New Thunderbolt-controller chip from intel drives two 4K displays (40Gbit/s)

[joppetie]

Intel is supposedly working on a new Thunderbolt-controller chip, which doubles the bandwidth from 20Gbit/s to 40Gbit/s.
This makes it possible to drive two 4K monitors through the so-called Alpine Rock-controller.

This information was released via an Intel presentation, which has been put online by the Chinese VR-Zone.
In this presentation, you can see that the Alpine Rock-chip doubles the bandwidth compared to the Thunderbolt 2-standard:
40Gbit/s instead of 20Gbit/s. A new name for the standard, like Thunderbolt 3, has not yet been released by Intel.

With a bandwidth of 40Gbit/s, the controller would be able to drive two 4K displays through one Thunderbolt cable.
This cannot be done with the current Thunderbolt standards and it should be useful mostly for video proffesionals.

Alpine Ridge is also capable of powering devices. A maximum of 100W can be delivered by a single Thunderbolt cable,
but Engadget says that Intel has to introduce a new connector to be able to achieve this. An adapter seems necessary
for older Thunderbolt devices. Besides, the controller should be compatible with Displayport 1.2, HDMI 2.0 and USB 3.0.
Intel also says that the new Alpine Ridge-controller should use 50% less power than its predecessor.

The Alpine Ridge-chipset will probably only be available next year.
With that, the controller should join Skylake, Intel's planned successor of the Broadwell processor generation.

 


Source: http://tweakers.net/nieuws/95570/nieuwe-intel-thunderbolt-controllerchip-kan-twee-4k-displays-aansturen.html (Be warned, it's in Dutch)

[Sidiox]

WTF that is insane, we need SSD's with that interface

[silberdrachi]

Can we kill off HDMI yet? Seriously they arent even in the same ballpark anymore.

 

I get that Thunderbolt wires cost more than something like USB, but i think everyone could agree that they would be worth it on displays, storage, or even eGPUs. Id be ok with having my internal drives (SSD/HDD) run off Thunderbolt and my displays run off thunderbolt, and minor peripherals (keyboard/mouse/webcam etc) run off USB.

[ShadowCaptain]

I wish we could just have thunderbolt everything

 

It seems pointless to have all these different connections, why cant we buy a PC with like 20 thunderbolt connections, then you can connect all your peripherls, daisy chain displays and storage etc etc

 

It would be so good

[SuperStroopwafel]

Gorinchem is dichtbij haha, ik kom uit Sliedrecht

[Lord_Kitty]

Is there any point of this for consumer devices (other than external graphics, of course)? Even SSDs don't need this much bandwidth.

USB 3/3.1 and SATA Express looks like it is enough for now.

[silberdrachi]

I wish we could just have thunderbolt everything

 

It seems pointless to have all these different connections, why cant we buy a PC with like 20 thunderbolt connections, then you can connect all your peripherls, daisy chain displays and storage etc etc

 

It would be so good

 

My issue with them is that the connectiors itself and the wires are expensive and fragile. Based on how i treat my phone/chargers and most my devices im not sure id want to be replacing that stuff often. And for things like keyboards/mice/webcams/headphones/etc its not as needed to have 40gb/s speed. Plus if you really want to daisy chain it all together you can have a thunderbolt USB hub chained in. I know some of the monitors they have now have built in USB hubs and the like.

 

Thunderbolt: Expensive but worth it if you need performance

USB: Cheap, but its all you need for most devices

 

And as to why we cant have it now, because it costs money to licence the format to put it on each motherboard. It seems like other than a few companies, MFG dont see the need to provide it to users yet. Though PCIE Thunderbolt cards arent too pricy if you need it.

[silberdrachi]

Is there any point of this for consumer devices (other than external graphics, of course)? Even SSDs don't need this much bandwidth.

USB 3/3.1 and SATA Express looks like it is enough for now.

