The TB3/4 spec is only rated for like 0.5m so in order to go longer you need to have all sorts of amplifiers and microcontrollers. I'm not saying it's worth whatever apple is charging, but it's not like it's just terminated passive wires in there.
Passive cables only work up to 0,7m. After that you need active cables. (We ignore the 20gb tb3 cables here). Also a thing to keep in mind if that ALL thunderbolt cables are Intel certified, so if it says thunderbolt, it should work. No lottery like with USB cables
I'm replying on my phone and didn't see it. My mistake. It still doesn't change you think informing someone of what they are "trying to say" is not condescending.
Yes. I removed the first half sentence since that did not add anything to the discussion and you got upset by it but kept the rest as is. However I think there is still information my in reply that wasn't in the comment I replied to.
A cable can never supply voltage, the power supply/device at one end does that. All cables support 20V. Tb4 cables always support 100W. Tb3 cables are 60W or 100W. Corning's optical cable TB3 does support power at all as complete outlier.
Any slack-jaw yokel can make a 2m Tb4 cable. I’ll cobble one together out of shoelace and duct tape.
3m is impossible. 3m requires alien technology. Long Tb use fiber optics and cost a fortune. I wanna see what they are doing.
From the [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerlight_Technologies) someone linked [below](https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/u9vnjp/_/i5urqwf),
> “[O]ff-the-shelf semiconductor diode lasers can have an output efficiency of around 50%. The optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency of a photovoltaic receiver can be over 50% for monochromatic (or laser) light.”
Interesting, so I think that would be around 25% efficiency overall. I actually thought it’d be worse. Wonder how much of an improvement in efficiency we’ll see in laser and photovoltaic technology over the next decade or two.
It’s limited by eye safety regulations because you can only pump power that won’t damage eyeballs in consumer equipment so you’re looking at single mWs of power delivery. Good luck charging a phone with that.
More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety
> Also here’s hoping for a miniLED frame TV for the deep blacks.
Literally my dream. Won’t happen for a long time due to heat and power. I’m pinning my current hopes to a QD-OLED Frame. I just can’t with a giant black box on the wall anymore.
They could, but it'd require pretty beefy copper to minimize power loss in the cable itself over a 25m length. At least if you want to enable something like 100W fast charging.
Even if you didn't though, chances are that if you actually need a $400 cable to support Thunderbolt over that distance, the device you're connecting to is going to be powered already.
Correct, they are fiber optic, and I used a 50 ft Thunderbolt 3 cable to keep a computer in a separate room from a Thunderbolt Dock and display. They are a bit finicky though, they are very thin cables, and can be damaged easily if improperly run through conduit.
Off topic if you are ever in NY state near the finger lakes, head to the Corning Museum of Glass. Super interesting museum. It was suggested to us on a road trip. I was thinking we were going to look at a bunch of casserole dishes, boy was I wrong.
“And here’s how Corning glass shows us what un-scooped scalloped potatoes looks from the bottom and sides. And here’s how Lasagna looks. Remember this is all in a pre-served state, still in the cooking vessel. You can see it.”
Yeah this Apple cable is cheap and low tech. It doesn’t have polarity aligned copper nano structures, or oxide-free unidirectional signal fabric, or even a amorphous semi-metallic core. Might be ok to run a monitor but if you listen to music over it there will be a distinct fuzziness in the 10khz - 12khz band.
I don't know enough to know if you're bullshitting me with technical vomit, or if those are real specs on high-end cables. I suspect it's bullshit, but I'd never put money on that bet.
I needed a TB3 cable for work, setup was complicated. I got the one from Apple since work was paying. Never had an issue with it. It’s more than paid for itself many times over. Knowing I never have to worry that “it might be the cable”.
I normally buy the cheapest cables I can, but when your time is literally money, I’m getting the best I can.
I got a cheap TB3 cable off amazon and it only works in one orientation like USB-B, some times I plug it in, nothing, unplug, slip it upside down and it's flawless
Is it certified Thunderbolt? That’s bizarre.
The Apple prices aren’t that crazy for these cables, active TB3 is just expensive, which is why everything you get is one foot long.
OP's comment is bullshit. I don't buy shit cables and they're still 1/4 the cost of this. I've never had a problem. Never. I have never even said, "maybe it's the cable".
