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A First Look at Thunderbolt on Windows with MSI's Z77A-GD80by Anand Lal Shimpi on 5/11/2012 1:32 PM EST
- Posted in
- CPUs
- Intel
- Motherboards
- Thunderbolt
98 Comments
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zanon - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkBack during your CES 2012 coverage in January you reported on one of the initial planned external expansion boxes, the MSI GUS II. Things like that (I know there are a few others now) seem to be where the story gets truly interesting for mobile users IMO. Even though the bandwidth available is only equivalent to a few lanes, testing like HardOCP's 480 x16 vs x4 article indicates that at single screen resolutions (ie., no more then 2560x1600) graphics cards can perform shockingly well even with severely restricted bandwidth. So more then merely having a hub there's the potential of being able to plug an ultrabook into a hub and have a mid-range full GPU ready to go, along with a screen and other ports. If it all goes smoothly it could really expand the desirability of ultrabooks even farther, making them more and more no-compromise, although it'll probably take the next-gen 40/100 Gbps TB standard to push it farther or handle GPGPU applications. Still exciting stuff. Reply
Guspaz - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkSadly, the MSI GUS II is not that useful due to only supporting bus power (75W, no external power connectors supported). The fastest (nVidia) card it can support is the GT 640, which isn't that much faster than the integrated graphics it would be intended to replace. Anything faster can't be bus-powered.
It would give you a small graphics upgrade over the Ivy Bridge integrated graphics, but not a big enough one to warrant all the cost and effort... and a notebook with discrete graphics could easily outperform it.
If they add support for externally powered GPUs (anything that draws over 75W), then it could be something special. Reply
zanon - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link
If they add support for externally powered GPUs (anything that draws over 75W), then it could be something special.
That's extremely trivial though, I was only using it as an Anandtech featured example of one initial expansion, not as the ideal solution itself. Not exactly a big deal to stick a tiny external power source in there, in fact it's odd MSI didn't do it in the first place (or who knows, maybe it'll get revised before release), but as the chips themselves become cheaper and get plenty of supply it seems likely other solutions will appear. It feels like one of the real possible killer apps for the interface after all, something that can't be easily replicated through other means. Reply
DerPuppy - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkthey are (villagetronic+others in the egpu community) working on a thunderbolt system..supposedly development support is limited to large partners though because the thunderbolt team at intel is overworked? someday it'll come out, external gpu solutions on >x1 PCIe2.0 connections, that is. the power issue is somewhat of a nonissue if you don't mind bringing around any sort of 12v psu, be it normal atx, sfx, or w/e and just hooking it up Reply
Roland00Address - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkThe product tag says the device can support up to 150w cards. See product tag picture here.
I also have heard it has been reported there is no 6 pin power thus the device can only do 75w.
If the device can do 150w you can put a 7850 in there, or possibly a gtx 660 (the gtx660 is a personal guess since the gtx 670 tdp was 170w and to do the gpu boost on the gtx 670 the tdp has to be 141w.) Reply
yyrkoon - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkThing is though, even more important than power. Is the technology bandwidth.
10 Gbps (one-direction ) really is not that much in the way of graphics card bandwidth. As I recall. a 7600GT from a few years back, could chew through about 20Gbyte /s under intensive situations. So 10 Gbit/s is hardly going to put a dent into that. So with that in mind, we're basically stuck with integrated graphics performance again.
That is, at least until the next iteration of the technology. Maybe.
Still, from a modular system approach, I like the idea. However I doubt it would be practical any time soon ( like you pretty much already said ). Reply
DerPuppy - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkNo idea where you're getting these metrics from? PCIe 3.0 x16 is 16GB/s so there's no way a 7600GT could have used that much bandwidth. maybe you're referring to the internal memory bandwidth?? It has been proven that an x4 2.0 connection is sufficient for about ~80-90% of the performance of an x16 link in many gaming situations Reply
yyrkoon - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkOf course it was the memory bandwidth.
" It has been proven that an x4 2.0 connection is sufficient for about ~80-90% of the performance of an x16 link in many gaming situations"
You would be very lucky to see half that. It is very likely, that you would see 25% or less of that.
People have been working on this problem for years now. Through other means. Partially, they have succeeded, using the MXM laptop graphics connection. At a cost that begs to wonder why they did not just buy a $2000 laptop to begin with.
You can buy an external graphics enclosure, for laptops, right now. If you're willing to spend ~$800 for it. Then, only if you have the right laptop.
So in ending I will say this. You're dreaming. You're dreaming a dream I have had myself. At some point however, you're going to have to come back to reality.
Oh, one last thing. I should point out that Gigabytes, and Gigabits are not universal with one another. 10 Gigabit == 1.25 Gigabyte. That is, 25% more, than a PCIe 1x 1.0 connection can handle. Under ideal circumstances.
How do you like them metrics ? Reply
repoman27 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkWell, connecting a GPU via Thunderbolt doesn't affect the memory bandwidth, so that's not really relevant.
Plus your math is way off. A single Thunderbolt controller can provide 10 Gbps of PCIe bandwidth. A PCIe 1.0 x1 connection provides 250 MB/s (i.e. 2 Gbps) which is 1/5 of what you get from Thunderbolt. Or put another way, Thunderbolt can currently provide the equivalent of a PCIe 2.0 x2.5 connection.
DerPuppy is correct. If driver support with PCIe compression for Thunderbolt connected GPU's was available, we could achieve better than 80% of the real-world performance of a PCIe 3.0 x16 connected GPU with an external solution.
Note the x2 (2 GB/s) performance in these charts: http://www.anandtech.com/show/5458/the-radeon-hd-7... Reply
Jaybus - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkYes, more bandwidth is needed to support external high end GPUs, not to mention the simultaneous use of multiple external PCIe devices. This is why the initial Intel project was named Light Peak. Intel Labs silicon photonics researchers never intended the interface to use an electronic PHY. I believe the electronic PHY version (Thunderbolt) was due to Apple's collaboration along with Intel hitting snags in the development of an on-chip optical PHY.. Ultimately, there will be an optical PHY, since the ability to scale the electronic PHY is limited. Reply
repoman27 - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkThis is a persistent misconception regarding Thunderbolt—that it would somehow be able to offer greater bandwidth if it had only used optical media.
Light Peak was developed from the outset with a target link rate of 10 Gbps (and using conventional fiber optic technology, not silicon photonics.) While optical cables have much less of a problem with signal attenuation than copper, which makes them more efficient for longer runs, when it comes to distances of less than 10 ft, which are the norm for typical PC use cases, copper is currently much cheaper, more power efficient, and user friendly.
Look around any data center and you'll most likely see lots of direct attach twinax copper for short runs. The highest bandwidth optical interconnects I'm aware of are rated for 56 Gbps (4x 14 Gbps lanes, full-duplex), but you can buy 3.0 m passive copper cables that can do that as well and cost way less.
