Thunderbolt Equipped Monitor – Replacing LED Cinema Display

As announced in July 2011, the current 27 inch Thunderbolt of Apple’s display has been debuted as the first Thunderbolt equipped monitor, replacing the outgoing LED Cinema Display.

When the Thunderbolt display offered cutting edge display technology with 2,560 pixel-by-1,440 pixel WQHD IPS screen from the 27 inch iMac which was launched a few months earlier, has now been overtaken by a higher resolution option or products, offering same feature though at a cheaper cost.

Rumours of updated Thunderbolt Display have been going on though Apple recently announced the stunning iMac with 5K Retina display. Speculations are on that the 5K iMac would be used as an external monitor but have been kept aside keeping in mind Thunderbolt’s bandwidth limitation..

The updated DisplayPort 1.3 supports 5K displays and the functions are not available in Thunderbolt 2 besides the original Thunderbolt protocol that was used by the Thunderbolt Display. Apple is aware of the consumers’ need for more advanced technologies, as observed from the Sharp 4K monitor that has been advertised with the top tier Mac Pro desktop.

Higher Screen Tech –Revised Thunderbolt with DisplayPort 1.3

Apple is likely to wait for a 5K or a higher screen tech which could be backed by a next gen revised Thunderbolt with DisplayPort 1.3. Till then, there are few options made available for Mac owners needing the cutting edge of monitor technology or an affordable method of expanding scream real estate.

UltraSharp monitors of Dell are a few of the best dealers with solid technology together with low prices and the 27 inch UltraSharp is the closest analogy to a theoretical 5K Thunderbolt display which has been made by Apple. Dell’s UltraSharp splits into 5,120 pixels by 2,880 pixels at 60 Hz, with the use of dual DisplayPort setup, while one cable saves a DisplayPortinput, it knocks resolution down to 3,840 pixels by 2,160 pixels at 60Hz.

Besides this, the LED backlighting is bright at 350 cd/m2, under the Thunderbolt Display specification, of 375 cd/m2. Moreover Dell sells an X-Rite i1Display Pro colorimeter which on combining with an on-board 12 bit user accessible 3D lookup table provides an option for precise colour control while advanced colorimetric setting has been reserved for expensive commercial displays.

27-Inch ColorPrime – Next Generation Thunderbolt Display 

Users interested in an updated Thunderbolt Display may not have to go further than LG’s commercial class 27MB85R-B that sports a WQHD display together with IPS technology and LG is known to be one of Apple’s LCD panel suppliers for Thunderbolt display and the ColorPrime has identical specification besides an anti-glare coating.

The LG takes pride in two Thunderbolt 3 ports, Dual-Link DVI-D, HDMI, DisplayPort as well as mini DisplayPort connections unlike other monitors in its category. Its ColorPrime feature comprises of Scaler and True Colour Pro software which works in tandem with a calibrator that is included for great accuracy. The 27-inch ColorPrime is the next generation Thunderbolt Display that Apple has not built which can be purchased from B&H Photo for $597.99.

Several leading manufacturers are happy employing DisplayPort or mini DisplayPort technology instead of Thunderbolt which means that their product could not be used as docking stations for other Thunderbolt equipped devices and for this reason, Apple’s Thunderbolt Display seems to be the most suitable option.

My Passport Pro – Thunderbolt Powered Dual Drive Solution

Western Digital (NASDAQ:WDC) Company and world leader in storage solution recently introduced My Passport Pro, one of the first portable Thunderbolt powered dual drive solution, enabling creative professionals as well as enthusiasts, high performance and capacity in mobile solution. With user selectable RAID functionality, for MAC system, it delivers the needed performance for the most demanding application without the power adapter or extra cable and is available in the capacities of 2 TB and 4 TB. The drive is suitable for graphics professional on the lookout for high performance or consumers in need of reliable mirroring.