 

High speed external storage for things like photo and video editing, high resolution display daisy chaining, power over thunderbolt devices

 

Lots of reasons, but for the average user the cost:benifit ratio isnt right. Once they become more common and drop in price, it will have more of a point.

[ShadowCaptain]

Fragile? I wouldnt call the connectors fragile, they are completely solid, so much stronger than USB, especially things like mini usb

 

The cables are expensive because they are sold in low volume, if they were manufactured and sold  the way USB cables were they would be cheaper, they are still a copper cable just like USB and other similar cables

 

Price aside, lets say instead of being 50$ they were 20$, and maybe for mice/keyboards etc they could use thunderbolt one and the cables could cost 10$ and still plug into the same ports

 

Then you could have whatever you want plugged in, however you want wherever you want

 

I love the thunderbolt display for example, imagine bringing your laptop home, plug in one cable and your entire system is up, even charging your device. Thunderbolt has a pretty awesome future, i wish manufacturers were more embracing

 

I get your thing about licencing. but why are they so happy to pay for HDMI licences when they could use the superior displayport which is licence fee free? Remember what HDMI cost in the first year? now they are pennies because they are made in so much quantity, but they are fragile as hell and pretty useless for future displays now

[silberdrachi]

-

 

They are both expensive and fragile not because of low cost or bad build quality, but because there are actually electronic componets inside the plug itself. (http://www.ifixit.com/blog/2011/06/29/what-makes-the-thunderbolt-cable-lightning-fast/) Thats where the extra cost and worry about the connector breaking comes from. The reason why USB plugs cost literally pennies is because its a dumb connector, its just metal wires and some plastic wrapping around it.

If a USB plug breaks, i can get a pair of wire cutters and soldering iron, and fix it in 10 minutes. If a Thunderbolt plug breaks, you get to pay for a new one.

And you can still run your entire system off a Thunderbolt port even if you have USB devices, Thunderbolt supports USB easily, so you can just plug a USB hub into the Thunderbolt cord and you have the benifits of USB, and the ease of Thunderbolt.

The reason for the use of HDMI is partially because i think they are subsidizing some of the cost of the licencing so that everyone uses it, or they did at a point in time. But now that its EVERYWHERE you cant get rid of it. You will  have to support HDMI for a long time because customers want to use their old monitors/tvs over and over (Think how long VGA has been supported, though AMDs r9 series seems to end that now). And things like TVs have consoles (all use HDMI and cant be upgraded) or cable boxes (cable companies will not pay to upgrade your box). Even though Thunderbolt can do HDMI as well, it will still take years to get support and the cost is still prohibitive because now instead of 30 dollar 6ft HDMI cables at BestBuy it will be 90 dollar 6ft Thunderbolt cables. The average customer doesnt want the extra performance at that cost.

But essentially we need to send requests to manufacturers that this is what we want, and we are willing to pay the premium price in order to get it. Otherwise they will just think that no one wants it, so why bother supporting it.

[ShadowCaptain]

 

Yeah I saw that before

 

I understand your reverence at the cost of cables, me personally, I am yet to have any cable break and have never had to purchase a replacement cable ever in my life so far

 

Ok perhaps I was over exaggerating having EVERY port be thunderbolt but I do see a use for it for high speed hubs and displays, especially on laptops or smaller devices.

 

Perhaps even for things like external GPUs - Imagine your 4k display housing your upgradable graphics cards and your ultrabook docking with 40gbps thunderbolt charging while you game, then you just pick it up, walk to the train station with it under your arm and it has discreet graphics like an 880m inside for mobile use on your hour train journey to work. When you get there,you dock your ultrabook with one cable once again and bang your 3, 4k workstation monitors and Quadro card are up and running, and charging your laptop again, you never had to even take any wires or cables to work. 