Since you'd need a PCIe 3.0 x8 connection to fill the largest pipes we currently have at our disposal, I don't think copper's ability to scale is a real issue yet. Reply
yyrkoon - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkI stand corrected. For some reason I was thinking the bandwidth provided for each PCIe lane was half of what is indicated in the charts you provided a link to.
Sorry about that - everyone.
I do not think anyone here would like to see this come into fruition more than myself. Having been let down by the industry many times in the past however. I just do not think it will ever happen. So I suppose I tend to get worked up over it. Reply
BrightCandle - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkWhat I really want to see is 300W capable external cases for GPUs that support thunderbolt. Then we can have laptops that can be connected to modern high end GPUs that can game well when connected up. It also really needs to be able to drive the laptops screen. Reply
JKflipflop98 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkThat would be cool. Maybe we'll start seeing monitors with built in video card expansion slots or something. Reply
RamarC - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkVGA and a PS/2 mouse/keyboard connector on a mobo with Thunderbolt? echos of 1988 still resound in the most modern of hardware... Reply
hechacker1 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkPS/2 is still best for n-key rollover, and it's an interrupt device rather than polling.
But vga, yeah, that seems like a waste of a port, it should be dvi and just include the dongle. Reply
DerPuppy - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkPS/2 keyboard connectors still have advantages over usb keyboard connections...
vga is legacy though, no doubt Reply
tjoynt - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkFor home computers ps2 and vga don't make sense anymore, but for businesses (especially data centers) ps2 and vga are critical. USB + DVI KVM switches for more than 4 computers get *very* expensive, while 16-32 port ps2+vga KVMs are rather inexpensive and rock solid reliable. Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkThey could've included a DVI-I port and included a dongle, as some said. It's possible that the cost of utilizing the space freed up was too much; or there was a lack of suitable ports besides serial that are available to use that space. Reply
Exodite - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkI suppose I'm the one that has to go against the grain here then but I'd consider VGA more useful than PS/2 as I still rely on a fair few projectors that use VGA.
Granted, it's an old and dying standard but personally I'd find a lot more use for VGA than I would PS/2, Firewire or, uh, Thunderbolt really. :P Reply
DerPuppy - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linklots of businesses might say the same about IE6...not helping your case lol Reply
Exodite - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkThat's really not relevant.
Any computer capable of running IE6 can run a more modern browser as well.
A VGA projector won't grow the digital connector of your choice through a firmware upgrade, however. Reply
DerPuppy - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkyou can have adapters just the same way you can have more modern browsers Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkAnd you'll be carrying a desktop around to said offices using these vga ports for your presentations? Reply
MrPickins - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkAs others have mentioned, DVI-I and DVI-to-VGA adapter would have worked for older displays. Reply
DerPuppy - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkQuestion regarding requiring reboot upon adding thunderbolt devices. people have been adding external pcie devices via expresscard etc. (see: http://forum.notebookreview.com/e-gpu-external-gra... for forever. supposedly you can reconnect a disconnected egpu just by sleeping-> plugging-> waking a PC...would that work for thunderbolt? Reply
cjb110 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkUsing thunderbolt you could put the slower advancing stuff into monitors (which also have stagnated at 1080p)
So my gigabit network, large mechanical drives, wifi, bt etc is all in the monitor along with the usual periphery stuff connected printers, card readers etc.
My desktop then has the cpu/gpu and a much much simpler motherboard, no network, no need for lots of slow booting sata controllers, its the cpu, memory, gpu and a boot ssd.
A Alienware x51 type pc with a thunderbolt 1080 40/50" display would make a 'pc' console that would also be easy to maintain. Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkIs that integration necessary? It seems like it'll be out of date soon. Would you want to replace your whole monitor just to get 11ac, or bt 3.0 lp? Reply
DerPuppy - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkwell considering it's basically porting over PCIe...if you had mini PCIe connectors in your monitor you could "upgrade" your "dock", so to speak Reply
Metaluna - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkIt's good to see more Thunderbolt options showing up in the PC market, but it seems to me that a full-sized ATX motherboard that already has 7 PCIe slots is about the last place anyone would need TB.
Totally unrelated topic: Is it just me or does anyone else find this whole "Military Grade" thing that has been showing up on motherboards lately to be one of the most embarassingly cheesy marketing gimmicks ever? Reply
sphigel - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link"does anyone else find this whole "Military Grade" thing that has been showing up on motherboards lately to be one of the most embarassingly cheesy marketing gimmicks ever?"
It's been around for at least 10 years that I know of but, yes, it is very cheesy. Reply
A5 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkMilitary/defense grade is a real thing when dealing with component rating, though. It makes absolutely zero difference (besides the cost) on consumer-grade stuff, but it is a different set of specifications. Reply
jabber - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkWell if there were real 'military grade' they would cost $5000 each as you'd have £4900 worth of 'recertification costs' over the standard OEM issue the defence contractor buys in and then stamps 'military grade'. Reply
StormyParis - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkIt's nice to see CPU usage... 20% seems high, but I guess for high throughput it's bearable, but what CPU was in your setup ?
Did you run into any compatibility problems. I'm still having those with USB, both 2 and 3.. which is very disappointing . Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkHe said it in the Youtube video: Core i7 3770K. :-) Reply
Stanly.ok - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link"pushing the Thunderbolt Display at its native 2560 x 1600 resolution"
"drive the Thunderbolt Display at 2560 x 1600"
looks like you miss 30" Cinema Display a lot ((= Reply
coder543 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkThis review was really unfair in my opinion. This is one of the first reviews of a non-Apple usage of Thunderbolt, and we don't even try Linux on it? You spent pages reiterating over and over and over about how Windows doesn't support hot plugging of those devices.
And you didn't see what Ubuntu (or Fedora, or whatever else) did when hotplugging? Come on.
slightly frustrated at the complete absence of Linux on Anandtech. Reply
Metaluna - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkYeah, this is one of the problems with Thunderbolt that doesn't get a lot of coverage, though kudos to Anand for touching on it in this article.
The problem I'm referring to is that TB just pushes the driver availability problem out to the external device, which is particularly problematic for storage devices. Want to take that nice TB external drive and move it between OSX, Windows, Linux, FreeBSD, etc? Well, now you not only have to make sure all those machines have a TB port and a compatible filesystem, you also have to make sure they all have a driver for whatever controller chip the enclosure has in it. With USB, eSATA, SAS etc, each of those machines can just have whatever controller works best for that OS. Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkIt's a PCIE bridge chip on the phy layer, so it should be transparent to the OS as mentioned.
