface It won’t make devices faster, but it won’t slow down data transfer either.
Thunderbolt 3 interface
On this moment The third version of the standard is already available, although devices based on the new technology will go on sale in 2016. Thunderbolt 3 got rid of the MDP connector, switching to double-sided USB-C, and at the same time doubled the data transfer speed, and if in the second version it was up to 20 Gb / s, now it will be possible to transfer files from one device to another at speed 40 Gb/s. This means that a 4K resolution video file can be transferred in less than half a minute.
Possibilities new version also include compatibility of the new version with the USB 3.1 standard, support for powering devices up to 100 W, connecting two 4K resolution displays, various peripherals and Ethernet networks at a speed of 10 Gb/s. By the way, if you connect one display, the resolution can be increased to 5K.
More than 4 years after its presentation, Thunderbolt did not gain widespread success and began to turn into a specialized standard for professional use. The third revision of Thunderbolt can breathe new life into it.
Developed and introduced to the public in 2011, Thunderbolt was supposed to be the USB killer. But, despite the more than twofold superiority in data exchange speed over USB, owners of USB-compatible devices were not ready to part with their usual equipment. At the same time, the range of connectors used in the computer industry has not decreased over the years, but has even grown.
They say if you can’t overcome chaos, lead it. Thunderbolt 3 gets rid of the MDP connector and will henceforth use two-way USB-C. This means that Intel, with the assistance of Apple, has brought the Cupertino-developed product one step closer to popularity.
According to the presented specifications, Thunderbolt 3 supports data exchange at speeds of up to 40 Gb/s. That's twice as fast as Thunderbolt 2 could deliver, transferring an entire 4K movie in just 30 seconds.
In addition, the new standard implies powering devices with a power of up to 100 W, connecting two 4K displays, as well as connecting all kinds of peripherals and an Ethernet network at a speed of 10 Gb/s with using USB-C docking stations.
And the most interesting thing! Thunderbolt 3 is backwards compatible with USB 3.1. Consequently, all devices with Thunderbolt 3 will be able to exchange data at speeds of up to 10 Gb/s with any USB 3.1-compatible devices.
Intel also promised that the first devices developed based on the new standard will go on sale by 2016.
There is no doubt that what is happening fits perfectly into the general outline of replacing all kinds of connectors with one single type - for everything. Therefore, for those who still think that Apple acted short-sightedly by replacing the usual USB Type-A with USB-C, it seems it’s time to change their minds. [Thunderbolt tech]
Thunderbolt interface
Let us recall that the Thunderbolt interface was developed by Intel as a universal high-speed interface for a wide class of peripheral devices. It was originally called Light Peak and was first introduced at IDF 2009. However, in its first iteration, the Light Peak interface was focused on using optical cable as a transport network for transmitting signals. The first generation of Light Peak devices, according to Intel, had a theoretical data transfer rate of 10 Gbps (full duplex mode) over a distance of up to 100 m using an optical cable.
Subsequently, it was decided to create this interface based on copper connections. In addition, after the implementation of this technology based on copper wires, Light Peak began to be positioned as a replacement for most existing wired interfaces such as USB, SCSI, eSATA, FireWire, HDMI and DVI.
In 2011, products were first introduced using this technology, which was officially called Thunderbolt. The first devices with a Thunderbolt port were MacBook laptops Pro companies Apple. And at the Computex 2012 exhibition, a fairly wide range of various solutions with support for the Thunderbolt interface was presented.
The high-speed Thunderbolt interface is based on a combination of DisplayPort and PCI-Express technologies, that is, it allows you to connect peripheral devices that use these data transfer protocols. This makes it possible to simultaneously transmit video images and large amounts of data, since such streams are delimited from each other and transmitted through different channels without delay. Essentially, the Thunderbolt controller contains a multiplexer and a demultiplexer, which are responsible for transmitting data from different protocols in a single stream. The Thunderbolt interface provides theoretical data transfer capacity of up to 10 Gbps in one direction. Moreover, each of the ports of this interface includes two channels, which allows you to connect two devices to one Thunderbolt port or up to six devices in a chain. Each of the channels then has a total throughput of 10 Gbit/s for both directions. If a device operating via the DisplayPort interface is connected to the port, then in this case throughput conventionally divided into four lines with a maximum throughput of 5.4 Gbit/s. As stated Intel company Unlike traditional data transfer architectures, which use a single bus, Thunderbolt uses a different topology, which provides high throughput for each of the ports, regardless of their number.