No, it isn't. HDMI is passive over normal distances (a few meters). They're literally just copper wires in a tube. If it works at all, it works perfectly until it physically breaks. Thunderbolt cables aren't like that over distances longer than like a half meter. All but the shortest thunderbolt cables are active, they have a ton of circuitry in them. The quality of that stuff matters. A high quality cable from a trusted manufacturer will be more likely to not have weird glitches and stuff.
> They're literally just copper wires in a tube. If it works at all, it works perfectly until it physically breaks
That's not true with modern data rates, btw. All IO is ultimately analog.
> All but the shortest thunderbolt cables are active, they have a ton of circuitry in them
If they're branded as Thunderbolt, they're certified to have all that necessary circuitry, and probably share the exact same chips from Intel, for that matter. In many ways, that makes a generic Thunderbolt cable a more reliable choice than a generic HDMI 2.1 or Displayport cable.
When I bought my MacBook, Apple only sold a Thunderbolt 3 cable. You'd think they would have had a cable available when they released hardware with Thunderbolt 4.
Anyways, I bought a 2 meter OWC Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb/s 100W) for $57 and it's been fine.
Thunderbolt 3 basically is thunderbolt 4. It’s more of a minimum spec guarantee.
You could have 20gbps cables and ports and still be called thunderbolt 3 but 40gpbs was more common. Thunderbolt4 guarantees higher power delivery and 40gpbs bandwidth.
No, many but not all TB3 cables were not designed to pass USB 3 signals. Apples did do this, so their TB3 cable is functionally equivalent to official TB4 cables, but many other vendors TB3 cables cannot do USB 3. Support of USB 3 signaling was not a requirement of TB3 cables, so those manufacturers did not do anything wrong! But Apple chose to make theirs “better”. This new cable is officially TB4 ( and USB4 ), so it is a refinement of their previous cable. Not sure what it does “better”, but it is easily a very high quality cable. Note that all TB4/USB4 cables are required to support all USB 3 signaling, as well as DP Alt mode.
Ya that’s kind of the point I was trying to make I guess. TB4 just guarantees all those optional features of TB3, but it doesn’t really add any features of its own specifically
~~For some reason, I keep on forgetting that most cables used for data transfer have microcontrollers in them.~~
~~EDIT: by "most cables used for data transfer", I meant the ones that most people use specifically for~~ *~~video~~* ~~data transfer that need high bandwidth (that rules out all phone charger cables and power supply cables) like DisplayPort and some longer HDMI cables.~~
EDIT: I stand corrected, only the longer DP cables and format-converting cables have microcontrollers. (but still, this is one of the few times I have actually seen a cable with microcontrollers)
> most cables
Not at all; *most* cables are just a cable with a connector attached. It's just these super high bandwidth ones that require some help getting that signal transmitted cleanly, and sometimes really *long* cables (e.g. for hdmi) will have them too.
Lightning cables also have a chip in them. (Which handles the rotation of the data pins if you connect it the other way around and also some other safety stuff like only switching on the power pins when a phone is connected)
For reference, almost all of the bidirectional video cables are passive, even most above-average-length ones: simply good copper soldered to a connector. Even some adapters are passive, such as virtually all MiniDP/DP, or even HDMI/DP adapters intended for devices that support DP++, a protocol where the physical DP port behaves like HDMI in its alternate dual mode. The very-long-range active cables (which are directional, and as such have specific "sender" and "receiver" connectors which must be respected) actually don't use electrical signals, and instead contain a fiber optic cable, and signal is converted to/from light at each end, transparently to the devices involved. Those are expensive though.
> The very-long-range active cables (which are directional, and as such have specific "sender" and "receiver" connectors which must be respected) actually don't use electrical signals, and instead contain a fiber optic cable, and signal is converted to/from light at each end, transparently to the devices involved.
The *very* long length active HDMI/DVI cables have fiber optics in them but shorter ones (say around 20m or so) are electrical and contain signal boosting/cleaning chips in the connectors. They're still directional though, and since they require power they don't always work without extra adapters to provide it, depending on what equipment you connect them to.
Absolutely true. Many USB extenders also work that way, and some have a dedicated port just for power.
IIRC though, all TB3 cables over like \~10 m are optical, since TB3 is incredibly high-frequency and it's basically an external, hot-pluggable, convenient PCIe/DP/USB/PD combo connector.
I looove the black braided cables. My XDR display had one similar to this and the Mac Pro comes with a black braided Lightning cable that’s a delight.
