Admit it, £39 for a Thunderbolt cable is a bit steep, even by Apple’s standards. With its release and the Promise Pegasus RAID system this week, doubts over the cable’s value were drawn into the spotlight. The folks at iFixIt.com had their way with the pricey cable and revealed just how much time and craftsman is necessary to deliver Thunderbolt’s super-charged data transfer speeds.
Peeling back the unusually large connector jacket of the £39 Thunderbolt cable reveals a controller that is used to boost and condition the signal, preventing any data loss. Additionally, at each end of the cable are six chips. The controller and six chips, produced by Gennum technologies, can largely be attributed to the cable’s high price.
In order to handle Thunderbolt throughput, the raw components of a cable must be impecable. Any shortcomings would have a limiting effect on high-bandwidth systems. By using active components to compensate, the £39 Thunderbolt cable is actually relatively cheap. With a considerable amount of components inside, Apple has cautioned the cable may become warm to the touch.
At first glance the Apple £39 Thunderbolt cable seemed far fetched. Now it seems Apple is actually in position to do us a favor — who would have thought?
via Cnet
