This week, Asus - one of the first PC companies to adopt Thunderbolt - announced a new Thunderbolt-equipped motherboard that uses the twice-as-fast Thunderbolt 2 technology that debuted a few weeks ago in the semi-mythical Apple Mac Pro. Hewlett-Packard, for example, now offers several PCs with Thunderbolt, becoming the first major PC maker to make hay from the technology, reversing a 2011 decision to eschew it. Acer even dropped the technology completely in mid-2013.īut now, PCs are starting to sport Thunderbolt ports.
And pundits periodically panned Thunderbolt for PCs, calling it unnecessary. However, PC makers largely ignored it, focusing instead on USB 3 for high-speed data transfer (a technology Apple also adopted, though after PC makers). Apple was an early adopter of this Intel technology, but it was never meant for Apple only. Chances are you use it for only a fraction of its potential, connected to your monitor - and that's it.
If you have a Mac built in the last few years, you have a Thunderbolt port.