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Still surprises me the new Mac Pro isn’t AMD. I guess Intel current handcuffs on customers is them owning Thunderbolt.

by tiffanyh 7y ago

saagarjha 7y ago
Thunderbolt is royalty-free; does AMD have any implementations available?
- tiffanyh 7y ago
  Incorrect. Intel did announce in 2017 they planned to release thunderbolt royalty free in the future; however, they still have not released it as of yet. And given their new competition from AMD - I doubt they plan to now anytime soon
  - sgarman 7y ago
    It seems like it's not so binary and it's more like kinda royalty free: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/thunderbolt-3-becomes-usb4-as-intels-interconnect-goes-royalty-free/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/thunderbolt-3-become... They gave it away to usb form but maybe they won't for anything AMD wants to do?
  - jrockway 7y ago
    It's called "USB 4" now. And yeah, a few years away at best.
    - ksec 7y ago
      USB4 Final Spec 1.0 should be ready anytime soon. It was originally scheduled for mid 2019, but you can defiantly expect the draft before year end and product ready by next year.
- eightysixfour 7y ago
  There is at least one motherboard that I know of with Thunderbolt on it for AMD processors, the X570 Taichi. It does have some limitations though.
  - Fnoord 7y ago
    What are the limitations you're on about? I'm in the market for Ryzen 3900X + X570 + TB3.
    - eightysixfour 7y ago
      Wake issues with some devices, external GPU solutions do not work.
      - Fnoord 7y ago
        Will external GPUs never work? As in, physically impossible? That'd be my main purpose.
        devonkim 7y ago
        Physically impossible, no, but external GPUs definitely work right now with Intel processors but even they have their limitations related to usability moreso than technical issues. I have one now with a 1080 Ti off of an Intel NUC and not being able to see my BIOS without switching to the iGPU can be cumbersome when troubleshooting. Once in a while when I reboot (this is very frequent actually because my eGPU's PSU's power limiter cuts out if I forget to throttle the power usage) the GPU doesn't come back unless I hard cycle a couple times. The annoyances are such that I'm waiting for a 3900X to be available in-store so I can build my full workstation finally after sitting on a NUC + eGPU setup for over a year.
        Fnoord 7y ago
        I don't want to buy Intel CPUs, nor Nvidia GPUs. Exception being an Nvidia Shield. You'll be going for 3900X + X570 Taichi? Or another board? Ideally I'd also want ECC RAM.
ksec 7y ago
>Still surprises me the new Mac Pro isn’t AMD. Yes, I was rather hoping for some surprise, with 2 Socket, 128 Core Max Mac Pro. I guess Apple has to keep Intel happy until they get their hands on Intel's modem unit.

Still surprises me the new Mac Pro isn’t AMD. I guess Intel current handcuffs on customers is them owning Thunderbolt.

saagarjha 7y ago

Thunderbolt is royalty-free; does AMD have any implementations available?

tiffanyh 7y ago
Incorrect. Intel did announce in 2017 they planned to release thunderbolt royalty free in the future; however, they still have not released it as of yet. And given their new competition from AMD - I doubt they plan to now anytime soon
- sgarman 7y ago
  It seems like it's not so binary and it's more like kinda royalty free: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/thunderbolt-3-becomes-usb4-as-intels-interconnect-goes-royalty-free/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2019/03/thunderbolt-3-become... They gave it away to usb form but maybe they won't for anything AMD wants to do?
- jrockway 7y ago
  It's called "USB 4" now. And yeah, a few years away at best.
  - ksec 7y ago
    USB4 Final Spec 1.0 should be ready anytime soon. It was originally scheduled for mid 2019, but you can defiantly expect the draft before year end and product ready by next year.
eightysixfour 7y ago
There is at least one motherboard that I know of with Thunderbolt on it for AMD processors, the X570 Taichi. It does have some limitations though.
- Fnoord 7y ago
  What are the limitations you're on about? I'm in the market for Ryzen 3900X + X570 + TB3.
  - eightysixfour 7y ago
    Wake issues with some devices, external GPU solutions do not work.
    - Fnoord 7y ago
      Will external GPUs never work? As in, physically impossible? That'd be my main purpose.
      - devonkim 7y ago
        Physically impossible, no, but external GPUs definitely work right now with Intel processors but even they have their limitations related to usability moreso than technical issues. I have one now with a 1080 Ti off of an Intel NUC and not being able to see my BIOS without switching to the iGPU can be cumbersome when troubleshooting. Once in a while when I reboot (this is very frequent actually because my eGPU's PSU's power limiter cuts out if I forget to throttle the power usage) the GPU doesn't come back unless I hard cycle a couple times. The annoyances are such that I'm waiting for a 3900X to be available in-store so I can build my full workstation finally after sitting on a NUC + eGPU setup for over a year.
        Fnoord 7y ago
        I don't want to buy Intel CPUs, nor Nvidia GPUs. Exception being an Nvidia Shield. You'll be going for 3900X + X570 Taichi? Or another board? Ideally I'd also want ECC RAM.

ksec 7y ago

>Still surprises me the new Mac Pro isn’t AMD. Yes, I was rather hoping for some surprise, with 2 Socket, 128 Core Max Mac Pro. I guess Apple has to keep Intel happy until they get their hands on Intel's modem unit.