Theoretically, the new data transfer interface is ahead of other modern interfaces for connecting peripheral devices, such as USB 3.0, FireWire 800 and eSATA. It should be noted that the new interface is fully compatible with DisplayPort devices. Thus, the standard Thunderbolt connector is fully electrically compatible with the mini DisplayPort connector. That is, to connect devices with such a connector, no additional adapters or adapters are needed. Thunderbolt technology supports the DisplayPort 1.1a specification in hardware, but this does not prevent you from connecting devices that support previous specifications of this protocol. Note interesting feature device operation: connected monitors with a DisplayPort interface must be the last in the chain - this is explained by the algorithm of the Thunderbolt controller and the distribution of free channels. Thunderbolt can handle the same types of video and audio signals as DisplayPort, delivering high-definition video images at FullHD 1080p resolution and eight channels of audio.
To connect a Thunderbolt controller to Intel chipset four PCI Express 2.0 lanes are used.
In addition to the high data transfer speed, the big advantage of the new interface is that Thunderbolt supports data, video, audio and power transfer through just one port and cable. This eliminates the need for unnecessary USB cables tangling around your computer or laptop when working with numerous peripheral devices. The user can connect up to six devices to each of the Thunderbolt ports, connecting them with one chain (daisy-chain), that is, through a daisy-chain connection. This topology requires that each device in the chain have two Thunderbolt ports.
Although the new interface supports the connection of some peripheral devices without the use of additional power, this technology cannot match the power of the Apple Display Connector (ADC), which allows you to connect even monitors. Maximum power connected devices is determined by the implementation of the controller on system board, so it’s too early to talk about the possibility of connecting powerful solutions through this interface.
Unlike USB, where connecting to a low-speed device or solution that supports an older revision of the interface can reduce the performance of the entire bus, the new Thunderbolt interface is specifically designed to work with many devices without sacrificing bandwidth. Of course, they will share the total bandwidth of the Thunderbolt link, which may limit the performance of each of them when transferring a large flow of data, but the overall performance of the Thunderbolt link will not be reduced.
While there are still few devices that support the new interface, there is a high probability that it will become widespread and displace USB 3.0 in the peripheral equipment market.
Now, after a brief talk about the Thunderbolt interface, let's look at its implementation using the example of the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt portable adapter for SATA drives.
First of all, this adapter is designed for Mac users. The fact is that Apple products until recently did not support USB 3.0 and the only high-speed interface in them was Thunderbolt. This, of course, does not mean that this adapter is compatible only with Mac systems - if your laptop or desktop PC has a Thunderbolt interface, then the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter will allow you to connect drives via it.
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter
The Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter is hardly portable. It is quite massive and larger in size than a standard 2.5-inch drive.
The Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter is only compatible with 2.5-inch SATA drives. Note that, despite the compatibility of the connector, it will not be possible to use a 3.5-inch HDD with the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter. Apparently, the Thunderbolt interface cannot provide sufficient power for such drives.
Note that the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter has only one Thunderbolt port, that is, it does not allow you to create a chain of devices and can only be used as an end device in a chain or as the only one. In general, this is understandable: devices with Thunderbolt interface, oriented to work in a chain, must have additional (separate) power, which is not available in the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter.
On the Seagate website, the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter is positioned for Seagate Backup Plus and GoFlex drives, but this, of course, does not mean that it is incompatible with other 2.5-inch drives. However, as a nod to the manufacturer, we first tested the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter with a 500GB Seagate Backup Plus external drive.
The Seagate Backup Plus external drive is based on a 2.5-inch HDD and comes in a plastic case. It is an implementation of the USM (Universal Storage Module) standard developed by Seagate. This standard defines the specification of a box for HDD drives, allowing them to be connected to the SATA bus, USB controllers, FireWire, and Thunderbolt.