The driver issue would be the same as if the external device was plugged into an internal PCIE slot. Reply
Klimax - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkOne thing: Windows support hotplugging(it doesn't care what type of device it is in general), but drivers have to support it too and if they don't provide proper callbacks to I/O manager then hotplug cannot work as IOM has no way to inform driver about changes. Reply
ananduser - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkI recall MS stating that TB will never be supported by them due to security issues. TB support will have to be provided by 3rd parties. Reply
A5 - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkAnd the article pretty clearly states that TB is transparent to the OS because it is just a bunch of PCIe lanes. MS doesn't really need to do anything to enhance support. Reply
embeddedbill - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkThe security issues have nothing to do with 3rd party support. Pcie in every other instance was an internal device, now via TB, someone can develop a piece of hardware that has nefarious firmware and gain system level access - without opening up the computer. Reply
DerPuppy - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkpretty much: see firewire. direct memory access "issues" i guess. but if someone has physical access to your computer you're screwed anyways. Reply
ka_ - Friday, June 01, 2012 - link"pretty much: see firewire. direct memory access "issues" i guess. but if someone has physical access to your computer you're screwed anyways. "
I must say I disagree to this to a large extent even though I would agree if we add: Physical access without anyone else present.
It is something entirely different to require someone to force power offs, use screw drivers, or do some other highly unusual things to a machine than simply plug it to a display or NAS or something with two tb connectors and hack it from the machine connected on the other side. That or a device with chained TB connectors i.e. projector sharing the connection with a Trojan device.
Expect to see something like this on a security conference soon... "We tested this projector on all the presenters machines and..." Reply
embeddedbill - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkMicrosoft will also have an aversion to anything that allows you to boot using Windows on an external disk. Pcie is a threat to that because they might feel some loss of control. Reply
dagamer34 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkEm... Windows 8 To Go allows you to boot a full version of Windows from a USB stick. Reply
Conficio - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkAnd why again would I pay top dollars (for the mother board, the peripheral and the cables to connect those) to put the storage outside of my full size desktop? I don't see the use case.
If it would be a nice small form factor running silently and still is expandable through thunderbolt, that would make sense.
Or if I can access the storage and the display in my desktop through thunderbold from my laptop (and auto backup/sync/drop box) that would make sense as well. The standby desktop becoming the hub, sounds feasible to me as the interface is symmetrical.
By the way w/o hot plugging this is broken. As you report those issue on Mac OS X as well, I'll go and wait until this becomes stable. Reply
embeddedbill - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkThe most compelling use cases will be in the mobile market for sure. However for someone who covets the bandwidth for frivolous stuff, I can see this in a niche. Reply
ggathagan - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkGiven the ability to daisy chain up to six devices, this could represent an awful lot of storage capacity.
From the manufacturer's standpoint, I think it makes a lot of sense for MSI to use ATX for their 1st motherboard with TB.
ATX has lot more real estate to work with when deciding how to design the motherboard.
It's also their flagship Z77 motherboard, with all the bells-and-whistles.
At the price point of their flagship board, it helps recoup R&D costs.
Given the scarcity of TB devices at this point in time, I doubt anyone wants to dive in.
I expect more of a "sticking-my-toes-in-the-water approach from board makers.
Once there are more devices made to utilize TB, I think you'll see a more widespread adoption of TB.
As others have pointed out, TB has a better fit in the mobile market at this point. Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkYeah, imagine 3TB drives on sata controllers on each of these. That's like 24 * 3TB = 72 TB. And that's without resorting to PCIE switches or SATA port multiplied. Reply
DanaGoyette - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkThe HP Microserver is one device that could make Thunderbolt extremely useful. It has 4 drive bays (and 2 more SATA ports), but only has two low-profile PCIe slots.
I'm using one of the slots for the remote access card, and the other one for a serial port card, of all things, because the remote access card is actually quite buggy.
If the Microserver had a Thunderbolt port, you could chain massive storage off the thing.
Now, what happens if you try to connect two computers together via Thunderbolt?
As for hotplug, I'd imagine the BIOS just needs to properly mark that PCIe port hotpluggable -- even Apple's own implementation doesn't do that properly. Reply
dagamer34 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkExternal SSD RAIDs that can easily push 1GB/sec (yes, that's gigaBTYE) which, with modern SSDs only requires 2 high end drives at this point.
And while the 10Gbps v1.0 product is rather limiting, when you get to 100Gbps, that's when Thunderbolt will really shine. Reply
repoman27 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkHow about if you were building a box for video production and wanted to use one of the Thunderbolt interfaces available from AJA, BlackMagic or Matrox?
Although many of the Thunderbolt products that came to market in the past year were storage devices, Thunderbolt really isn't about external storage except for corner cases. You don't look at your USB ports and think that they're just there as a way to attach external disk drives, do you? Reply
embeddedbill - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkI'm curious, which disk was the windows OS installed on, how did that work out? Reply
apspeedbump - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkWas an attempt made to make Windows re-initialize a hot swapped device with a utility like "Hotswap!"?
It's worked, under Win 7 as well, for my computer to get drives I've plugged into external Sata to get recognized.
Just wondering it that's a feasible workaround until the drivers get certified. Reply
peterfares - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkI still don't understand why they needed to merge PCIe and DisplayPort, at least the way they did. If they kept everything separate, that's WAY less thunderbolt controllers everyone has to buy. If they really needed to combine with a video connector, couldn't they have just added some pins to DisplayPort or made a new connector that has both DisplayPort pins and PCIe pins? That way you could also have devices that only need the PCIe part of it without the video.
Just seems like a scheme by Intel and Apple to sell unnecessary chips. Reply
ggathagan - Friday, May 11, 2012 - link"If they really needed to combine with a video connector, couldn't they have just added some pins to DisplayPort or made a new connector that has both DisplayPort pins and PCIe pins?"
Maybe I'm not understanding your comment, but it seems very contradictory to me.
You've just described the TB connector and then have asked why someone hasn't made it.
There is only one TB contoller in each device (motherboard, display, hard drive enclosure).
You can run any protocol on it.
The fact that you can run both PCIe and DP through a single connector is a positive thing.
Why is simplifying down to a single connection for video, network, USB and firewire bad in your eyes? Reply
repoman27 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkMini DisplayPort connectors already pack 20 pins in a 33 mm^2 cross section. That's pretty dense, there's not really room for adding more pins. Plus, by keeping the same physical connector as mini-DP, it's easier to maintain backwards compatibility with existing DisplayPort gear. Besides, more pins in the connector generally means more conductors in the cable, and Thunderbolt cables are already complex and expensive enough as is.
Apple was already building Macs with this tiny little mini-DP connector that worked quite well for the form-factors they were designing, and it was capable of pushing 17.28 Gbps worth of packetized data over a single cable. Someone probably looked at that and said, "Wait a minute, why just use this for display data? Why not make it full-duplex and use it for transporting PCIe packets as well?"