Western Digital’s slim line Passport drive is a good option for portable back-ups and is fairly a conventional hard drives with capabilities of high speed storage. My Passport Pro includes a Thunderbolt interface with twin hard disk which by default come configured as RAID 0 (striping) for maximum performance. WD’s Drive Utilities software can also be used to change configuration to RAID 1 (mirroring) for extra data processing, plain old JBOD for disks and will be available on OS X desktop.

Reliable for Creative Work

My Passport Pro is quite reliable to get the creative work from the field back to the studio which is powered by integrated Thunderbolt cable for true portability with speed as high as 233 MB/s for most of the demanding applications. There is no USB 3.0/2.0 port as the USB would not provide sufficient power for two internal disks and it cannot be used with older pre Thunderbolt Macs. Executive Vice President of branded products and worldwide sales, WD, Jim Welsh, states that `the only Thunderbolt dual drive solution that’s bus powered, WD’s My Passport Pro enhances the workflow of mobile creative professionals by providing fast transfers and data protection for the large amounts of digital content generated outside the studio.

He further stated that `from photographers, videographers and musicians to graphic designers and architects, people depending on portable storage for their livelihood would find My Passport Pro defining a new level of performance, reliability, especially portability’.

My Passport Pro Enables Video Manipulation 

According to Jason Ziller, Intel’s Director of Thunderbolt Marketing, he states that by combining dual storage drives on a portable, bus powered device, the My Passport Pro from WD is a powerful storage solution with high capacity for prevailing demanding users’. Powered directly through the integrated Thunderbolt cable, a design unique to WD, besides providing super fast transfer, also has edit and backup capabilities.

Superior to both FireWire 800 and USB 3.0, the Thunderbolt integrated technology of My Passport Pro enables video manipulation which is quick and easy with the ability to copy a 22 GB high definition video file in half the time that is required by a USB 3.0 drive working in RAID 0 formats. My Passport Pro, consisting of two 2.5 inch hard drives is housed in a sleek aluminum enclosure and is thoroughly shock tested for extra durability for reliable performance when working on the go. It will be available immediately by Apple and other major consumer electronics retailers as well as etailers and the pricing for the 2TB My Passport Pro will be $299.99 while the 4TB will be $429.99 USD.

Intel announces Thunderbolt to 20Gbps with 4K transfer in parallel!

The new Thunderbolt has arrived! Intel has given more details about the new version of its high-speed interface, launched only two years ago on the first Mac to benefit. Bidirectional flow passes 10Gbps to 20Gbps now and still works without fiber optics. Another new size, the Thunderbolt can now broadcast a signal 4K in parallel, will allow instructors to connect new generation. Good news, the interface will remain the same and will be backwards compatible with current catches.

Everything is planned for 2014, and the controller should land in the next generation of chips "Core", but only those who embark four separate cores (this will be certainly the norm by then). For the record, the demo was done on PC this time. During the first presentation, Intel demonstrated performance "Lightpeak," the former name of Thunderbolt from an Apple machine. Then came the Mac, the first to adopt the connections well before the Wintel world.

Thunderbolt: II FireWire, Fibre Channel VIII or ePCIe or II? - II

To believe a majority dissatisfied on the forums, which lack most current Mac is USB 3. And most superfluous on the same Mac, this is the port Thunderbolt. Both interfaces are not the same vocation, but the absence of a utility and yet on the other have reconciled. The fee for professionals rather adds to the resentment of a population which, in fact, has yet to use a port to such performance. But is it simply a matter of performance?

Thunderbolt: II FireWire, Fibre Channel VIII or ePCIe or II? - I

It is now over a year since the first MacBook Pro with a port Thunderbolt arrived on the market. The supply compatible hardware remains weak, the PC barely gets started, and frustration for Mac users, private property Thunderbolt (rare and too expensive) or USB 3 is felt on the forums. The imminent release of the first Mac Ivy Bridge is an opportunity to take stock of the particular position of this interface.