Seagate Backup Plus Drive
According to the USM specification, the HDD is placed in the case, and an external, replaceable adapter with a controller for one or another interface is connected to the SATA connector.
Seagate Backup Plus drives only come with a USB 3.0 adapter, but you can buy an adapter with a FireWire 800 or Thunderbolt port separately.
Seagate Backup Plus USB 3.0 Drive Adapter
The Seagate Backup Plus drive uses a 2.5-inch HDD from the Momentus ST500LM012 family with a SATA 3 Gb/s interface.
Testing methodology
For testing we used a stand with the following configuration:
- processor - Intel Core i7-3770K;
- motherboard - ASUS P8Z77-V Premium;
- motherboard chipset - Intel Z77 Express;
- memory - 16 GB DDR3-1333 (dual-channel operating mode);
- drive with operating system - Intel SSD 520 Series (240 GB);
- operating mode SATA - AHCI;
- drive driver - Intel RST 10.6;
- drive controller - SATA 6 Gb/s controller integrated into the chipset.
System ASUS board We used the P8Z77-V Premium because it has an integrated Thunderbolt controller based on the Intel DSL3310 controller.
The testing stand was equipped with operating system Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit).
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter
with Seagate Backup Plus drive)
Testing was carried out using the IOmeter 2008.06.1 test utility, which is a very powerful tool for analyzing the performance of drives (both HDD and SSD) and is actually the industry standard for measuring drive performance.
The drive was tested using the IOmeter utility without creating a logical partition on it, so as not to tie the test results to a specific file system.
During testing, the dependence of the speed of sequential read and write operations, as well as random read and write operations, on the size of the data block was studied.
To determine the speed of sequential read, random read and sequential write, data blocks of the following sizes were used: 512 bytes, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128, 256, 512 KB, 1, 2, 4, 8, 16 and 32 MB. In these tests, the IOmeter settings set the number of simultaneous I/O requests (# of Outstanding I/Os) to 4, which is typical for user applications.
Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt Adapter
with SSD Silicon drive Power Velox V70
To analyze the dependence of drive performance (IOPS) in random read and write operations in 4 KB blocks, the number of simultaneous I/O requests was set to 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, 64, 128 and 256.
Testing was carried out according to the following scheme. First, we tested the Seagate Backup Plus drive with a USB 3.0 interface, for which it was connected to the USB 3.0 adapter supplied in the kit, which, in turn, was connected to the USB 3.0 port on the motherboard, implemented through the Intel Z77 controller integrated into the chipset Express. Testing was then carried out with the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter connected to the Seagate Backup Plus drive. Next, we tested the Seagate Backup Plus drive connected to the motherboard via the SATA interface. In fact, when the drive is connected directly to the motherboard via the SATA interface, the highest possible speed is achieved. Adding additional intermediate transformations between different interfaces can only reduce it.
As you can see from testing the Seagate Backup Plus drive (Figure 1-4), there is no difference between using the Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 interfaces. The SATA interface, when the drive is connected directly to the board, has an advantage in sequential read and write operations with a block size of less than 16 KB. That is, only with small block sizes do the delays introduced by controllers that perform SATA - Thunderbolt and SATA - USB 3.0 conversion begin to affect. However, if the block size is greater than 16 KB bottleneck becomes the HDD itself and the speed of sequential writing and reading is determined by the performance of the HDD and does not depend in any way on the type of controller.
Rice. 1. Dependence of sequential reading speed
Rice. 2. Dependence of sequential write speed
Seagate Backup Plus drive based on block size
Rice. 3. Dependence of random read speed
Seagate Backup Plus drive based on block size
Rice. 4. Dependence of random write speed
Seagate Backup Plus drive based on block size
In random read and write operations for all block sizes, the speed is determined solely by the performance of the HDD itself, and therefore there is no difference between the SATA, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces.