As it is, you can plug DisplayPort gear into most Thunderbolt ports and just use it as if it was connected to a regular mini-DP port. Also, Intel is supposedly now shipping a much cheaper, single-channel, PCIe only variant of the Thunderbolt controller called "Port Ridge". Reply
iSayuSay - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkOne question:
From the picture, I saw Thunderbolt cable being plugged into on board TB port (which fully make sense of course). But what does it mean? Which GPU used to control the TB display?
Intel HD 4000? Or regular PCI-E GPU? If it's the latter, it means the port on GPU card become obsolete? And can we still use HDMI to be used as secondary display?
It kinda confuse me about how we use Thunderbolt on a regular tower, iMac and Macbook are integrated system so things become simple. But desktop and next gen MacPro (if it ever be updated) bring another problem since you can use PCI-E GPU which has its own display ports.
Suggestion please? Thank you Reply
ggathagan - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkDid you read the second page?
Ivybridge chipsets utilize Virtu software to allow you to switch between the IGP and a discrete GPU without having to physically switch the display connections.
The display can be attached to either the motherboard connection or the dGPU connection and Virtu will allow you to use use the dGPU for gaming, while utilizing the IGP for less strenous uses.
As Anand clearly stated, you can use the TB connection for your display and that process still works properly. Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkHD 4000 as clearly mentioned in the article. Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkAnd GTX680 when firing up games.... Reply
Ujjwal Tiwari - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkI couldn't quite grab it from the article, Was it possible to play games from gtx 680 on mac display through TB port? Or was another normal display used to connect to graphics card? And how in the hell are we supposed to run gpu intensive apps through HD 4000 only?? (Assuming we use mac display as only display?) Reply
Zoomer - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkYes with Virtu. Reply
ggathagan - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkYes.
Read the second page and read up on Ivy Bridge and Virtu!
The only difference between this and a non-TB motherboard is that you have yet another connection that can be used for your display.
Nothing else changes with regard to how the IGP and dGPU work on an Ivy Bridge board. Reply
ggathagan - Friday, May 11, 2012 - linkIf there's one market besides mobile where ThunderBolt could really take off, it's in the corporate world.
Just think how inexpensive it could be if someone like Dell or HP were to take the following approach:
You put out a line of computers and monitors where all the connectivity is at the display.
There would no longer be any need to build network, USB, Firewire or even sound into the motherboard.
This reduces the computer itself to nothing more than the CPU, memory, GPU and storage.
Even the storage could be separately housed.
That makes for a tiny foot print and your customers can now upgrade their computers to the latest-and-greatest CPU/GPU with no more effort than it takes to plug in the TB cable and the power cord.
This is also applicable to the HTPC community if someone ends up marketing TB-equipped TV's. Reply
descendency - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkWow. Cool. I'm not really interested in this in the desktop area, but a laptop... yes. Just yes.
If Lenovo reads this, an Thinkpad X2xx tablet with this is a day 1 pre-order. I can't imagine how awesome this will be when it gets into the market at large. Reply
Wardrop - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkMaking the monitor the interconnect hub for a computer does make sense. You're more likely to move around a computer than a monitor. Portability doesn't just refer to laptops and using your computer away-from-a-desk. Portability for me means moving a computer from one desk to another. This is especially applicable at my place of work, where I have technical requirements that exceed the capabilities of a laptop, but where I need to move between offices which have a hotdesks with monitor, keyboard and mouse.
Basically, all of the logic should reside in the computer, but the monitor should act as the consolidation point for all the copper connecting your devices to your computer. I wouldn't like to see the monitor have any intelligence, with thunbderbolt (the carrier) being the exception. Reply
Impulses - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkTB displays are great for laptop users but they're not a prefect solution for everyone... Any power user that has multiple displays probably doesn't care a whole lot for having a bunch of peripheral connections hanging off displays that are possibly wall or arm mounted. The holy grail for TB is still being able to offer that powerful external GPU that makes a thin and light laptop a gaming machine at home imo, but we seem to be a long way off from that. Reply
AnTech - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkIt should be possible to power on a computer from a Thunderbolt port, as was previously possible with Macs using a device like the i-Cue for USB
or the former ADB Apple keyboards that also allowed powering on the Mac from them. That is really convenient when the computer is away and difficult to reach, below the table, etc. Reply
rikm - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkFirst page says: Co-developed by Apple and Intel, Thunderbolt is a tunnel that carries both PCIe and DisplayPort traffic to the tune of 20Gbps per channel (10Gbps up and down).
Page 3 says: Total available bandwidth for a single-port Thunderbolt device is 20Gbps bi-directional (40Gbps total), so there's still additional headroom available.
Which is it? Reply
KitsuneKnight - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkIt's 10Gbps up or down per channel. So 20Gbps per channel.
There's 2 channels, so there's a total, aggregate bandwidth of 40Gbps in both directions.
So it's both. Reply
buzznut - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkThis is a very vanilla looking board for around $200. And the PCI-express lanes are pathetic. They choose to implement Thunderbolt on a motherboard with how many lanes??
I like msi so I really don't understand this. And for some reason, Intel motherboards in general don't provide enough PCIx lanes. As features are added, it seems like they limit the lanes even more. What gives?
In my opinion, someone would have to be pretty desperate to have Thunderbolt in their system if this board is representative of most implementations. Sure, its a new technology but this is indicative of a larger problem-Intel had the same problem with their implementation of USB 3.0; not enough PCI express lanes. A person would be foolish to use this board with crossfire or sli. Reply
ggathagan - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkWhy desperate ?
I think many are not understanding ThunderBolt.
It's not a device in-and-of-itself, it's a flexible bus mechanism that's fairly protocol-independent.
You're viewing it as something that consumes x4 PCIe lanes, eliminating their use by another device.
That's not accurate.
In the case of this board, it allows you to use the 4x bandwidth for USB, firewire, SATA, DP, gigabit ethernet or any combination thereof.
If a motherboard vendor chose to do so, they could link it to a PCIe 3 x16 lane and still not utilize TB's full bandwidth.
Given the tests that show little or no difference in PCIe 2 x8 vs x16 performance, that opens a LOT of possibilities. Reply
repoman27 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkIvy Bridge LGA 1155 CPU's provide 16 PCIe 3.0 lanes for dGPU use, which is pretty much twice the bandwidth that came with Sandy Bridge and plenty for most setups.
The PCH continues to offer 8 PCIe 2.0 lanes for additional features, which is about all that is reasonable given the 20 Gbps limit of the DMI 2.0 connection to the CPU. The more features a motherboard manufacturer adds, the more of these lanes they consume, and the fewer that are left available to the end user as open PCIe slots. By my count, MSI have used 6 of the 8 lanes branching off of the PCH by adding Thunderbolt, FireWire and an additional SATA 6 Gbps controller.
