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+1 for the extinction of cards and slots. One of the most nerve-wracking moments of my (former) life as a recording engineer was installing a brand new Pro Too

+1 for the extinction of cards and slots. One of the most nerve-wracking moments of my (former) life as a recording engineer was installing a brand new Pro Tools card into a brand new Mac Pro at Aereosmith's studio. For whatever reason, the fit was way tighter than normal and I literally had to put some of my body weight over the thing to get it to slide in. All the while, just wondering how I was going to explain to Joe Perry that I had snapped a $6k Pro Tools card in half. Luckily, I didn't have to.

freehunter 13y ago
Combining voices with the person in this thread asking about external GPUs, I long for the day when we can have powerful Thunderbolt GPUs. High-end video cards are becoming ever larger with each generation, to the point where I had to upgrade my case and motherboard when I upgraded my video card last time. I just couldn't fit the card in the case, and the card suddenly overlapped parts on the motherboard that weren't a problem previously. The problem of hard drives taking up too much room in a case is solved. The problem of expansion cards taking up too much room in a case is solved. If we could get that to video cards as well, we can throw the whole concept of massive cases in traditional form factors being required for high end workstations right out the window.
- fuzzywalrus 13y ago
  The problem with Thunderbolt is a bandwidth one and Apple's support: PCIe 16x is 128 gbps bi-directional, Thunderbolt 2 is 20 gbps. Putting it just over 4x PCIe. Currently Windows supports graphics cards via Thunderbolt but OS X doesn't. There's also no guarantee Apple support drivers for external PCIe graphics chipsets. Maybe in 3 years Thunderbolt 3 will be 128 gbps but PCIe will hit its next iteration putting it that much further beyond. Thunderbolt is awesome as an I/O setup but for graphically minded individuals, its still not as amazing as one might hope.
  - wtallis 13y ago
    > Currently Windows supports graphics cards via Thunderbolt but OS X doesn't. Citation? From a software perspective, Thunderbolt is just hotpluggable PCIe. There's not much that can be done to prevent compatibility with a GPU connected via Thunderbolt, especially when the OS already supports switchable graphics. From what I've read, the biggest challenge to using an external GPU enclosure with a Mac is getting a GPU that OS X has drivers for, not anything Thunderbolt-related.

freehunter 13y ago

Combining voices with the person in this thread asking about external GPUs, I long for the day when we can have powerful Thunderbolt GPUs. High-end video cards are becoming ever larger with each generation, to the point where I had to upgrade my case and motherboard when I upgraded my video card last time. I just couldn't fit the card in the case, and the card suddenly overlapped parts on the motherboard that weren't a problem previously. The problem of hard drives taking up too much room in a case is solved. The problem of expansion cards taking up too much room in a case is solved. If we could get that to video cards as well, we can throw the whole concept of massive cases in traditional form factors being required for high end workstations right out the window.

fuzzywalrus 13y ago
The problem with Thunderbolt is a bandwidth one and Apple's support: PCIe 16x is 128 gbps bi-directional, Thunderbolt 2 is 20 gbps. Putting it just over 4x PCIe. Currently Windows supports graphics cards via Thunderbolt but OS X doesn't. There's also no guarantee Apple support drivers for external PCIe graphics chipsets. Maybe in 3 years Thunderbolt 3 will be 128 gbps but PCIe will hit its next iteration putting it that much further beyond. Thunderbolt is awesome as an I/O setup but for graphically minded individuals, its still not as amazing as one might hope.
- wtallis 13y ago
  > Currently Windows supports graphics cards via Thunderbolt but OS X doesn't. Citation? From a software perspective, Thunderbolt is just hotpluggable PCIe. There's not much that can be done to prevent compatibility with a GPU connected via Thunderbolt, especially when the OS already supports switchable graphics. From what I've read, the biggest challenge to using an external GPU enclosure with a Mac is getting a GPU that OS X has drivers for, not anything Thunderbolt-related.