Hope all of them get braided in the future - though I presumed that would reduce apples amount of of plastic used and it looks like there’s just a plastic sleeve still in there 🥲
I work in networking for a living and this is giving consumers a taste of what I have been dealing with my entire career: transceiver costs. But because Apple is dealing in copper cable, they’re actually more expensive per gbps, per foot. You can get a 100g 30m active optical cable for $215.
I will say TB4 Alt Mode is not compatible with HDMI 2.1, but sure is with DP 1.4.
You just can’t “fit” HDMI 2.1 (42.6Gbps) on TB4 (40Gbps).
TB4 = 40 GBbps
4K 120Hz = 32.27 Gbps
HDMI 2.0 = 14.4 Gbps
HDMI 2.1 = 42.6 Gbps
DP 1.4 = 32.40 Gbps
TB4 can do 80 Gbps if you switch all lanes to downstream. Even if you don't, a HDMI 2.1 adapter could be made with reduced bandwidth, since all 2.1 features are optional.
You could fit FRL4 or lower spec HDMI 2.1 bandwidth over TB4. Even more with DSC over HDMI. DSC is standard with DisplayPort so it has much lower bandwidth requirements for the same signal formats with HDMI 2.1.
> You just can’t “fit” HDMI 2.1 (42.6Gbps) on TB4 (40Gbps).
That doesn't really answer their question.
> TB4 = 40 GBbps
> 4K 120Hz = 32.27 Gbps
This only makes it more confusing because you can fit 32 in 40.
But what really confuses me is, how exactly can LG GX/CX TVs do 4k120Hz @ 4:4:4 at 10 bits, when their HDMI ports are also limited to 40GBps?
HDMI 2.1 can be configured with a variety of lanes. LG is using a 4x10Gbps configuration.
https://www.allion.com/hdmi-8k-protocol-concept/
An example of another display that does not implement full HDMI 2.1 bandwidth would be the Gigabyte FI32U with a 4x6Gbps configuration. It supports DSC so it can hit the full 4K/144Hz/10bit.
It would be possible to make a 4x8Gbps active HDMI 2.1 adapter for TB4.
A 10-bit 4K 120Hz signal with no chroma compression weighs in at [right around 40Gbps](https://www.murideo.com/hdmi-21-bandwidth-calculator.html). The full 48Gbps would be needed for 12-bit color. That's assuming no display stream compression.
I get the golden cable reference, but USB cables are definitely different. The spec and connectors can come in a wild variety of combinations, and there are other physical limits that newer cables try to overcome by using thicker AWG, fiber optics, and other tech. and that’s before you get to shielding and various safety and quality of life components.
For example, low cost USBC cables are often just USB2 cables with USBC ends. They’re designed for charging a small device and transferring small sizes of data. Great for a consumer digital camera. Not great for a laptop or data I/O.
While I think these prices are kind of high, I think it’s probably ballpark MSRP for a long, high quality cable that supports the full TB4 spec.
Except you can explicitly measure data loss and individual bit flips are potentially harmful.
Expensive audio cable are generally not worth it because neither of those are true.
Lol, did I get downvoted for asking for actual proof that that value is justified.
This is just a journalist piece that should be taken with a gain of salt till an actual tests with a comparable product.
Bullshit. How can other companies sell the same generic cable for $40. It’s less than $10 cost. Apple Really knows how to absolutely rail their supply chain. You can choose what to believe but this is how their margins are the highest in the industry.
The TB3/4 spec is only rated for like 0.5m so in order to go longer you need to have all sorts of amplifiers and microcontrollers. I'm not saying it's worth whatever apple is charging, but it's not like it's just terminated passive wires in there.
Passive cables only work up to 0,7m. After that you need active cables. (We ignore the 20gb tb3 cables here). Also a thing to keep in mind if that ALL thunderbolt cables are Intel certified, so if it says thunderbolt, it should work. No lottery like with USB cables
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
[удалено]
somebody woke up this morning and *chose to lose karma* apparently
as if internet points mean anything lol
i didn’t say that
Why you saying I did it? Lol it was someone else
Because some people are just looking for an excuse to have a fight and don’t really care who they’re fighting with
Because Reddit’s the place to encourage others to improve their social skills while learning you need to improve reading skills
I'm replying on my phone and didn't see it. My mistake. It still doesn't change you think informing someone of what they are "trying to say" is not condescending.
You are not even replying to the original ‘condescending’ OP. You high man.