If you really think 16 GB/s of bandwidth isn't enough for your particular CrossFire or SLI setup, you can always go with an LGA 2011 solution which would give you 40. The bottom line is that if you want more PCIe lanes, you need a bigger socket with a lot more pins to provide those connections, and that ain't cheap. Reply
richard451 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkIt's odd that the article states multiple times that Thunderbolt does not need any drivers for the OS to take advantage of it, yet the update from Intel states once Windows gets updated Thunderbolt drivers things will improve. Reply
ggathagan - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkThe comments about drivers from Intel revolve around extending hot-swap capability to TB-connected devices.
Much like hot-swap AHCI is supported in Windows 7 while not in XP, the basic functionality for the connectivity in W7 is due to TB connections being seen as a PCIe device or a DP device in W7, while the hot-swap functionality has to be achieved through drivers.
I suspect Windows 8 might have said capability built in.
I doubt MS is interested in doing the same for W7, since they want us all to move forward on their 'enlightened' Metro path. Reply
repoman27 - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkTo clarify, the Thunderbolt controller does not require any drivers, but the devices you connect via Thunderbolt may.
Thunderbolt devices tend to include PCIe hardware for which Windows drivers already exist, but the drivers were not designed with hot-plugging in mind. Once the drivers are tweaked to support hot-plugging, the devices won't require a restart in order to be recognized by the system, and will become eligible for Thunderbolt certification for Windows.
It's the drivers for the PCIe connected hardware in the Thunderbolt devices that need updating in order to work properly in the new Thunderbolt context. Reply
SimoxTav - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkMay I suggest to take a look at the performance videos of the eGPU solution listed on the topic?
Check the "1.2Opt-Int" videos (scroll down) that means "x1 PCI 2.0 + Optimus Compression on internal screen". The results are IMHO quite enjoyable with a GTX560. With Thunderbolt can only be better (and easier to be implemented). Currently the performance are about 75-80% of the x16 counterpart (obviously depending on the specific game). Reply
repoman27 - Saturday, May 12, 2012 - linkOverprovisioning is usually not a problem. What you have here is oversubscription, which definitely can be. The only chips on this motherboard that seem to be using the 8 PCIe lanes off of the PCH are the FireWire and SATA controllers, which use one apiece, and the Thunderbolt controller, which seems to be a 4 channel Cactus Ridge chip which uses four lanes. The audio chip does not connect to the PCH via PCIe, nor does the PHY chip for the Intel NIC, as far as I know. If they had just gone with 2 less PCIe x1 slots, they wouldn't have had any contention issues.
It's odd that MSI would use a 4 channel Thunderbolt controller and only provide a single Thunderbolt port. The PCIe throughput figures definitely point to this being the 4 channel version though. If it can drive 2 Thunderbolt displays, then it definitely is, and I'm guessing that the reason why only two of the display outputs work at the same time is because 2 of the 3 video signals from the IGP are going to the Thunderbolt controller. Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkBut then VGA+HDMI would not work, would it? Reply
repoman27 - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkNope. I realized that after I posted, but then I hurt my brain trying to figure out how the display signals were actually routed from the PCH in order to cause this behavior. Reply
Jamiex - Sunday, May 13, 2012 - linkcould you get as high framerate when playing game through thunderbolt with the Lucid's Virtu GPU virtualization and an external GPU as you would when connecting directly to the external GPU? I don't fully understand how it works. Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkPretty much, you lose a few percentage points going through the iGPU frame buffer. The way it works is that the GTX680 (or any dGPU) renders the frame and has it in its frame buffer. The Virtu software then copies said frame buffer over to the iGPU frame buffer and that iGPU has a direct connection to TB/HDMI/VGA off the mainboard. The act of copying the frame buffers has some overhead, but performance in the last review I saw of it was 97% to 100%. Reply
gtm - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkI find Thunderbolt interesting for the ability to put one big and loud pc in one room, and get all I/O in another room, saving noise, space and cable mess.
But is it possible to wake an hibernating PC using for example an USB-Keyboard connected to a thunderbolt display? Reply
Death666Angel - Monday, May 14, 2012 - link3m cable length for the copper version doesn't seem like enough for that usage case though. :-) Reply
repoman27 - Monday, May 14, 2012 - linkThat's why you need to get one of these:
http://www.macworld.com/article/1166542/optical_ca... Reply
gtm - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - linkYes, I was thinking of those. Maybe even with a little more bandwidth, so that a Quad-HD display can be plugged, when they become affordable.
But running upstairs to resume from suspend is no fun. Reply
roaminggnome - Tuesday, May 15, 2012 - linkDid you happen to test to see if the Display supported Audio IN/Out or Video over the built in speakers/iSight? Reply
Zclyh3 - Wednesday, May 16, 2012 - linkWhere can I actually BUY this board? I can't find it anywhere. Reply
slyck - Thursday, May 17, 2012 - linkNot knocking the article, but just don't see any value in this. Reply
ChickenK - Saturday, May 19, 2012 - linkIs Virtu necessary to run the dGFX? Without the software, would the Thunderbolt Display's output only be driven by Intel's processor graphics? Reply
timelapser01 - Tuesday, May 22, 2012 - linkI may add, that while using a Pegasus R12 in a small render/graphics office Mac network (MBP, iMac and a recently added Hckintosh ;), now the limit for me on accessing that Pegasus is the Gbit Network itself.
Since fibre channel is far out of reach for a small business, next accompanying development necessary for TB use would be more 10GBit network PCIe cards and 10Gbit ExpressCard available for prosumers. 1 GBit is a bottleneck, once you use TB devices.
thanks to anand for his great reviews.
c Reply
chaoflux - Thursday, May 24, 2012 - linkAre they considered Windows certified Thunderbolt Devices? I'd love hot plugging and the ability to use both of my Thunderbolt Displays in Windows among other nuances.... Reply
Asterix007 - Thursday, June 14, 2012 - linkHello,
do you guess it's possible to connect a GD80 MB to an IMAC27 (mid2011) with the apple Thunderbolt cable, and put imac as External display using CMD + F2 combinaison key ?
I try to do so, but imac don't switch to GD80.
My GD80 has FW 1.0.
How did you put bios settings for TB part when connecting to the Apple Display 27 ?
Thanks for your answer.
Regards Reply
claptrap22 - Saturday, August 04, 2012 - linkGreetings:
How did you folks get the iMac to work as a target display? I built a rig last night with the same motherboard. I tried to use my 21.5" iMac (mid-2011 with Thunderbolt) as a target display and couldn't get it to work. Please advise. Much appreciated. Reply
mellertson - Wednesday, January 08, 2014 - linkI setup an ASUS Z87-Expert. It has a Thunderbolt port. I can get the sound and other Thunderbolt connected devices to work. But, I can't get the display to work on Windows 7. Any ideas?