 

(This is a complete dream of mine but not out the realms of possible)

 

Saying that, if we had the infrastructure of super fast wifi (wasn't there a 10gb wifi article around?) and wireless charging we could just stream out games from the server, charge wirelessely from 20 feet away and never have a cable at all

[Xorbot]

I wish we could just have thunderbolt everything

 

It seems pointless to have all these different connections, why cant we buy a PC with like 20 thunderbolt connections, then you can connect all your peripherls, daisy chain displays and storage etc etc

 

It would be so good

 

Why? So your computer can start looking like a pile of mess on the desk?

 

[joppetie]

Why? So your computer can start looking like a pile of mess on the desk?

 

 

 

I thinks he means that he'd like a big case in which everything will fit.

But you still need peripherals like monitors and keyboard. For that, I'd be nice to just have one (type) of connection.

Thunderbolt would make the most sense, especially now that it'll be able to provide so much power (100W).

[ShadowCaptain]

Why? So your computer can start looking like a pile of mess on the desk?

 

I actually think its a smarter way of doing things. That mac pro example annoys me, thunderbolt daisy chains. You could have one cable coming off the back going into the monitor. Connected to that is your Multi drive storage array and all of your peripherals

 

With the mac pro you still have cables going from the tower to the monitor, the keyboard and mouse, your external drives, external card reader etc etc - it isnt cable less

 

 

I thinks he means that he'd like a big case in which everything will fit.

But you still need peripherals like monitors and keyboard. For that, I'd be nice to just have one (type) of connection.

Thunderbolt would make the most sense, especially now that it'll be able to provide so much power (100W).

 

Yes exactly!!!, My PC rig still houses my storage and GPUs but instead of having 1x DVI 1x HDMI  1x display port, 4x usb etc etc

 

just have 6 thunderbolt or something, perhaps we keep USB but USB is changing connector soon anyway so why not just have 1 connection

 

They could make a none active thunderbolt cable for use with mice that runs at say 1gbs, and use an active cable 40gbps cable for storage/external GPUS for laptops etc

 

Am I alone in this? (probably)

[SSL]

WTF that is insane, we need SSD's with that interface

 

Why? The performance limitation of SSDs is random operations, not sequential. You want nasty throughput, use a RAID card or PCIe.

[Jaybird]

I want a thunderbolt flashdrive and I want it now. 

[Sidiox]

Why? The performance limitation of SSDs is random operations, not sequential. You want nasty throughput, use a RAID card or PCIe.

I know that, but PCIe and RAID cards take up a lot of space in a pc, and you don't have those in side a laptop. It would be much handier to just use Thunderbolt, considering you only need 1 port for external monitors, gpu's and storage. With 40gbit/s throughput you can just split the bandwith to a GPU and a HDD (SSD) on 1 port. 

[joppetie]

I want a thunderbolt flashdrive and I want it now.

Unless the thundedbolt thumb drive is enormous,

you won't be able to utilize the insane possible throughput.

The nand flash is not even close to that speed, so you would need an insane Raid 0 array on a single stick in order to use the bandwidth.

[Jaybird]

Unless the thundedbolt thumb drive is enormous,

you won't be able to utilize the insane possible throughput.

The nand flash is not even close to that speed, so you would need an insane Raid 0 array on a single stick in order to use the bandwidth.

it should be done. just take 10 of the fastest flashdrives, shove them in a box w/ raid 0, and shut up and take my money!  :lol:

[Sharif]

nice

this should solve problems with any future 4k devices

[Hobox]

It's probably DisplayPort 1.3 instead of 1.2 if it won't becoming until next year and will support the same features (Dual 4K, ie also 3D 4K and 8K)

[joppetie]

It's probably DisplayPort 1.3 instead of 1.2 if it won't becoming until next year and will support the same features (Dual 4K, ie also 3D 4K and 8K)

No, it's definitely Displayport 1.2. 

The Intel picture even says it, and so do all the other news websites.

[Hobox]

No, it's definitely Displayport 1.2. 

The Intel picture even says it, and so do all the other news websites.

Yes, because DP1.3 isn't finalized. And for that matter, neither is the new thunderbolt. Guaranteed by the time this rolls out it will be a DP1.3 connection.