Testing the LaCie Little Big Disk 240 GB SSD Thunderbolt

Thunderbolt devices are still rare, while the new standard is promising: it concentrates a data channel and a video channel at a rate up to 10 Gb / s in both directions. Storage specialist LaCie has every reason to be interested in: the Little Big Disk Thunderbolt, with two 120 GB SSD, is offered at € 849. The price performance?

Testing MacBook Pro 13 "2.3 GHz Core i5" Thunderbolt "(early 2011)

Sandy Bridge processors with new micro-architecture, Intel Graphics GPU HD 3000, a new O Thunderbolt: Apple has pressed the accelerator pedal with his new MacBook Pro without the radical change. The entry-level Core i5 finally happening after years of Core 2 Duo without earning a penny.

The game of seven errors

Very clever man who could be distinguished from the first glance a MacBook 13 "Core i5 to a 2011 MacBook Pro 13" Core 2 Duo 2010 as the differences are minimal.

Evolution of Thunderbolt -3

So he imagines a Mac mini that could be chained to each other and that we connect to your computer in order to gain power. Thus, we could have a system with 6 Core i7 processors with 24 cores in total, 24 GB of RAM (which could go up to 96 GB) and 6 TB of storage, all for $ 6000. He said a similar setup with a Mac Pro would cost more than double. Thus, each could have its Big Mac at home. For those who no longer remember, Virginia Tech University was developed in 2003 the third most powerful supercomputer in the world with 1100 Power Mac G5, which were connected by fiber. Integrating Xsan in Lion and the addition of Thunderbolt have the advantage to save money on software as drastic as the material for the sharing of calculation. There remains the problem of the video card ... Cringely also has its own ideas on the matter. It can well imagine Apple market screens 27 "or 30" shipped directly Retina which a video card. With such a system, users could build "machines" to measure. All this is only speculation, it is unclear whether all this will really come, but it illustrates the fact that Thunderbolt is able to radically change the way today's computers are designed. Recently, a Japanese blog announced the launch by the end of the year of a new family of Mac unrelated to existing materials. If such a model were to be born, we would not be surprised that Thunderbolt is playing such a role.

Evolution of Thunderbolt -2

Thunderbolt is certainly capacity to radically alter the possibilities of our computers. For laptop users, the concept of the Duo may return to fashion. When the user went home with his laptop, he inserted in his Duo Dock, which included a slew of ports and a floppy drive. Sony introduced the VAIO Z end of June, a laptop that uses the standard Intel to connect the computer to an additional module that contains three USB ports, an Ethernet port, one VGA and one HDMI. This module also incorporates a Blu-Ray or DVD, but also an additional graphics chip (Radeon HD 6650M), which is more powerful than integrated into the computer itself. On the Mac, the boxes are similar to the study. Earlier this month, explained VillageTronic consider an edition of his ViDock Thunderbolt, which would act as a hub with USB ports, an Ethernet port and a video card that would contain very powerful. In short, enough to make your MacBook Air has nothing to envy to your iMac. The best of both worlds in some way with one hand, the mobility of the MacBook Air and the other the working comfort of the iMac. It is not only on laptops that Thunderbolt is expected to play an important role in the future; it could also profoundly transform the desktop. In his latest column, Robert Cringely wonders if this technology could not have just the skin of the Mac Pro. With LightPeak, Apple could build on a modular architecture based on a principle of blocks. Assuming that with Thunderbolt, Apple no longer needs to system expansion cards.

