Surface Pro 3 may have thunderbolt!

[Saul]

Hope this becomes much clearer in the next few days, would be epic if there truly is TB support available or coming!

 

[jnjroach]

It is not Thunderbolt, I think it is DP and USB 3.0 Pass-through, I checked the SP3 Device Manager at the store yesterday and still just one USB 3.0 Root Controller and one legacy USB Root Controller (Keyboard Spine), no Thunderbolt...sorry

 

[Saul]

What's in device manager now isn't definitive by any means, that was already discussed/explained earlier.

 

[jnjroach]

What's in device manager now isn't definitive by any means, that was already discussed/explained earlier.

If there were a Thunderbolt Controller we would see a PCI Express Root Controller in device manager and it is not there....but hope reigns eternal.....so keep the Hope Fire Burning

 

[Saul]

Unless it's hidden, or dvrs simply aren't activated, or even compiled in yet...
Their earlier comments just don't gel with there being no TB, I doubt it'll be built into the device itself though, needing the dock is prolly more likely, sadly.

 

[jnjroach]

Unless it's hidden, or dvrs simply aren't activated, or even compiled in yet...
Their earlier comments just don't gel with there being no TB, I doubt it'll be built into the device itself though, needing the dock is prolly more likely, sadly.

I checked hidden devices as the same discussion was happening over at TPCR, it is DispayPort and USB 3.0 Pass-through....

Microsoft details Surface 4K display support, hints at Thunderbolt connection - GeekWire

Update: The Surface Pro 3 doesn’t have a Thunderbolt port, a Microsoft representative told GeekWire via email. While the power connector can push data out to drive the ports on the Surface Docking Station, it isn’t using Thunderbolt to do so.

 

[Saul]

Sure, that rules out TB "on device", one more aspect to rule out...
The other spec. was that it didn't become full-blown TB (albeit somewhat proprietary) until combined with the dock.

 

[jnjroach]

Thunderbolt has to be on the device.....it isn't possible to have an external Thunderbolt Bus - as it would still require the PCI Express Root on device for communication back to the SoC. On the Reddit AMA Thread the Surface Engineer was being cheeky and the press ran with it...MS been walking it back ever since.

 

[Saul]

Thunderbolt has to be on the device.....it isn't possible to have an external Thunderbolt Bus - as it would still require the PCI Express Root on device for communication back to the SoC

Official TB maybe, but something that's a franken implementation certainly doesn't.
As long as you have the right bandwidth/signalling going from NB (via the power port), you could have the TB controller in the dock.
A (big) motivating factor for doing it that way, would be to negate licensing costs etc.
Pure spec. of course, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility...

 

[jnjroach]

Official TB maybe, but something that's a franken implementation certainly doesn't.
As long as you have the right bandwidth/signalling going from NB (via the power port), you could have the TB controller/chipset in the dock.
A (big) motivating factor for doing it that way, would be to negate licensing costs etc.
Pure spec. of course, but certainly not out of the realm of possibility...

OK......