Your help would be much appreciated since clearly you have it working in the video you posted. :-) Reply


text:
Caring for the Elderly: iOS 4.1 Speed Boost on the iPhone 3Gby Brian Klug on 9/7/2010 1:20 PM EST
- Posted in
- iOS 4
- iPhone 3G
- Smartphones
- Mobile
36 Comments
Back to Article
chdude3 - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkThe author of the article doesn't appear to address the issues that I (and several friends, and seemingly a LOT of people posting on the interwebs) encountered when trying to use iOS4.X on a 3G phone. Yes, things became a little slower to launch/open, but the OS itself would frequently pause for inordinate amounts of time.
I'd launch Safari which would open just fine, but attempting to scroll down a page would cause the phone to freeze for up to 30 seconds before it would become responsive again. This behaviour was all over the phone - it would frequently pause and stutter all the time and rendered my phone nearly unusable.
I could have dealt strictly with an extra 2 seconds to open the Settings menu, if my phone wasn't constantly freezing and stuttering to the point that it would not allow me to answer an incoming call before the caller gave up and hang up!
Basically, I want to know if 4.1 will make my phone an unusable mess again, or should I stick with my 3.1.3 downgrade! Reply
Brian Klug - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkThat's a good point. I haven't really seen safari freeze for a full 30 seconds, but there's some stuttering and pausing for certain on 4.0.2 on the iPhone 3G.
In fact, one of the more irritating problems with 4.0.2 has been the turn on/turn off lag from the power button. It's so bad that I'll mash buttons to turn it on, then it'll turn on and quickly turn off. On 4.1 standby and resume seem much smoother.
I hesitate to say it's gone entirely because I believe a bit of that becomes pronounced after using the OS for a while, but I will say that during my time with the iPhone 3G on 4.1 I never saw any inordinate stuttering. That appears cleared up.
-Brian Reply
Colin1497 - Thursday, September 09, 2010 - linkNo, the author doesn't address the real issues at all. But he does manage to be a jerk. So far I'm doing OK with 4.1 on my upgraded phone. I'd do 4.1 for the features at this point. Reply
Botia - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - link"Apple deserves credit for keeping a device just over 2 years old fully updated and supported."
Considering a 2-year contract, I would expect 2 years to be the bare minimum, with 3-5 years being more appropriate. Reply
gunblade - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkTell that to HTC. My less than a years old Hero is totally abandoned and forgotten.
Tell that to Samsung too, apparently most of their non flagship (Galaxy -S) device are no getting any support at all.
I would hope android users hold our vendors to the same standard as Apple. Reply
solinear - Friday, September 10, 2010 - linkI think that the big problem is quantity of products.
HTC has a large number of designs and devices, supporting every single major provider. They are running devices with many different processors, operating systems and networks.
Apple is supporting 4 devices (iPhone, iPhone 3G, 3Gs, 4) on one carrier. Throw in those four devices on as many carriers (verizon, t-Mobile, Sprint) and you're looking at significantly more complexity.
I'm not saying that the other vendors need to only have one device line or one OS or anything, I'm just saying that the other vendors have a lot more complexity to deal with than Apple does.
Honestly, I think that it's a lot like the old laptop problem with video driver updates. I think that the vendors should support the device for one year, but after that, leave it up to the OS vendor to support and update. If the customer wants to update, then they should be able to without "bricking" their phones. This way I can continue to get updated software, if I want to chase it down and do the legwork.
As for 2 year contracts, you can upgrade after a single year with the same discount as you could after 2 years with many of the carriers. I upgrade my phones after a year and every time am very happy that I did. Reply
CZroe - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkAnd the fact that it has the exact same performance as the original iPhone means that they have no excuse for not updating it too (same CPU/memory). So, just because it isn't a 3G device they block it from the 4.0-only apps and restrict their potential market. WHY?! Oh yeah: To enforce an upgrade cycle. This is even more ridiculous when you consider that the effort to maintain two kernels could have gone farther.
When Apple implied that the original phone couldn't handle it, they were lying. Edge vs. 3G does not factor in to iOS performance and it's the same hardware otherwise (minus GPS, of course). It's just like when Apple lied about A2DP not working on the original iPhone due to hardware differences and numeric battery indicator on anything prior to the 3GS (enable either manually using A2DP Enabler or SB Settings; both work fine). Reply
gcor - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkI totally agree. I still have 3 months to run on a 3G contract. I don't see that Apple deserves any credit for fixing something they broke. The additional functionality is paltry compared to the phone freezing up frequently.
I spent a good chunk of change getting TomTom and a cradle to run on my 3G. It was great under iOS 3 and now is completely unusable under iOS 4.0.2. Reverting to iOS 3 is a problem as I can't restore all the info I've put on it since "up" grading to iOS4. So, till now I've had to choose between hacking around to get the phone to function properly again vs. keeping my data.
iOS4.1 MAY get me running again, but it feels like yet more hassle and a good chance it won't address my problems.
Apple prides itself on consumer devices that "just work". The 3G iOS4 saga most certainly did not "just work". "Just fail" is a much better description from my experience. Reply
matthoffman - Friday, October 01, 2010 - linkThis is an old article now, but I can't help it -- this phrasing really gets to me. Saying it's a "2-year old device" is disingenuous at best -- it was being actively sold until just a few months ago, so the majority of buyers are still well within 2-year contracts. So "Apple deserves credit"? No, Apple released the 4.0 update with only 3 hardware versions to test it against and yet somehow still managed to make one of those three unusable (calls unanswerable because the slider won't respond, safari and email locking for 20 seconds at a time, most apps not loading 1 time out of 3...). And now they've failed to fully fix it, or provide a supported downgrade option.
And saying, "just pick up an Android phone" is infuriating. 'Just pick up' a $380 phone? 'Cause that's how much a Droid 1 is now, without a contract...much less the 1ghz phones Brian's actually recommending. And most people with a Iphone 3G are on contract. If I got in the habit of "just picking up" things (it sounds so trivial and carefree!) that involve that much money, I would "just pick up" a foreclosure in short order, I suspect. Reply
wm.duncan - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkAlso Brian, the 3G doesn't have the "s" for speed. Reply
Brian Klug - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkMuch thanks for letting me borrow your iPhone 3G ;)
-Brian Reply
xenol - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkI noticed the slide mentioned the camera can take HDR photos. How? Reply
chdude3 - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkI believe that's for iPhone 4 only. Reply
Stuka87 - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkIt takes three photos. Normal, over exposed, and under exposed, then uses an algorithm to put them together.
But I don't recall it being iPhone 4 only, but I dont have 4.1 installed yet. Reply
Brian Klug - Thursday, September 09, 2010 - linkThe other commenters so far are correct - HDR is an iPhone 4 only feature.
At least from iOS's perspective, that is ;). I've already heard direct discussions of a simple Cydia program being in the works on 4.1 jailbroken (when that happens) to make it work for the 3G and 3GS.
-Brian Reply
crimson117 - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkI have a 3G running iOS 4.0.2, and yes it's slowwwwwwer than it used to be.
