Thunderbolt on Mac Pro 5,1... It IS actually happening!

[HCMarkus]

https://forums.macrumors.com/threads/te ... -1.2143042

Early days now but, if the kinks get ironed out, we could have Thunderbolt on our Cheesegraters! Personally, I don't care about anything but connecting audio hardware via TB. Almost like back to the days of PCIe audio interfaces, lowest possible latency. How cool would that be?

Here's the card being tested:

https://www.amazon.com/GIGABYTE-GC-Tita ... ITAN+RIDGE

$100 at Amazon (Titan Ridge). The Alpine Ridge variant is less: $60. Don't know why folks are using the Titan Ridge version; the difference appears to be power connections which may not be required depending on usage. I'll report back as more info comes in.

Verrrry interesting.

UPDATE: Apparently TB is working on 5,1 Mac Pros, but the user must first boot into Windows to load drivers. See my 1/7/2019 post in this thread.

[monkey man]

No s#!t, Sir Sherlock!

Crumpets, Sir Markus, this would change so much for me. Finally there could be a silver lining to having to wait 4 years or more for my PCI system->AVB upgrade.

I'll be keeping this window in my dock, bother...

PS:
Didn't some experts here and elsewhere say it'd never be possible via PCI on a cheese grater 'cause it'd require a new motherboard?

[HCMarkus]

Didn't some experts here and elsewhere say it'd never be possible via PCI on a cheese grater 'cause it'd require a new motherboard?

If anyone could possibly consider me an "expert," yes. I never thought it would be possible due to the video requirements imposed by the Thunderbolt spec combined with Intel licensing issues. Apparently, these impediments have been/are being overcome.

Although my MOTU 828es is working perfectly connected via USB, the possibility of TB on the Cheesegrater is tantalizing. We will have to wait and see what the gurus come up with, whether hurdles can be cleared, and whether whatever machinations are required to clear them are worth the time, hassle and expense.

[p.pan]

My Apollo twin duo thunderbolt(Silver) look at my Macpro 5.1 differently...

[dix]

Interesting, but if the new Mac Minis Geekbench better than my cheese grater I’ll be moving on....

[HCMarkus]

Interesting, but if the new Mac Minis Geekbench better than my cheese grater I’ll be moving on....

Looks like it may be very close, based on these results:

https://barefeats.com/macbook_pro_2018_geekbench.html

[dix]

Exactly. My cMP scores 30kish. I’m thinking the new Mac Minis will be around the same. We’ll see soon....the only thing that gives me pause is that the SSDs are soldered in, making it problematic if it were to go down for some reason. At least the RAM is upgradable.

[monkey man]

Who's testing the TB cards for audio, Sir Markus? Looks to me like the thread's been focussed on display monitors and whatnot.

Are you "DPUser? If so, thank you for asking the question, bud.

With any luck someone will test one of the cards with a MOTU-AVB system... soon!

[HCMarkus]

Who's testing the TB cards for audio, Sir Markus? Looks to me like the thread's been focussed on display monitors and whatnot.

Are you "DPUser? If so, thank you for asking the question, bud.

With any luck someone will test one of the cards with a MOTU-AVB system... soon!

Yes, MM, you are correct on all counts.

Sincerely,

DP User.

[monkey man]

You're a gem, matey.

I wonder who's gonna take the plunge then...

[dix]

Exactly. My cMP scores 30kish. I’m thinking the new Mac Minis will be around the same. We’ll see soon....the only thing that gives me pause is that the SSDs are soldered in, making it problematic if it were to go down for some reason. At least the RAM is upgradable.

Welp, I was wrong. Looks like the new Mac Minis are less powerful than 2018 MBPs (just 23512 geekbench for multicores https://www.macrumors.com/2018/11/02/fi ... -surfaces/), so I'll be watching how these cards work out. If stable they would enable cMP users to join the Thunderbolt I/O world. That way when/if new modular MPs show up we won't have to buy all new rigs, including TB I/Os and peripherals, all at once.

[Michael Canavan]

Looks pretty cool, I'm curious as to what the benefit will be though? the 09 Mac Pro here has a system bus at 6.4Gs? anyway about half of what Thunderbolt offers. native support for TB peripherals is good though!

[monkey man]

Beng able to run MOTU's AVB system via TB instead of USB or ethernet for one thing, Michael.

It's obvious that it was always MOTU's intention that it be hooked up that way; the USB2 and ethernet (via AVB-capable ethernet card) options were always there to cater for those who don't have TB, and each has its limitations.

Throughput latency (roughly)
TB - 1.5ms
USB2 - 4.5ms
AVB ethernet - 8->9ms

Channel-count maximums (again, roughly)
TB - I lost count. Many hundreds.
AVB ethernet - 128 per card, depending on SR IIRC. Bit of a CPU hit too.
USB - 64 provided you adhere to 44.1 / 48kHz.

The benefits to old Mac Pro users running MOTU's AVB cannot be understated, therefore. It'd change the game for me and affect my purchase-config decision, which sadly, but in this case could be gladly, has been delayed 4 years.


Hope you're well, bud.

[HCMarkus]

Well done MM... laying it out for us all in clear terms.

[monkey man]

No worries, Sir Markus; I'm just sorry about the rough figures.

I was all over the deets years ago, but don't sweat the small stuff anymore. I'm happy as long as I can remember the gist of the various options' track-count, latency and SR implications.