Quote:
Originally Posted by slaWter
Yeah the video signal within TB is based on DisplayPort. But TB doesn't stop there. TB really adds a lot of flexibility and expandability to today's computers, especially notebooks. It's a fantastic interface. Hopefully the PC world will start adopting it as well, just like it was with Firewire. It's already available on some highend Z77 boards. But I really hope that Intel will make it a standard for their Ultrabook platform as well. And once the Xeons will get an integrated GPU, their workstation platform should be ready for it also. Apple needs this to happen in order to bring the Mac Pro into this fantastic TB world 
I don't think that the prices of TB devices have much to do with the interface itself. The cables maybe but not the devices. This interface is not made for a flash drive like USB. It's made for high-performance scenarios and the available hardware is also made for that, like DAS arrays, highend cameras and so on. It's not TB that makes that equipment expensive. But it's TB that finally make those devices a realistic option |
The cables are at 5x the cost of DP cables, and 20x the cost of USB3 cables. Cables aside though, the chipset required in all thunderbolt devices is around $30 cost to the manufacturer, vs $3 for a USB to SATA bridge used in USB3 external drives for example. Then for anything display, DP covers it without the expensive chip and cable...
If thunderbolt were 20Gbit+ it might be worth it, but at only twice the speed of USB3, no benefit over DP and 10x the cost for manufacturers with very poor compatibility, it just isn't worth it for the masses - and yes, it has to be viable for the masses for any connection standard to take off. It's nice having one standard for data and display, but it's not cost effective and it doesn't look like it ever will be. Sure, high end devices need a lot of bandwidth, but for the majority of devices, including most high end devices, 5Gb IS enough, especially considering the massive cost difference.