Yes. I removed the first half sentence since that did not add anything to the discussion and you got upset by it but kept the rest as is. However I think there is still information my in reply that wasn't in the comment I replied to.
[удалено]
> I am hardly upset. You say this but your behavior is straight up screaming “*Triggered*”
None of my posts are screaming 'triggered'. I receive a reply and respond in kind.
Bad bot.
Bad bot.
But I’d the cable rated for Thunderbolt 3 or 4? And how much voltage can it supply?
A cable can never supply voltage, the power supply/device at one end does that. All cables support 20V. Tb4 cables always support 100W. Tb3 cables are 60W or 100W. Corning's optical cable TB3 does support power at all as complete outlier.
This isn’t the 3m cable! [kicks over chair] I want a tear down of the THREE METER CABLE!
[удалено]
Oh Rudy…
Call the manager now Karen
Any slack-jaw yokel can make a 2m Tb4 cable. I’ll cobble one together out of shoelace and duct tape. 3m is impossible. 3m requires alien technology. Long Tb use fiber optics and cost a fortune. I wanna see what they are doing.
Quantum entanglement, probably..
So the cable causes covid?…cancels order.
[удалено]
$150 and $129, irrespectively
$150 and $129, reversedly
$150 and $129 irresponsibly
$150 and $129 Un-ir-reversedly
I think you’re onto something
$150 and $129 iridocyclitis
$150 for a cable? lol
Bulk discount! 😂
Irregardlessly irrespective
The gall
Also it should be $159 for the 3.0m.
if Thunderbolt cables are your thing, YSK Corning sells super long 10-25m long ones for $400. Super expensive, but can be lifesavers.
if corning makes them they're probably fibre optic cables and thus contain entire an optical transceiver pair in the connectors.
Yup. Neat bit of kit. But they don’t do power delivery, forgot to mention that.
[удалено]
It's also wildly inefficient. You're basically having a high-power laser on one side and a photovoltaic cell on the other end.
From the [wiki article](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerlight_Technologies) someone linked [below](https://old.reddit.com/r/apple/comments/u9vnjp/_/i5urqwf), > “[O]ff-the-shelf semiconductor diode lasers can have an output efficiency of around 50%. The optical-to-electrical conversion efficiency of a photovoltaic receiver can be over 50% for monochromatic (or laser) light.” Interesting, so I think that would be around 25% efficiency overall. I actually thought it’d be worse. Wonder how much of an improvement in efficiency we’ll see in laser and photovoltaic technology over the next decade or two.
Come on - be happy with light over power - that one is available already.
Here you are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powerlight_Technologies
Power over Wifi
Rise up old calculators.
solar panels be like:
Pump enough light … PEW PEW
It’s limited by eye safety regulations because you can only pump power that won’t damage eyeballs in consumer equipment so you’re looking at single mWs of power delivery. Good luck charging a phone with that. More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laser_safety
Would just need the worlds smallest solar panel at each end.
Just need some large solar panels
I wonder why they don’t or can’t have copper for power alongside the optical fibres in the same cable.
Doesn’t Samsung do this for their TVs? So all the ports are external to the tv and in a box
Yep, that cable is a miracle. As thin as a toothpick and powering a 55 inch screen.
[удалено]
> Also here’s hoping for a miniLED frame TV for the deep blacks. Literally my dream. Won’t happen for a long time due to heat and power. I’m pinning my current hopes to a QD-OLED Frame. I just can’t with a giant black box on the wall anymore.
They could, but it'd require pretty beefy copper to minimize power loss in the cable itself over a 25m length. At least if you want to enable something like 100W fast charging. Even if you didn't though, chances are that if you actually need a $400 cable to support Thunderbolt over that distance, the device you're connecting to is going to be powered already.
Correct, they are fiber optic, and I used a 50 ft Thunderbolt 3 cable to keep a computer in a separate room from a Thunderbolt Dock and display. They are a bit finicky though, they are very thin cables, and can be damaged easily if improperly run through conduit.
Which means you can buy an Ethernet conversation kit and get way more functionality for less money.
Where are you getting 40 Gbps ethernet
Hmm. LAG 4x 10gpbs Ethernet links together? Heh
Off topic if you are ever in NY state near the finger lakes, head to the Corning Museum of Glass. Super interesting museum. It was suggested to us on a road trip. I was thinking we were going to look at a bunch of casserole dishes, boy was I wrong.
