The Apple Thunderbolt Display Review
by Anand Lal Shimpi on September 23, 2011 2:56 AM EST- Posted in
- Displays
- Mac
- Apple
- Thunderbolt
- Thunderbolt Display
Windows/Boot Camp Experience
Thunderbolt is designed to be transparent to the OS. The Thunderbolt controller IC on each end of the chain muxes/demuxes PCIe and DisplayPort automatically, presenting the OS with just PCIe and/or DisplayPort signals depending on the hardware configuration. Intel had a slide from IDF that may explain it a bit more clearly:
Although everything in yellow is between Thunderbolt controllers, the OS just sees a bunch of PCIe switches and devices and uses native drivers for all of them. As a result, Boot Camp works just fine with the Thunderbolt Display. If you have Apple's Boot Camp drivers installed all of the new hardware inside the Thunderbolt Display should be automatically detected (it was in my case). The major exception is the Promise Pegasus which still lacks Windows driver support, something we pointed out in our original review.
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danjw - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
I really thought the computer industry was done with the whole daisy chain idea. Requiring every device to have two connectors just adds to cost. Requiring licensing from Intel for the icon and Intel being the only controller manufacturer, will further drag it down. I think it will be just about as successful as firewire, limited success with Apple customers, but not much else. Sure, you may see the ports on PCs, but there will be a much larger selection of peripherals that support USB 3.0.touringsedan - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
Listened to your audio clip that was corrupted during your file transfer.Wanted to comment that I have a 1st gen 27" and it does the same thing to me and usually I have to recycle the power to the display and all is returned to normal.
It seems to occur almost never now for some reason, but was about to return it and it eventually tapered off.
I do have the keyboard and an external USB drobo attached to my display.
AmishElvis - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
It seems like the next logical step would be to include the video card inside the monitor, then let the computer use it via the pci-e lanes.jecs - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
I will love that. Even an upgradable option.Dug - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
FANTASTIC IDEA!!!!!!Constructor - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
10Gb/s is a lot for an external port, but graphics cards can need even more bandwidth under heavy load, so even Thunderbolt would still be a bottleneck, particularly for the bigger cards.Nevertheless, more than one manufacturer has already announced external PCIe enclosures for Thunderbolt, so you'll be able to plug any graphics card into that and as long as there's a TB-compatible driver for it it will work as desired.
Putting the GPU into the display is nice for the few months as long as the GPU is still up to date, but it will become a drag on the monitor when the GPU is overtaken by newer models. The separate box may be the more flexible option there.
Iketh - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
why can't the monitor have a removable backplate?Constructor - Friday, September 23, 2011 - link
It does, sort of. You just need suction cups and a set of Torx screwdrivers getting there...! B-)But seriously: What for, exactly?
jecs - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Ok. But isn't this the first Thunderbolt implementation? Intel promised a lot more bandwidth. An external box could be an option but obviously not as great as inside the display.Constructor - Saturday, September 24, 2011 - link
Right now it's 10+10Gb/s and that will remain the limit for some time.And I still wouldn't want a quickly outdated GPU in the display which could have a much longer usable lifespan, but that's of course a matter of preference. We'll see what will become available.