So, based on testing the Seagate Backup Plus drive, we can draw the following important conclusion. If the system has USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces, then for the Seagate Backup Plus drive, which USB adapter 3.0 comes included, there is no point in buying an additional Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter. This only needs to be done in the rare case that the system has a Thunderbolt interface and no USB 3.0. Moreover, this applies not only to the Seagate Backup Plus drive, but also to any external drive based on an HDD drive. The Thunderbolt interface will not provide any performance gain over the USB 3.0 interface, since both interfaces have more than enough bandwidth for any HDD drive.
Testing the Seagate Backup Plus drive with USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces primarily allowed us to compare them in terms of performance. At the same time, it is clear that when we're talking about Regarding high-speed interfaces, the bottleneck in the system may not be the interface, but the drive. After all, you can’t expect any outstanding results from the 2.5-inch Seagate Backup Plus HDD.
That is why at the next stage we repeated the entire testing process, but with a high-speed SSD drive Silicon Power Velox V70 with a capacity of 240 GB (detailed results of its testing can be found in the article “Silicon Power Velox V70 240 GB SSD drive” published in this issue of the magazine). Note that we tested with a pre-aged Silicon Power Velox V70 drive, for which a random write operation was carried out in 4 KB blocks for 10 hours (with the number of simultaneous requests being 16).
The results of testing the Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD drive with SATA 6 Gb/s, USB 3.0 and Thunderbolt interfaces are presented in Fig. 5-8.
Rice. 5. Dependence of sequential reading speed
Rice. 6. Dependence of sequential write speed
Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD by block size
Rice. 7. Dependence of random read speed
Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD by block size
Rice. 8. Dependence of random write speed
Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD by block size
Let's start with the fact that when connecting an SSD drive via the SATA 6 Gb/s interface, the maximum sequential read speed is 525 MB/s, and sequential write speed is 505 MB/s.
The maximum random read speed is 522 MB/s, and the random write speed is 275 MB/s. In fact, these are the maximum speeds that the Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD can demonstrate.
When connecting the Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD drive via the Thunderbolt interface, despite the declared interface throughput of 10 Gbit/s (1.25 GB/s), everything turned out to be not as good as we would like. The maximum sequential read speed was 347 MB/s, and the sequential write speed was 340 MB/s.
The maximum random read speed was 347 MB/s, and the random write speed was 275 MB/s. As you can see, only in random write operations, where the performance of the SSD drive is not very high, there is no difference between connecting the SSD drive via the SATA 6 Gb/s and Thunderbolt interfaces. But in the operations of random reading, sequential writing and sequential reading, the Thunderbolt interface clearly loses and does not allow realizing the full speed potential of the SSD drive. It is clear that the throughput of the Thunderbolt interface has nothing to do with it in this case (it is only utilized by a third) - apparently, the problem is the delays caused by the conversion of SATA - Thunderbolt interfaces. By the way, in the Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt adapter the ASMedia ASM1061 controller is responsible for this conversion.
When using the USB 3.0 interface, the performance of the Silicon Power Velox V70 SSD was even worse. The USB 3.0 adapter supplied with them does not allow sequential read speeds of more than 178 MB/s and sequential write speeds of more than 200 MB/s. The maximum random read speed was 170 MB/s, and the random write speed was 140 MB/s. Apparently, the chip that implements the USB 3.0 to SATA 6 Gb/s conversion in the USB 3.0 adapter included with the Seagate Backup Plus drive does not have sufficient performance to realize the capabilities of high-speed SSD drives.
conclusions
Based on the testing, the following important conclusion can be drawn. It makes sense to use Seagate GoFlex Thunderbolt and USB 3.0 adapters only with Seagate Backup Plus HDDs. It is not advisable to use high-speed SSD drives with them, since in this case the adapters will become a bottleneck, which will significantly limit the read and write speed.
I think almost all of you know that there is such an interface as Thunderbolt 3 (TB3). This is the most latest version Thunderbolt
The first version of TB, developed by Intel and Apple, appeared in 2011. I will not delve into the history of this interface, since this article will not be about that. Just so you know, the first laptop with the first version of TB appeared in 2011.
