John Siracusa: "On paper, the Mac Pro may no longer be a viable product, but it would be a mistake for Apple to abandon the concept that it embodies. Like the Power Mac before it, the Mac Pro was designed to be the most powerful personal computer Apple knows how to make. That goal should be maintained, even as the individual products that aim to achieve it evolve." I agree wholeheartedly. The Mac Pro - and the PowerMac before it - are amazing products, and I would be quite sad to see them go. They may not always lead the pack in performance, but when it comes to sheer engineering and interior design, they are among the very best. I have zero need for a Mac Pro, but to this day, I always take a few minutes to admire it whenever I pay a visit to my Apple retailer.
Member since:
2007-09-22
Thunderbolt is probably to slow, but silicon photonics will.
You don't have to wonder, I do believe it was their plan. Intel just couldn't deliver it yet.
Just look at this text from Wikipedia:
"The interface was originally intended to run exclusively on an optical physical layer using components and flexible optical fiber cabling developed by Intel partners and at Intel's Silicon Photonics lab. The Intel technology at the time was logically marketed under the name Light Peak,[9] after 2011 referred to as Silicon Photonics Link.[10] However, it was discovered that conventional copper wiring could furnish the desired 10 Gbit/s Thunderbolt bandwidth per channel at lower cost."
And I'm pretty sure there is a reason it is called Thunderbolt, something about speed and bright light.
Silicon Photonics is coming:
http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/01/22/silicon-phot...
http://new.livestream.com/ocp/winter2013/videos/9500796
http://new.livestream.com/ocp/winter2013/videos/9501486
Thunderbolt supports the PCI and DisplayPort protocols and Silicon Photonics supports the PCI and Ethernet protocols.