totalFlux: Apple refreshes MacBook Pro, adds Thunderbolt aka Light Peak

Today Intel is scheduled to announce their new innovative Light Peak data transfer technology which is said to offer transfer rates 25 times faster than USB 2.0. It is also no incident that Apple chose to refresh their MacBook Pro lineup at the same time by adding the new Light Peak port re-branded as Thunderbolt.

Currently Light Peak transmits data at 10 gigabits per second. However, Intel says the new technology could be ramped up in the future to support up to 100 gigabits per second, which would be 250 times faster than USB 2.0. Light Peak also offers greater flexibility as it can employ both copper wires and fiber optics. It also makes it possible to combine Light Peak, USB and FireWire into one single cable of much greater length.

Thunderbolt features:
- Dual-channel 10 Gbps per port
- Bi-directional
- Dual-protocol (PCI Express and DisplayPort)
- Compatible with existing DisplayPort devices
- Daisy-chained devices
- Electrical or optical cables
- Low latency with highly accurate time synchronization
- Uses native protocol software drivers
- Power over cable for bus-powered devices

Intel is hoping to establish its new connectivity standard and it has partnered with Apple to drive the early adoption. This is not unlike 1998 when Apple helped push the USB standard by making it the only port on the first iMac.

In addition to the new Thunderbolt port Apple has made other important upgrades to its MacBook Pro line. Apple finally embraced the Intel Core i7 quad-core processor and blessed its 15 and 17 inch Pros with it, while the 13 inch now sports a dual-core i5 or i7. This should make all three versions twice as fast as the one they replace. It is about time Apple embraced quad-core processors in their notebooks as the competition has been offering quad-core laptops for quite some time now. The 15 and 17 inch MacBook Pro models also get the new refreshed high-performance AMD Radeon graphics processors, which boost graphics performance up to 3x times. To further compliment the new more powerful graphics Apple also added the new FaceTime HD camera, which makes full-screen HD video calls 3x times crispier.