Why is everyone crying about Thunderbolt 3?

[Afy]

I don't get it.

Realistically there is almost nothing available that can make use of TB3. I don't see the point of these ports right now. Reminds me of the firewire ports of days gone by.
I have TB3 on my XPS 15 but don't use it in general since I have no peripherals that can use it. I did however buy a TB3 disk enclosure and put a 950SSD into it to see if the hype was real. In reality since I share my disks between the XPS and SP4 I find USB more convenient and in real world scenarios haven't noticed a difference in performance.
I just don't see the point of TB3 yet. Maybe if more peripherals were available it could make sense. But right now I don't understand why everyone is bemoaning the missing TB3 that you cant really use.

 

[hughlle]

To me it just sounds like the uproar when a phone doesn't have an SD card etc. It's not always in a companies interest to invest resources into trying to please a very small but vocal minority.

Others have suggested that there may be hardware limitations regarding available pcie lanes. I wouldn't know if that's true though.

 

[GreyFox7]

To me it just sounds like the uproar when a phone doesn't have an SD card etc. It's not always in a companies interest to invest resources into trying to please a very small but vocal minority.

Others have suggested that there may be hardware limitations regarding available pcie lanes. I wouldn't know if that's true though.

I believe they are waiting until Intel includes TB(3) support in the CPU/chipset. These Kaby Lake R chips still don't have it. Intel originally said 8th gen chips would have it but at the time they were talking about Coffee Lake so while Intel released refreshed Kaby Lakes as 8th gen they are really 7th or 7.5th gen.

 

[Seneleron]

The difference is 5 Gb/s vs 40 GB/s, coupled with the capability to run external GPU setups and/or storage arrays at faster speeds. While eGPU setups may seem niche', it's not unrealistic to see some creative professionals with large disk arrays that would benefit from faster throughput.

Given the relatively lackluster reviews released in the last 24 hours, I'd also suspect they're looking for ANYTHING to complain about. Why this is, I don't know /shrug.

 

[GreyFox7]

Given the relatively lackluster reviews released in the last 24 hours, I'd also suspect they're looking for ANYTHING to complain about. Why this is, I don't know /shrug.

Just a sign of the times ... Negative generates more clicks and views which means more AD revenue.

 

[jrioux]

To me it just sounds like the uproar when a phone doesn't have an SD card etc. It's not always in a companies interest to invest resources into trying to please a very small but vocal minority.

I disagree TOTALLY! TB3 is almost totally useless today because almost no one has any TB3 peripherals and probably won't buy them in the future.

Conversely, almost everyone, except iCrapple owners, already have one or more SD cards. Those who don't can buy a 128GB card for under $50, I paid $40 for my last one. SD cards provides flexible inexpensive storage for movies, music and documents. iCrapple currently charges $100 to upgrade from 32GB to 128GB. They used to charge more.

 

[Seneleron]

I disagree TOTALLY! TB3 is almost totally useless today because almost no one has any TB3 peripherals and probably won't buy them in the future.

The thing is: USB-Type C *ISN'T* useless, uses the exact same port, but has between 1/8 to 1/4 the maximum throughput of TB3. Forgive me for using an Apple euphamism on a MS hardware board, but it's like the iPhone X supporting fast charging, but not including fast charging hardware in the box: It's [almost] a TRIVIAL add-on for the manufacturer, so why NOT just go all the way? After all, the machine costs enough to reasonably expect top line components.

The funny thing about it is: I'm trying to get away from external devices, wires, and bulk. MY biggest gripe about the type C port is that it's on my "mouse" side, requiring me to string the cable all the way from the left side of the machine over. Yea, I could use a Type C adapter [I have plenty] but it defeats the purpose of minimal devices, wires, etc

 

[wynand32]

To me, the biggest weakness of no Thunderbolt 3 is that external display support is limited. With TB3, there'd be no issue pushing two 4K displays at 60Hz. As it is, you can only push one 4K display at 60Hz, or two QHD+ displays at 60Hz. That actually gives me a bit of pause as I consider pulling the trigger.

 

[jrioux]

The thing is: USB-Type C *ISN'T* useless, uses the exact same port, but has between 1/8 to 1/4 the maximum throughput of TB3. Forgive me for using an Apple euphamism on a MS hardware board, but it's like the iPhone X supporting fast charging, but not including fast charging hardware in the box: It's [almost] a TRIVIAL add-on for the manufacturer, so why NOT just go all the way? After all, the machine costs enough to reasonably expect top line components.

The funny thing about it is: I'm trying to get away from external devices, wires, and bulk. MY biggest gripe about the type C port is that it's on my "mouse" side, requiring me to string the cable all the way from the left side of the machine over. Yea, I could use a Type C adapter [I have plenty] but it defeats the purpose of minimal devices, wires, etc

I said that TB3 is useless, but I think that people will adapt USB-C, if only because it's reversable. First, as you point out, USB-C is not TB3, though they use the same connectors. Secondly, the incremental cost for TB3 is not trivial, at least not now.

I just looked up TB3 peripherals on Amazon. TB3 is way more expensive than USB 3.0 and USB-C. La Cie offers USB 3, USB-C and TB3 versions of its Rugged Mini 1GB Portable Hard Drive. The USB 3 version is $90. The USB-C version is $100. The TB3 version is $140. G-Technology offers USB 3, USB-C and TB3 versions of its 4TB External Hard Drive The USB 3.0 and USB-C versions are $170 and $180, respectively. With TB3, it costs $300.

BTW, if you want to eliminate cables, why do you even want a TB3 port?