Evolution of Thunderbolt -1

Since the beginning of the year, there are two significant developments in the Mac. The first is software. It is of course OS X Lion. The second is of a material, it is Thunderbolt. If the new operating system has received a lot of him and was quick to change the habits of users, technology co-developed with Intel has entered a much more discreet. However, it could disrupt our daily lives. Appeared in late February on the MacBook Pro, LightPeak has subsequently been generalized to the rest of the range. Currently only the Mac Pro has no such interface. But so far, this interface was not used to much if it is to connect an external monitor to your computer. Things are moving slowly but surely, the first devices exploiting this technology have appeared on the market in early summer. These are the manufacturers of storage solutions that have unsheathed first. This is not surprising in itself; this technology allows data rates much higher than USB 3.0 and FireWire 800. The Promise RAID 12 TB, which integrates six hard drives in 2TB, transfer rates of up to 800 MB / s. For mobile users who do video editing, this technology opens up new perspectives. This is also in this light that Apple began to promote Thunderbolt. But it would be simplistic to see Light Peak, a "super" FireWire or USB. And Apple has begun to show his 27-inch screen Thunderbolt. It becomes more than ever to choose a companion to your notebook, including MacBook Air, which now has access to the Gigabit Ethernet and FireWire.

Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part V

Even in the video where the Mac Pro is traditionally at home, Westmere processors marking time: we find the fine balance between the raw frequency and the number of cores, which directly determines the performance for different applications. Handrake, for example, recognizes only core logic: this iMac is fighting against is with four cores to eight cores Westmere Mac Pro to € 3 400. But Handbrake does not take advantage of all the subtleties of Xeon processors, while the raw frequency is a key element of its operation: the iMac, with half of a good heart but more than the gigahertz Mac Pro, dominates with insolence. He can deal with anything against the twelve core Mac Pro to € 8 300: the frequency difference is less important than offset by the use of three times as many hearts.

The very marked differences in the Photoshop tests confirm the very different profiles of these machines. The DHT test uses a lot of old filters, so that the differences are erased in excess of five hearts (real and virtual) so the iMac is the hand with its higher frequency. The RAT test, it is much more realistic and simulates the touch of a photo with the latest filters: Although Photoshop performance peaked with massively multi-core configurations, the Mac Pro are Westmere at this time.

A beautiful iMac € 2 700 can be put in the closet of Mac Pro much more expensive? In most areas, yes, and widely: it shows, once again, the effectiveness of the Sandy Bridge Intel platform. The self in need of power will therefore turn to the iMac, which is not only the most powerful iMac ever made by Apple, but Mac is also one of the most powerful of the current range. The difference between these two lines is therefore not about raw power, but the concept: the iMac is an all-in-one, unlike the Mac Pro, which is still relevant for its scalability, ensuring a sustainability specific to dampen investment, therefore that represent the largest configurations. It also remains the machine of choice for certain niches, here for its computational capabilities, there to him the possibility of adding expansion cards. Still, the iMac is more than ever like the computer to do everything from Apple.

Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part III

Intel also provides the chipset of the iMac, a Z68 Series 6, replacing the P67 which had experienced numerous problems in the launch of the platform Sandy Bridge (SATA performance degradation). This chipset manages Smart Response, a new technology to use a SSD (up to 64 GB) as a cache for the hard drive, like the hybrid discs as the Seagate Momentus XT. Apple does not use this function: the SSD and hard drive of the iMac appear as two completely separate volumes. They are both connected to SATA III, allowing them to express themselves to their full potential.

The potential for the SSD is 240 Mb / s maximum throughput of 160 Mb / s of average flow. It's good but not dazzling, especially the hard drive of 1TB provided by Apple (a Western Digital Caviar Black 7200 RPM SATA III and 32 MB cache) is doing very well. The high density of its platters, SATA III interface and 32 MB cache allow it to reach speeds of around 120 Mb / s, with a fine linearity over large files.

Overall more efficient, the SSD, arranged in housing behind the SuperDrive, takes advantage of two areas: its access time and noise level. Fast, fast, fast, these are the three adjectives to describe what DSS quick fix on the MacBook Air and MacBook Pro, it is also on the iMac. While the scratch disk and is sometimes responsible for a certain delay, the SSD can boot the machine in a few seconds (12-14), forget the color wheel of death, and fluid in general operations, all in a royal silence accentuated by the presence of discrete fans.

(Cont.)

Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt - part II

The presence of two Thunderbolt ports used to connect the iMac 27 "to two external displays. You'll have no problem to connect two Apple Cinema Display 27": Use two mini-Display Port cable (same connector as the Thunderbolt), and any ... work of 81 inches diagonally. If you use a screen of another brand or a former Apple screen, you will need an adapter: your adapter VGA, DVI, HDMI to Mini Display Port working perfectly. The only problem will come from screens 30 "you should use a dual-link adapter, an active housing costing hundreds of Euros.

Otherwise, the ports are used to little Thunderbolt: devices using this new standard, although promising, will not arrive until mid-summer. Intended primarily for professionals, promises to be cost prohibitive and limited uses for the moment, the interest of this new connector is limited to the general public.

This is not the case for other race horses of the new iMac. The processor is an Intel Core i7-2600, the fastest second-generation Core i7. It has four physical cores, identified as eight logical cores (hyperthreading) clocked at 3.4 GHz. When an application does not use all cores but needs power, the processor can disable cores dynamically to increase the frequency of the remaining cores: it can go up to 3.8 GHz on a heart (Turbo Boost). With all reasonable thermal envelopes in this range, 95 W is worth mention (32 nm etching).

(Cont.)

Testing the 27 "iMac" Thunderbolt

Sandy Bridge processors, connectivity Thunderbolt, SSD are the elements that we begin to know well, together or separately, on many Mac. Put everything in a single iMac, and you get a real bomb.

The configuration we are testing today is the top of the line iMac: Screen 27 "of course, 4 GB of RAM DDR3 1333 MHz, an Intel Core i7 Quad 3.4 GHz, AMD Radeon graphics card HD 6970M with 1 GB of GDDR5 memory, hard drive 1 TB and 256 GB SSD could obviously put more RAM, disk drive 2 TB or the graphics card to 2GB, but as it stands, this configuration costs a whopping € 2699 - € 300 more than the Mac Pro "basic".

This iMac is first ... yes, an iMac. The problems therefore remain the same: a screen can be a bit too bright, an SD card reader a little too close to the SuperDrive ... This new generation, however, offers many small innovations: the webcam is now able to shoot HD 720p (even if the quality is more than average) while the USB 2.0 ports (4) FireWire 800 are joined by Thunderbolt ports. Also, the drives are now connected via SATA III (theoretical maximum of 6 Gb / s, the SuperDrive is in SATA II), and the WiFi card is connected to three antennas, which allows to use the iMac 2011 WiFi 802.11n three channels at 450 Mb / s.

(Cont.)

Thunderbolt also a great price

LaCie has announced a product but not its price, which will perhaps not trivial, especially in the SSD version of the Little Big Disk. "We will have SSD-based products with prices that will match the performance (ndr, implied, consequential, ndr). They will be adapted for video pros, and the general public as a vast majority will not buy Little Big Disk SSD. However it also provides a model 1 TB Hard Drive 7200 RPM, in order to consolidate its presence in the market, but it will not be exclusive. Being supported by Intel and Apple should see this technology become affordable or fall into the norm. "

He cites as an example the case of the USB 3 still expensive three years ago and found today in all the ads on hard drives big government "We wanted the Little Big Disk lock on that is the definition of a MacBook Pro. It does work on other products Thunderbolt. We can not say when it will arrive today, but it will happen fairly quickly. It has been said quite clearly is a technology in which we believe and what album is the first in a family to come. "

Finally, given the willingness to invest in Thunderbolt LaCie, it would almost paris for expansion cards for the Mac Pro today. The manufacturer has already exist with 3 USB, FireWire, eSata. Here too LaCie is silent, but we feel that the idea is on the table.