The first and second versions of the interface had unique connectors. They were quite rare and did not gain much popularity. The reason is the relative high cost. The fact is that in order to equip their device with a TB port, manufacturers had to not only buy a not-so-cheap controller, but also pay licensing fees to Intel.
The TB3 interface appeared in Apple laptops in 2016. Its main feature is that the port is no longer unique, but a completely ordinary USB-C. And here it’s probably worth chewing on it. Why? Because I have already met people working in IT and well versed in hardware who confused Thunderbolt 3 with USB-C.
So, first of all, it’s worth noting the uniqueness of the USB-C port. The point is that it has so-called alternative modes. To simplify, this means that the USB-C connector can transfer data through other interfaces. For example, DisplayPort, HDMI and the same Thunderbolt. To simplify it further, imagine an analogy. There is some kind of pipe through which water flows. But inside the pipe can (this is not necessary) be divided into two or more segments. Water will flow through one, milk through the other, and wine through the third. You can choose drinks to your taste.
This is roughly how USB-C works. In most cases, there is no support for alternative modes as it is unnecessary, but if necessary, manufacturers use this port feature.
So, if some device has a Thunderbolt 3 “port”, then this means that it actually has USB-C port, which, among other things, also supports the TB3 interface. In general, do not confuse the concepts of interface and port.
Whatever generation the USB-C port is, it will not necessarily support TB3. Manufacturers always (or almost always) separately note support for TB3, since this is a very significant distinguishing feature.
It is for this reason that the same external video cards, which are connected only through TB3, cannot now become a sufficiently mass product and certainly cannot replace gaming mobile PCs. Simply because there simply aren’t that many suitable laptops. At one time there were rumors that Intel would add a TB3 controller to its chipsets, which would greatly simplify the situation and could make the interface as widespread as USB. However, this has not happened so far. Considering recent revelations regarding the postponement of the release of 10-nanometer CPUs, I can assume that, at best, integration should be expected next year, and perhaps Intel has completely abandoned this idea due to certain reasons, which will be discussed later.
Why is it now, even without the integration of controllers into chipsets, that TB3 is not widespread? The reasons are the same: the need to pay Intel and the need to buy expensive controllers. Unfortunately, I did not find current data on the price, but according to some leaks, in total this is several tens of dollars for one device. And if in the case of expensive laptops such a markup is insignificant, then in budget segment it is unacceptable, given that not everyone needs TB3 itself. By the way, this is another reason. There are very few devices that use this interface exclusively. These are external video cards, all sorts of NAS and some other devices that are needed by themselves, relatively speaking, only a few.
And now, actually, the question. Is there a future for Thunderbolt 3? Just a few months ago I would have assumed that this was possible. But recently, as I already said, Intel postponed the release of new CPUs to next year. That is, in the best case, chipsets with an integrated TB3 controller will appear in about a year. And then these are still just assumptions from scratch. If this does not happen, then another option is to reduce the cost of controllers and waive license fees from Intel. About a year or a year and a half ago, Intel claimed that it was going to do this, but since then I have not heard that the company did so. Well, the fact that there are no more devices with TB3 indicates the absence of changes in this matter.
Let's move on. Last fall, the specifications for the USB 3.2 standard were adopted. It implies an increase in maximum throughput from 10 Gbit/s (for USB 3.1) to 20 Gbit/s. The first devices with USB 3.2 should appear in about a year. TB3 has a maximum throughput of 40 Gbps, but in fact there are several options for implementing the interface, which depend on the number of PCIe lanes used. In the worst case, the speed is only 15 Gbps. Thus, USB 3.2 in some cases may be even faster than TB3. At the same time, this interface is conditionally free, although, of course, at first the controllers will be more expensive than USB controllers 3.1. As a result, it turns out that within a year TB3 will have a conditional alternative. Yes, USB 3.2 cannot be called a full-fledged competitor to Thunderbolt 3, but in some scenarios, as I already noted, they can be compared. And why then would Intel add a TB3 controller to its chipsets against this background?
I assume that either Intel will abandon the development of its interface altogether, or will make great efforts to promote it after the appearance of TB4.
If any of you are using Thunderbolt 3, please post your scenarios.
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