The things I'm sure are new additions with iOS 4 are:
- 1st letter lag when entering a search term in safari. Actually, it's more like second-letter lag: the first letter is displayed quickly, but all subsequent letters I type take several seconds to show up. I get the feeling that this is due to a very slow initialization of the auto-suggest feature, perhaps related to re-establishing an internet connection after my phone has been idle for a while.
- Random 5-15 second freezes when scrolling. Often happen in Safari, or in iReddit or Alien Blue (which use embedded safari windows).
And the worst part about these things is that the OS doesn't seem aware (and also doesn't seem to care) that it's making the user wait for 5-15 seconds without any warning or explanation.
If there's a step involved in the safari search box such as "Initialize search suggestion dictionary" then if that's about to happen, the OS should dim the screen and put up a message saying that's what it's doing. Then the user would know which part is slow, and perhaps could push apple or the app's developer to fix it. Perhaps the OS isn't even aware that it's hanging for 5-15 seconds? Reply
chdude3 - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkOr being in the middle of typing an email when things will freeze up again for several seconds (this was usually in the order of 5 seconds) before the phone would become responsive again. It wasn't just Safari - any application exhibited this behaviour. The timing for the freezing did not appear to have a pattern at all, but it made the phone useless. I got so tired of sitting there waiting for it to let me use it again that I went for the downgrade.
Sometimes it'd freeze without being in the middle of an operation - I'd be reading text within an application and hit a soft button to, say, return to a previous page and the phone would simply sit there for several seconds before responding.
I can't believe that it got through any type of QA with those types of defects. Reply
Stuka87 - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkI actually get this on my 3GS with 4.x (I have not yet put on 4.1). Sometimes mail will lock up for 20-30 seconds before I can finally do something. I have not noticed it in other apps, but mail for sure on many occasions. So the mail issue may be a mail issue, or could be the 3GS can have the same pausing issues as the 3G. Reply
icrf - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkI have an iPhone 3G and never upgraded to iOS 4, and after reading this, I won't update to iOS 4.1 either. It's already a sluggish device to me, but it's a corporate device for which I barely have an official use, so I've no cause for demanding an update. Reply
Henk Poley - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkI wonder if Apple will break out of character and release iOS 5 earlier than with the next iPhone, to get around this line in their Software License Agreement:
"Apple will provide you any iPhone OS software updates that it may release from time to time, up to and including the next major iPhone OS software release following the version of iPhone OS software that originally shipped from Apple on your iPhone, for free."
iPhone 3G 8GB were still sold here slightly more than a month ago. Reply
MonkeyPaw - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkPut Pandora on each of them, run it, and then see what happens. One of my biggest iOS4 woes on my 3G was Pandora. I think it made the phone overheat, because it would play for an hour or two, then lock up. The buttons did nothing, but if you waited about 10 minutes, it would just reboot and be fine again. The phone did feel rather warm afterward. Went back to 3.1.3, and those problems are gone.
I'm not going to 4.1 until I get a general "all clear" from all the testers out there. I should have waited on 4.0. Reply
bobjones32 - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - linkThanks for the analysis as usual, guys at AnandTech. It's honestly quite pathetic how little coverage that 3G performance has gotten in tech blogs. Not you guys, I don't come here for tech news in the first place and it isn't really your intended coverage.
But the popular tech blogs that do cover every new gadget and news article...shame on them. They're so totally obsessed with the latest and greatest shiny gadgets that it never once occurred to them that their readers might *gasp* hold onto their iPhone 3G for the entirety of their 2-year contract, if not longer.
I got my iPhone 3G in October of 2008. Every single subsequent OS update has significantly lowered performance, with iOS 4 being the icing on the cake. Particularly because iOS 4 does almost nothing at all to improve the 3G in the first place.
Even worse? My 3G started exhibiting functional problems with the few buttons on the device too, but since it was out of warranty, Apple wouldn't do anything for me without an expensive repair. So they give me shitty software upgrades that are mandatory for application compatibility, then the hardware malfunctions and they want me to pay for it.
It got so bad that I finally sold my 3G for parts on eBay for a decent amount, and bought a used 3GS for a decent price too. The Apple Store recommended that I just re-sign my contract to get an iPhone 4 for $200, but fuck that, I'm never directly giving Apple another single dollar for a piece of hardware.
I've been a long-time Windows user and still use Windows, having no interest in purchasing a Mac. The iPhone was Apple's chance to win me over. They almost did. But iTunes is a piece of crap. The 3G was slowly transformed into a piece of crap. Their customer service wasn't helpful. Therefore, they will be getting no more money out of me. Reply
sprockkets - Tuesday, September 07, 2010 - link"Even worse? My 3G started exhibiting functional problems with the few buttons on the device too, but since it was out of warranty, Apple wouldn't do anything for me without an expensive repair. So they give me shitty software upgrades that are mandatory for application compatibility, then the hardware malfunctions and they want me to pay for it....Their customer service wasn't helpful."
Do you honestly expect ANY company to do repairs for free out of warranty? Seriously?
I'm not getting an iphone, but smartphones have so many more points of failure, and cost $500 ($800 for an iphone) without a subsidy. You think the iphone is bad, you should have seen the issues Palm had with the 700m from the tech support side. Perhaps the iphone is just as bad, but at least I don't hear people complaining about it losing the ability to ring (common WinMob issue with only one fix, a hard reset). Reply
et01267 - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkWith the 4.0.1 "update", my 3G suddenly became so slow that if I was running an app (like the NPR programming stream) and got a phone call it was not possible to answer the call before it went to voicemail. Ring ... Slide the slider to answer... (doesn't move) slide again (nothing) Ring... slide slide slide Ring slide Ringing stops.... (later) bing, you have a voicemail.
In effect, they have ruined the primary function of a phone -- making and receiving phone calls.
So rather than taking the chance on 4.1 making the phone usable, I just jailbroke/unlocked my phone so I can use it with other SIMs in the (civilized, not under the tyranny of ATT) rest of the world.
But I still might get an iPhone 4. Reply
Stuka87 - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkUhm, and how did jail breaking your phone make it faster? That doesn't make any sense. 4.1 should make your phone quite a bit faster from what I have read. But going to other provider isnt going to change the speed of the OS. Why not just downgrade back to 3.x? Reply
Relegant - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkOn 4.0x the phone goes out and fetches mail every time I open up the Map app. Sometimes a few seconds to do it, sometimes I'm past what I was trying to find. It never did this on 3.x. I don't know if this is due 4.0 or a change in the map/Google software. Reply
chromal - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - link
Apple deserves credit for keeping a device just over 2 years old fully updated and supported.