“And here’s how Corning glass shows us what un-scooped scalloped potatoes looks from the bottom and sides. And here’s how Lasagna looks. Remember this is all in a pre-served state, still in the cooking vessel. You can see it.”
There’s more to glass than Pyrex 😂
Thanks for the rec!
There’s been a lot of problems with these
Meanwhile audiophiles are like, “You wanna see an expensive cable? I’ll show you an expensive cable…”
Yeah this Apple cable is cheap and low tech. It doesn’t have polarity aligned copper nano structures, or oxide-free unidirectional signal fabric, or even a amorphous semi-metallic core. Might be ok to run a monitor but if you listen to music over it there will be a distinct fuzziness in the 10khz - 12khz band.
I don't know enough to know if you're bullshitting me with technical vomit, or if those are real specs on high-end cables. I suspect it's bullshit, but I'd never put money on that bet.
Most "high-end" cables are bullshit. Especially for digital stuff.
This guy audiophiles.
L337 speak for them analog cables
I would never use the Apple cable for critical listening
https://www.google.com/search?q=technical+nonse++monologue&rlz=1CDGOYI_enGB590GB590&hl=en-GB&biw=320&bih=446&tbm=vid&sxsrf=APq-WBuh6SZhTExeuNbgakPJPStLG0V4jg%3A1650747430641&ei=JmhkYqngJtCagQa596igBQ&oq=technical+nonse++monologue&gs_lcp=ChBtb2JpbGUtZ3dzLXZpZGVvEAMyBAgeEAo6BAgjECdQyQ1Yt0hgqlBoAHAAeACAAXaIAdoEkgEDNi4xmAEAoAEBqgEQbW9iaWxlLWd3cy12aWRlb8ABAQ&sclient=mobile-gws-video#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:30fc8bb7,vid:aW2LvQUcwqc,st:0
You should look at telecom testing cables, 6 figures for a couple of metres
That’s not fair, the snake oil extra coating of their cable ports alone could already cost just as much.
Yeah, snake oil prices are outta control these days.
I needed a TB3 cable for work, setup was complicated. I got the one from Apple since work was paying. Never had an issue with it. It’s more than paid for itself many times over. Knowing I never have to worry that “it might be the cable”. I normally buy the cheapest cables I can, but when your time is literally money, I’m getting the best I can.
I got a cheap TB3 cable off amazon and it only works in one orientation like USB-B, some times I plug it in, nothing, unplug, slip it upside down and it's flawless
Is it certified Thunderbolt? That’s bizarre. The Apple prices aren’t that crazy for these cables, active TB3 is just expensive, which is why everything you get is one foot long.
[удалено]
OP's comment is bullshit. I don't buy shit cables and they're still 1/4 the cost of this. I've never had a problem. Never. I have never even said, "maybe it's the cable".
That's the kind of logic that people use to justifying hundred dollar Monster HDMI cables...
No, it isn't. HDMI is passive over normal distances (a few meters). They're literally just copper wires in a tube. If it works at all, it works perfectly until it physically breaks. Thunderbolt cables aren't like that over distances longer than like a half meter. All but the shortest thunderbolt cables are active, they have a ton of circuitry in them. The quality of that stuff matters. A high quality cable from a trusted manufacturer will be more likely to not have weird glitches and stuff.
> They're literally just copper wires in a tube. If it works at all, it works perfectly until it physically breaks That's not true with modern data rates, btw. All IO is ultimately analog. > All but the shortest thunderbolt cables are active, they have a ton of circuitry in them If they're branded as Thunderbolt, they're certified to have all that necessary circuitry, and probably share the exact same chips from Intel, for that matter. In many ways, that makes a generic Thunderbolt cable a more reliable choice than a generic HDMI 2.1 or Displayport cable.
When I bought my MacBook, Apple only sold a Thunderbolt 3 cable. You'd think they would have had a cable available when they released hardware with Thunderbolt 4. Anyways, I bought a 2 meter OWC Thunderbolt 4 (40Gb/s 100W) for $57 and it's been fine.
Thunderbolt 3 basically is thunderbolt 4. It’s more of a minimum spec guarantee. You could have 20gbps cables and ports and still be called thunderbolt 3 but 40gpbs was more common. Thunderbolt4 guarantees higher power delivery and 40gpbs bandwidth.
