2023-11-01 09:45:54
If you went to the page which lists the specifications of the new MacBook Pros, you may have seen one thing: the new model equipped with an M3 chip only has two Thunderbolt ports (compared to three on the other variants) but above all, it is regarding “Thunderbolt / USB4” ports rather than “Thunderbolt 4” ports. If this name may seem strange, it is not: it is linked to a somewhat artificial limitation from Apple.
The name changes for technical reasons.
From a technical point of view, the two sockets of the M3 model are no slower than that of the M3 Pro and M3 Max models. They allow 40 Gb/s in USB4 and 40 Gb/s in Thunderbolt (32 Gb/s for data) and the majority of functions are present. The reason for this somewhat bizarre name change is actually the same since the launch of Apple Silicon Macs: to be able to put the name “Thunderbolt 4” on a product, you must respect a few rules. And one of those rules is the ability to manage two monitors on one outlet.
And that’s where the problem lies: for purely marketing reasons, the M1, M2 and M3 chips only manage two screens. This is a technical limit on paper, but as Apple develops chips from the ground up, it is an arbitrary choice made during development to segment the ranges. As all portable Macs incorporate a screen, they only support one external monitor… and therefore cannot receive the Thunderbolt 4 logo. The problem is more or less the same in the case of Mac minis, with a small difference : the Mac mini M1 is “Thunderbolt / USB4” while the Mac mini M2 is Thunderbolt 4. The reason is once once more a point of detail: if the M1 model can accommodate two monitors, you must go through the HDMI socket for one of the two, and the Thunderbolt sockets therefore only accept one monitor. In the case of the M2 chip, this limitation is eliminated: it is possible to connect two screens to the same Thunderbolt socket.
This point of detail actually shows what is still a weak point at Apple: input/output management. The most recent example comes from USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, which allows a speed of 20 Gb/s: the standard is not compatible with Mac M1 and M2 and Apple has not first not modified this point with the M3. And unfortunately for Mac users, SSD manufacturers are increasingly integrating this standard into their products, such as with the recent Crucial X10 Pro external SSDs. What’s more, Apple Silicon Macs still remain a little behind in USB4 or Thunderbolt performance compared to Intel Macs. And the lack of communication in this sense probably implies that Apple has not yet managed to correct this point (we hope we are wrong).
Testing the Crucial X9 Pro and X10 Pro, two compact and fast external SSDs
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#14inch #MacBook #Pro #Thunderbolt #ridiculous #limitation
