With USB and Thunderbolt competing to outdo each other, up 20 GB on thunderbolt 2, are we reaching the reasonable end? I thought yes for some time because of data compression and content size. Now with apple looking to use Thunderbolt for add-ons for there Mac Pro, do we need more? At what point does processing/chipset overhead become overwhelmed the transfer capabilities?(or power)
I believe we are starting to have cables not made of copper or gold but instead of fiber. USB 3.0 currently goes at 5.0Gbits*BITS* per second.
(Off topic but have you seen the diagram for a USB 3.0 Device? Thats a lot of shit packed into one small plug!!!)
Thunderbolt goes at 20Gbits per second. Bits bytes measure size of data. Bits measure the speed at switch data transfers.
Evently I think we will be able to have EXTERNAL graphics cards. Think about slapping a titan on a laptop (of course you would need a external power supply as well)
USB 3.0 will soon be able to do 10Gbit/sec apparently so about the same speed as the old Thunderbolt.
Right now there aren't many devices that can take advantage of the speed that Thunderbolt has to offer. Really, it is only like ultra high resolution capture devices and things like that and despite what Apple might have you think, the list of devices with Thunderbolt is relatively small. Although external graphics card enclosures are a possibility no one has really put one to market yet in a way that will make it a must have feature.
Really, I think USB 3.0 will be enough for most people and for quite some time.
On a side note I really don't get what they are doing with the Mac Pro. They made an amazing slick design then what? Expect you to use all external Thunderbolt devices with a tangle of cables on and behind the desk? Doesn't seem to make much sense to me. Kinda blows the design aesthetic away. Plus, a majority of professional customers, the people the Mac Pro is aimed at, probably use a NAS not external drives. Dual NICs would have been better.
Thunderbolt is just a fancy plug for PCI Express. Thunderbolt 2.0 gives you PCIe x8, so maybe not quite enough for some powerhouse GPU action, but hey that's not bad still.
PCIe 2.0 X8 should be enough for almost all current GPUs. PCIe 3.0 X8 would definitely be enough.
It's enough but there is still room for improvement!
Also I'd like to mention that yes, people already have put a GPU in a thunderbolt enclosure and conquered the universe.
Really, I think USB 3.0 will be enough for most people..
But that's the thing...I'm tired of devices that are "just enough", especially for the money I'm paying. When are they going to release devices that exceed my expectations and requirements? I think the "oh, it's good enough" mindset is the primary reason why we haven't seen a whole lot of innovation in the tech world in recent years. It's always marginal improvements over previous designs. I think the only thing that has really captured my interest in the last few years has been the rather slow (but steady) transition from HDDs to SSDs.