Not just for Macs, Thunderbolt rumbles into PCs

If you have a Mac built in the last few years, you have a Thunderbolt port. Chances are you use it for only a fraction of its potential, connected to your monitor — and that’s it. But you have one. Apple was an early adopter of this Intel technology, but it was never meant for Apple only. However, PC makers largely ignored it, focusing instead on USB 3 for high-speed data transfer (a technology Apple also adopted, though after PC makers). And pundits periodically panned Thunderbolt for PCs, calling it unnecessary. Acer even dropped the technology completely in mid-2013.

But now, PCs are starting to sport Thunderbolt ports. Hewlett-Packard, for example, now offers several PCs with Thunderbolt, becoming the first major PC maker to make hay from the technology, reversing a 2011 decision to eschew it. This week, Asus — one of the first PC companies to adopt Thunderbolt — announced a new Thunderbolt-equipped motherboard that uses the twice-as-fast Thunderbolt 2 technology that debuted a few weeks ago in the semi-mythical Apple Mac Pro.

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Granted, some PCs have had Thunderbolt ports almost as long as Macs have had them. But what’s new is that PC makers are now selling its benefits, not just sticking it in among the other umpteen ports on most PCs.

Why is Thunderbolt getting a second look? It boils down to Thunderbolt 2 and to 4K, the super-high-resolution display technology aka UHD that the TV and PC industries are starting to flog.

Thunderbolt is roughly twice the speed of USB 3, and given that Thunderbolt is costlier to design and build and that users know what USB is, it made sense for the PC industry to rev to USB 3 for faster data transfers on ever-larger drives. Mac users expect new, different technology; for Apple, introducing something new made sense. It went whole-hog on Thunderbolt, replacing USB 2 with USB 3 only last year.

Thunderbolt 2 is twice as fast as Thunderbolt, so about four times as fast as USB 3. That difference can become meaningful, but not so much for hard drives. When I switched from FireWire 800 (roughly as fast as USB 3) to Thunderbolt on my 2011-edition MacBook Pro last year, I didn’t find the storage read/write speeds to be noticeably faster, a disappointment after spending $600 for a Thunderbolt drive that would’ve cost half that if it had gone with USB 3. The truth is that the drive is the bottleneck, so Thunderbolt’s extra throughput is largely untouched. I would have needed much pricier drives to really tap into Thunderbolt’s speed, and that’s why Thunderbolt is beloved by video editors, who all use Macs anyhow.

But think about how most Mac users work with Thunderbolt: to connect a monitor. The throughput of Thunderbolt is completely wasted for that end. Of course, if you buy an Apple Thunderbolt Display, that display becomes a hub for your Thunderbolt storage (and other) devices, FireWire 800 storage (and other) devices, USB 2 devices, and Ethernet. All that data runs through the one Thunderbolt cable from the display to your Mac. (There are Thunderbolt hubs from Belkin and Matrox that do the same if you don’t have Apple’s Thunderbolt monitor.)

That’s the real power of Thunderbolt: a single wire for carrying multiple data protocols simultaneously. There’s one cable to connect to your MacBook or Mac Mini, and one fewer hole for Apple to cut into its precious aluminum skins. Apple hates marring its Macs with holes for ports. When it introduced Thunderbolt, it made the connector identical to its DisplayPort connector and ran the video protocol over Thunderbolt, so it could use existing cables and avoid cutting a new hole in its sleek Macs.

That approach simply didn’t get traction in the PC world, where the concept of laptop docks is age-old, so the need for a single-wire connection has been much less significant than in the Mac world. But for people to adopt 4K monitors, whose pixel counts are quadruple that of today’s 1080p HD monitors, they need a fast pipe to carry the video data. Although USB 3 could do the data part, it’s not designed for video — and as with the original Thunderbolt, it would struggle do anything else than 4K video. PC makers had three choices:

• Come up with a successor to DVI that is 4K-capable
• Adopt faster versions of HDMI, the connector standard for HDTV sets and receivers (the chip sets would need to be boosted, not the HDMI cables)
• Adopt Thunderbolt 2 and its embedded DisplayPort video technology, which Intel made easier for PC maker to adopt with its Thunderbolt Ready program this past fall

At the same time, the PC market is struggling as tablets become the primary computer of choice for casual use. The heavy laptop and the desktop tower PC designs have all but died as PCs have had to become sexier and more interesting to get sales. Most PCs now copy the fundamental design of the MacBook Air (in the form of Ultrabooks, which rarely manage to match the Air’s thinness and lightness but get close enough for many) and the iMac (especially 2012’s sleek blade design). Those designs favor thin edges and sculptural forms — which leave little room for ports.

Thunderbolt 2 makes sense both for the throughput needs of 4K and for the minimalist needs of chassis design, by also serving multiple kinds of connections from a single port (Apple’s orginal motivation for adopting Thunderbolt, ironically enough).

This all adds up, and it may be what gives Thunderbolt a real chance at life on the PC.

There’s one possible fly in the ointment, though: Will people really want 4K monitors? The extra resolution is nice but, frankly, not that beneficial. If the price difference is small, then sure, 4K will quckly permeate PC displays, just as the once-revolutionary Retina display in the iPhone 4 has become commonplace on smartphones and tablets from nearly all device makers. But I don’t believe people will pay a premium for 4K, especially on top of the premium that Thunderbolt 2 requires in the overall price of a PC. (The good news is that Dell’s price for its forthcoming 4K 28-inch display suggests they’ll be at least in line with current-generation high-quality monitors, though the specs suggest the Dell monitor will be underpowered at maximum pixel resolution.)

Still, Thunderbolt is a powerful, flexible technology that more than Apple users should be able to enjoy.

This article, “Not just for Macs, Thunderbolt rumbles into PCs,” was originally published at InfoWorld.com. Read more of Galen Gruman’s Smart User blog. For the latest business technology news, follow InfoWorld.com on Twitter.