You have exceptionally low expectations, don't you? Given that people are being sold these products with 2 year cellular service contracts, Apple had goddamned better support them for the life of the contract. I agree with the 'planned obsolescence,' there's no reason for my iPhone 3G to perform worse at basic functions than when I bought it in 2008, and that is really that, period, end of line, end of story. Thank GOD I didn't trust iOS 4.x enough to update mine 3G. Reply
Stuka87 - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkDon't bother ever getting an Android phone, because most of them stop within 6 months of release. Reply
gcor - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkGood point. I so wish I hadn't "up" graded to iOS4.
Apple has definitely killed a large chunk of my trust in their reliability with this. It's that trust that put them above other vendors for me in the past.
If Apple is no more reliable that the rest, I guess it's time start checking out alternatives for my next contract. Reply
gcor - Wednesday, September 08, 2010 - linkAs previously posted, 2 years is the plan life of phones today. Given large numbers of 3G's are still on contract, I hardly think Apple is "Caring for the Elderly" by breaking peoples' phones!
My Sony Ericsson 810i (~5 years old) still functions just fine. It's not a smart phone, but it can still make calls smoothly, doesn't freeze and the built in apps keep me organised with better performance than the 3G on iOS4.
Shame on you Apple, iOS4 should never have been released for the 3G. Reply
Colin1497 - Thursday, September 09, 2010 - linkActually, it should have been more thoroughly tested, IMO. When I first installed 4.0, like the author for the tests, it was OK. It was several days before I started getting things like not being able to answer calls because the slider wouldn't respond in time. I disabled spotlight search (http://lifehacker.com/5599406/disable-spotlight-se... and that helped, but still it would become unresponsive and I'd do a hard reset and it would be OK for a while. This article was just a sign that the author has no understanding of what the issues were, and his conclusion is, frankly, insulting. Reply
watzupken - Thursday, September 09, 2010 - linkSeriously, I think with the current push for the 2 major mobile OSes, apart from the BB OS, we are in the position of a computer user, or may be worst. Right now, we are looking at mobile OSes that releases a new version every 6 to 12 mths. With every new release, the older hardware will suffer cause the new functions basically kills performance. Unlike a com, we do not have the chance to upgrade any part of the phone hardware to keep up with the requirement of the OS. Plus, we are all tied to a contract with the telco, thus, not all can afford to keep up to date on the hardware. Anyway, back to this review. I have not tested this on my last gen iPod Touch. May give it a try. On the iPhone 4, it is a great update, especially the HDR cam feature. Reply
Colin1497 - Thursday, September 09, 2010 - linkThis article was a total failure. The author demonstrated that he has no understanding of the issue. The issue wasn't so much how fast a web page got rendered or how long it NORMALLY took to get things to happen. Those were slower, and if that was the only problem, saying "well, it is an older device" might have been an answer. The issue was that the phone would just become completely unresponsive for 5, 10 15 seconds. Sometimes you couldn't answer it when it was ringing. The slider would appear but you couldn't get it to answer.
I suspect that the real issue is fixed, even if this article doesn't address it all and just makes the author look like a jerk (Seriously, you were a fan of Windows CE phones? LOL, what a maroon! What an ingoranimus! See, we can all be jerks.). Before you correct my spelling: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo
What the article does reveal is that 4.1 is better than 4.0. I'd wager that if Apple HADN'T screwed up the 3G version of iOS 4 so badly, the 3G users probably wouldn't have gotten these improvements. So, 2 months of "I HATE MY PHONE" traded for more longevity for the device. Reply
monomer - Thursday, September 09, 2010 - linkIs there any chance we'll be able to get a battery life comparison of iOS 4.1 vs 4.0.x and 3.x on the 3G? It may be my imagination, but it seems like my battery life had decreased with iOS4, though it may be just a change in my usage. Reply
Shaorinor - Sunday, September 12, 2010 - linkI jailbroke a friend's 3G and the problem is that too many apps seem to hang in memory after you close them. A side effect of the "multi-tasking" enhancement to the new OS I would say. Once I killed all the loose processes from all the apps that I opened, the phone sped up significantly again.
Luckily, I was able to downgrade him back to firmward 3.1.3. I'd personally advise holding off upgrading to any firmware until you see all the major kinks have been worked out. Reply
jeans_xp - Wednesday, October 20, 2010 - linkA4 is manufactured by SAMSUNG semiconductor. For more information: www.mobilegoing.com Reply

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Jefferson Duarte is Gerald D. Hines Visiting Associate Professor of Real Estate Finance. He teaches Real Estate Finance and his current research projects include residential mortgage derivatives, credit spreads, and information asymmetry. He has worked as a visiting scholar with Freddie Mac and was an associate on the fixed income proprietary trading desk at J.P. Morgan Chase. He earned his Ph.D. and MBA from the University of Chicago.
Gustavo Grullon is an Associate Professor of Finance. He joined the Jones School faculty in 1998 and currently teaches courses on corporate finance and mergers and acquisitions. His research focuses on corporate finance, with an emphasis on payout policy and real options. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University.
George Kanatas is Jesse H. Jones Professor of Finance. A member of the Jones School Faculty since 1994, he currently teaches Economics of Incentives and Corporate Financial Strategy. His research focuses on banking and corporate finance. He received his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Kansas and his Ph.D. in economics from Johns Hopkins University.
Barbara Ostdiek is an Associate Professor of Finance and Academic Director of the El Paso Corporation Finance Center. A member of the faculty since 1994, she teaches Economic Environment of Business and Investments. Her research focuses on market volatility and information flow in financial markets. She received her Ph.D. from Duke University.
James P. Weston is an Associate Professor of Finance. He joined the Jones School faculty in 2000 and currently teaches the core MBA finance course. His research focuses on market microstructure and corporate finance. He is a former assistant economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and holds a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia.
WHAT : The Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences" Faculty Forum
WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 30 2008, reception at 6 p.m. in Anderson Family Commons and program from 6:45 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. in Shell Auditorium
WHERE: McNair Hall, Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston (77005)
WHAT : The Financial Crisis: Causes and Consequences" Faculty Forum
WHEN: Thursday, Oct. 30 2008, reception at 6 p.m. in Anderson Family Commons and program from 6:45 p.m. – 7:45 p.m. in Shell Auditorium
WHERE: McNair Hall, Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University, 6100 Main St., Houston (77005)
The program is free and open to the public, but reservations are required. Please register at: jonesgsm.rice.edu/Response. For more information about the forum, contact Sue Klein at firstname.lastname@example.com.
MEDIA CONTACT: Julia email@example.com, 713-348-5387


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Car and Road Safety
Car and Road Safety
Some of our best memories with our kids take place while traveling. It might be those crazy summer road trips, or walking to and from school every day. But either way, we're here to help make sure you have all the information you need to keep your kids safe in and around cars, on the bus or on the sidewalk.
What You Need to Know
- Car Seat
- Booster Seat
- Seatbelt
- In and Around Cars
- Getting Ready to Drive
- School Bus Safety
- Pedestrian Safety
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