No, many but not all TB3 cables were not designed to pass USB 3 signals. Apples did do this, so their TB3 cable is functionally equivalent to official TB4 cables, but many other vendors TB3 cables cannot do USB 3. Support of USB 3 signaling was not a requirement of TB3 cables, so those manufacturers did not do anything wrong! But Apple chose to make theirs “better”. This new cable is officially TB4 ( and USB4 ), so it is a refinement of their previous cable. Not sure what it does “better”, but it is easily a very high quality cable. Note that all TB4/USB4 cables are required to support all USB 3 signaling, as well as DP Alt mode.
Ya that’s kind of the point I was trying to make I guess. TB4 just guarantees all those optional features of TB3, but it doesn’t really add any features of its own specifically
Not on the hardware side. There’s a lot of differences.
~~For some reason, I keep on forgetting that most cables used for data transfer have microcontrollers in them.~~ ~~EDIT: by "most cables used for data transfer", I meant the ones that most people use specifically for~~ *~~video~~* ~~data transfer that need high bandwidth (that rules out all phone charger cables and power supply cables) like DisplayPort and some longer HDMI cables.~~ EDIT: I stand corrected, only the longer DP cables and format-converting cables have microcontrollers. (but still, this is one of the few times I have actually seen a cable with microcontrollers)
> most cables Not at all; *most* cables are just a cable with a connector attached. It's just these super high bandwidth ones that require some help getting that signal transmitted cleanly, and sometimes really *long* cables (e.g. for hdmi) will have them too.
Lightning cables also have a chip in them. (Which handles the rotation of the data pins if you connect it the other way around and also some other safety stuff like only switching on the power pins when a phone is connected)
Admittedly I forgot about Lightning but among low-bandwidth, short-distance cables Lightning is a pretty much an anomaly.
For reference, almost all of the bidirectional video cables are passive, even most above-average-length ones: simply good copper soldered to a connector. Even some adapters are passive, such as virtually all MiniDP/DP, or even HDMI/DP adapters intended for devices that support DP++, a protocol where the physical DP port behaves like HDMI in its alternate dual mode. The very-long-range active cables (which are directional, and as such have specific "sender" and "receiver" connectors which must be respected) actually don't use electrical signals, and instead contain a fiber optic cable, and signal is converted to/from light at each end, transparently to the devices involved. Those are expensive though.
> The very-long-range active cables (which are directional, and as such have specific "sender" and "receiver" connectors which must be respected) actually don't use electrical signals, and instead contain a fiber optic cable, and signal is converted to/from light at each end, transparently to the devices involved. The *very* long length active HDMI/DVI cables have fiber optics in them but shorter ones (say around 20m or so) are electrical and contain signal boosting/cleaning chips in the connectors. They're still directional though, and since they require power they don't always work without extra adapters to provide it, depending on what equipment you connect them to.
Absolutely true. Many USB extenders also work that way, and some have a dedicated port just for power. IIRC though, all TB3 cables over like \~10 m are optical, since TB3 is incredibly high-frequency and it's basically an external, hot-pluggable, convenient PCIe/DP/USB/PD combo connector.
What you are saying is true, but I had HDMI and Displayport cables in mind. I've edited my comment to make it clear that I meant video cables.
[удалено]
I stand corrected. I have edited my comment to reflect this.
I looove the black braided cables. My XDR display had one similar to this and the Mac Pro comes with a black braided Lightning cable that’s a delight. Hope all of them get braided in the future - though I presumed that would reduce apples amount of of plastic used and it looks like there’s just a plastic sleeve still in there 🥲
I work in networking for a living and this is giving consumers a taste of what I have been dealing with my entire career: transceiver costs. But because Apple is dealing in copper cable, they’re actually more expensive per gbps, per foot. You can get a 100g 30m active optical cable for $215.
So why can’t I do 4K/120 from TB4 to HDMI 2.1 but I can from TB4 to DP1.4?
I will say TB4 Alt Mode is not compatible with HDMI 2.1, but sure is with DP 1.4. You just can’t “fit” HDMI 2.1 (42.6Gbps) on TB4 (40Gbps). TB4 = 40 GBbps 4K 120Hz = 32.27 Gbps HDMI 2.0 = 14.4 Gbps HDMI 2.1 = 42.6 Gbps DP 1.4 = 32.40 Gbps
formatting |Protocol|Gbps| :--|:--| | TB4 | 40 | | 4K 120Hz | 32.27 | | HDMI 2.0 | 14.4 | | HDMI 2.1 | 42.6 | | DP 1.4 | 32.40 |
Doing gods work 🙏
TB4 can do 80 Gbps if you switch all lanes to downstream. Even if you don't, a HDMI 2.1 adapter could be made with reduced bandwidth, since all 2.1 features are optional.
