Crazyness and Experimentation

Ok I actually have the notebook in signature and I'm planning to make an upgrade for the future, but not a standard one.
I watched for the MBA 11" and the MBP 13" base model. I know that speaking about the HW they aren't a clean upgrade but i have a plan:

Apple, actually is the only one manufacturer providing notebooks with a Thunderbolt ports with these controllers respectively:

MacBook Pro 13, 15, 17 Mac Mini, iMac with Lightridge Controller (4 Channel of 10 Gbps bidirectional each)

Macbook Air 11, 13 with Eagleridge Controller (2 Channel of 10Gbps bidirectional each)

Starting from 2012 also the PC market will have the Thunderbolt Port (except the Vaio that has its "Lightpeak" version already), but the controller could be, probably to keep the price down, the one named Cactusridge, that can only handle 1 channel (always bidirectional) with a total bandwidth of 20Gbps.
Furthermore the first equipped models (provided by Acer and Asus) will be probably Ultrabooks, that are less powerful (about the CPU) if compared to a MBP and expensive as a MBA (but less appealing).

So, what i'm planing to do with Thunderbolt? Simply: eGPU configuration.

Villagetronic is actually making a new revision of ViDock (G4 Micro) that can handle a standard desktop GPU through the Thunderbolt bus. Obviously having 4 channel is better than 2, BTW on the Apple site Thunderbolt is mentioned only as a technology with 2 channel of 10gbps each, so i guess that except the iMac that has 2 TB ports, the Macbook Pros and the Mac Minis could be limited to 40Gbps bandwidth like the Airs equipped with the little brother controller due the one output port. The test made by Anandtech on July connecting a Pegasus R6 RAID drive brought the same results in speeds, so I think that actually the advantage to have 4 channels is reached only if i daisy-chain the devices (that is useless with a GPU and no external monitor, because with optimus modded driver (and a nVidia GPU) it seems possible to push back the video signal into the internal laptop display with the same cable, obviously at the cost of some bandwidth based mainly on the resolution.

Now comes the question: Today Thunderbolt drivers for windows are not available, but they will quite soon. So could be an option to get a MBP to get the advantage of the full TB channel and run Windows Only (not deleting MacOSX but resizing to the minimum its partition)? What about the Windows drivers of the components? The GPU should be a win-win solution due the dock (standard GPU means standard drivers with modded optimus in it), but what about the other ones? That's my main complain and worry about moving to a Mac. I like the design, i like the Thunderbolt port and controller, but i'm a Windows guy, even if i have an iPhone and an iPad, my notebook is used also to play so having Windows is a must have.

Thanks ^_^

 

1) there are available thunderbolt drivers for windows.

2) Im also waiting for the egpu solutions

3) It wont make a difference regarding bandwidth between the eagle and light ridge controllers, simply because the thunderbolt cable or the connector cant support it. Basically to get the performance that you are expecting you would have to have 2 thunderbolt ports and connect those to a single card.

 

1) Nice i didn't know! Are these provided by Apple?

2) More people, more support From what i've read the preorders of the ViDock G4 should open in mid December and the product will ship on the end of Jan '12, with a starting price of about 400$ (a price that can be lowered by the amount of preorders)

3) So basically choosing the Mac companion depending on the TB controller, today is completely useless. Only the iMac could benefit from the full bandwidth thanks to the two connectors. What about the other drivers? I've trained a bit and i discovered that even on the "Windows side", Apple (through BootCamp) supplies all the drivers needed for the components inside the notebook; but what about upgradability? For Example, once I've a working Windows machine, can i manually upgrade the drivers from other sources like directly Intel website? (always considering that the Hardware ID have to match to the Apple one)

 

There would still be no guarantee that an external GPU will work through Thunderbolt. Right now Apple is implementing Thunderbolt drivers for their systems through bootcamp but again, that doesn't necessarily mean that absolutely every Thunderbolt accessory out there (particularly eGPUs) are going to work. There is a good chance that they will but you never know for sure. As for the drivers, you can install some directly from the manufacturer's website. You can download Intel's chipset and IGP drivers instead of going with Apple's though the ones provided in bootcamp are the same thing. Most when people talk about poor driver implementation, they bring up other aspects. One example is a MBP's inability to switch between the IGP and GPU when running Windows. The GPU is always on so the battery life is drastically reduced. You can try to install Intel's IGP drivers all you want but it won't do any good. The trackpad is another example as it doesn't perform nearly as well as it does under OS X though there are some third party solutions (but the point is that those solutions should not be required). The ambient light sensor/brightness adjuster/keyboard backlight adjuster don't work as well under Windows either. The display brightness always starts out at 100% and it took an extra 4 seconds to adjust both the screen brightness and keyboard backlight under Windows whereas the results are instantaneous in OS X.

Additionally, if you plan on running Windows 99% of the time (or anything above 45%), you should not look towards Apple even if they are the only ones currently implementing a Thunderbolt port (which still isn't supported outside of Apple and 2-3 very expensive accessories). You buy Apple computers to run their hardware and their software. Hardware design is only 1/4 of the equation and really, it shouldn't be something that is heavily focused on. In other words, don't buy a Mac just because it looks good. Go with a Mac to use Apple's hardware to run Apple's software. Otherwise you can go with other options that provide similar (or better) build quality that were actually made to run Windows (whereas it is more of a bonus feature for Macs).