Time is money

Erwann Girard described the scenario that far videographer filming outdoors or in studio and had to return their Mac Pro's rush to unload on a rack and then mount her work "With a MacBook Pro 17" has become a powerful machine and the Little Big Disk storage was extremely fast. It obviously does not terabytes as in a server room, but it was up to 500 GB SSD and chaining these products can be achieved tera with excellent performance. "

There are also those clients who need to transfer large volumes of data, this task could be moved at certain times of day may be carried out on the field "From the time the computer takes the road, the interface no longer an obstacle to the preservation, one can imagine that given incremental backup will take a few seconds where it took two hours. We have customers who spend their lives moving data. An advertising agency that delivers a project, as 500 GB or 1 TB of data to put on a hard drive which then sends the customer, and I'm not talking about post-production boxes that merely this. Here we will transfer 1 TB in 20 minutes instead of eight hours with USB 2. That increased efficiency, it will change the customs. "

When the user, it should take advantage of any transparent manner Thunderbolt "Apple has worked hard to make the experience good, one branch and the volume goes up, there is nothing special. It was the ease of use of USB or FireWire with superior performance to that of Fibre Channel, and robustness comparable. It was a little the best of both worlds. Personally it is something that speaks to me, when I joined I took care of LaCie products racks with Fiber Channel 4 Gbp / s 12 or 24 TB and there were performances that were worse compared to of Thunderbolt and two SSDs! When you put things into perspective we have many advantages, an association between consumer and professional characteristics. "

The fact that Thunderbolt is based on these relatively mature "mini DisplayPort connector is known as PCI Express, PCI and it's video, it's tough, no surprise, we're on the known "(LaCie has three professional displays equipped with a DisplayPort socket, ndr). The possibility also to chain the elements, which as a convenience to limit the (re) connections when multiple returns with his laptop, one cable will connect the machine (s) disc (s) drive (s) and screen.

The possibility of Thunderbolt back to its origins, that of a fiber optic cable rather than copper is not excluded but there is still work to do and it raises other problems, "It's not buried, Intel has not closed the door on that idea, but it is not on the agenda. There is such physical frailty of the fiber that makes it unsuitable for use by the general public or for use on the ground. It is found rather in the server room, where the branch once and where they do not touch anymore. ".

LaCie interview: "Thunderbolt can change the way we work"

Supports reported Thunderbolt can still be counted on the fingers of both hands. Among the few partners of Intel and Apple have shown that products include LaCie. The French manufacturer will launch this summer a hard drive "nomad" has two connectors Thunderbolt, the Little Big Disk. It will be offered in three versions, one with two SSD totaling 240 GB or 500 GB and 1 TB grind this time using standard hard drives at 7,200 rpm. LaCie yet refuses to give a price, but at least for the SSD it may be salted, "the high performance" modestly prefers to say the manufacturer. Which should gradually expand its range of products compatible Thunderbold.

More generally, this new connection could well upset certain habits installed in customers. This is one of the promises made by Erwan Girard, Business Unit Manager at LaCie. it deals with professional products, and as the Thunderbolt.

Birth of a partnership

LaCie's commitment goes back to the beginning of the presentation of Thunderbolt, then called Light Peak "We did a lot of technological monitoring to identify technologies that could make the difference in years to come. We also have a professional clientele who demand large storage capacity and performance. As he has used during his lectures, Intel made some demos of products with technical partners capable of developing an ecosystem around its new technologies. It was in the loop pretty quickly. The connection was interesting for us and in turn Apple was looking for people able to offer hard drives with the launch of their new machines.

Choosing the Little Big Disk

LaCie has a wide enough range of disk drives, but the choice to take the format of the Little Big Disk (already available with eSATA + USB + FireWire) won the light engine provided by Apple to launch Thunderbolt “The vector of this technology for now at Apple's MacBook Pro. It's a mobile solution, extremely powerful, rather for professionals creating content such as video artists and photographers. With 10 Gbp / s we thought we could do video editing on the move, transfer video at high speed. "

LBD-Thunderbolt_key

The differential speed promised by Thunderbolt is compared to existing solutions such as LaCie comes to rely on a few changes in clients' "We must realize that the Thunderbolt is faster than Fibre Channel is an optical technology used mainly in racks . We will find for example in many production companies to ensure a very high rate between a mounting station and a storage array. It was a bit ultimate technology to three weeks ago ... "