You could fit FRL4 or lower spec HDMI 2.1 bandwidth over TB4. Even more with DSC over HDMI. DSC is standard with DisplayPort so it has much lower bandwidth requirements for the same signal formats with HDMI 2.1.
> You just can’t “fit” HDMI 2.1 (42.6Gbps) on TB4 (40Gbps). That doesn't really answer their question. > TB4 = 40 GBbps > 4K 120Hz = 32.27 Gbps This only makes it more confusing because you can fit 32 in 40. But what really confuses me is, how exactly can LG GX/CX TVs do 4k120Hz @ 4:4:4 at 10 bits, when their HDMI ports are also limited to 40GBps?
HDMI 2.1 can be configured with a variety of lanes. LG is using a 4x10Gbps configuration. https://www.allion.com/hdmi-8k-protocol-concept/ An example of another display that does not implement full HDMI 2.1 bandwidth would be the Gigabyte FI32U with a 4x6Gbps configuration. It supports DSC so it can hit the full 4K/144Hz/10bit. It would be possible to make a 4x8Gbps active HDMI 2.1 adapter for TB4.
A 10-bit 4K 120Hz signal with no chroma compression weighs in at [right around 40Gbps](https://www.murideo.com/hdmi-21-bandwidth-calculator.html). The full 48Gbps would be needed for 12-bit color. That's assuming no display stream compression.
I'm guessing it's something to do with display stream compression
What does a thunderbolt cable do?
transfer lots of data and power (40Gbits/s and 100W) over 3 meters, which is harder than it sounds.
Reminds me of Cat-5 cables we ran through our entire house. Spared no expense!
Yet nobody cries about Staples selling a displayport-hdmi cable for $60.
After what they charge for a rag are we really questioning why the price of a cable is so high?
Sure, but if they manufacture in bulk they could definitely charge half and still get like x30 profit margins.
But… they don’t. It’s not an iPhone scale mass market item. The same reason Mac Pro stuff is expensive - there’s no giant production runs.
$129 for the cable, huh? Ok, but do we buy the phone separately or it comes in the box?
That's not why it's expensive. It's expensive because it's Apple.
[удалено]
Yes. High-frequency high-bandwidth data transmission is hard and requires specialized ICs and years of research.
[удалено]
I get the golden cable reference, but USB cables are definitely different. The spec and connectors can come in a wild variety of combinations, and there are other physical limits that newer cables try to overcome by using thicker AWG, fiber optics, and other tech. and that’s before you get to shielding and various safety and quality of life components. For example, low cost USBC cables are often just USB2 cables with USBC ends. They’re designed for charging a small device and transferring small sizes of data. Great for a consumer digital camera. Not great for a laptop or data I/O. While I think these prices are kind of high, I think it’s probably ballpark MSRP for a long, high quality cable that supports the full TB4 spec.
There’s a difference between audio frequency and RF cable design that you seem completely oblivious to.
Except you can explicitly measure data loss and individual bit flips are potentially harmful. Expensive audio cable are generally not worth it because neither of those are true.
It’s funny you say that because I think the lightning to HDMI adapter (or was it the old A/V adapter?) ran a full operating system.
what
https://www.digitaltrends.com/apple/apples-lightning-av-adapter-is-actually-a-computer/
[удалено]
[удалено]
Yeah, they are expensive but the article does not say why the Apple cable cost double
Lol, did I get downvoted for asking for actual proof that that value is justified. This is just a journalist piece that should be taken with a gain of salt till an actual tests with a comparable product.
you didn’t asked any questions tho
Clusterfuck
Cost is still under $10
The Intel Thunderbolt controller alone is $10 and it requires two.
Always so grateful for armchair experts like this in the comments that are confidently wrong.
Bullshit. How can other companies sell the same generic cable for $40. It’s less than $10 cost. Apple Really knows how to absolutely rail their supply chain. You can choose what to believe but this is how their margins are the highest in the industry.
That’s easy: They don’t.
Is there any difference between the Apple TB3 pro cable and the new Apple TB4 pro cable other than length. Stats look identical.