Hewlett Packard (HP) has selected USB 3.0 as the standard transfer protocol for its next-gen lineup of desktop PCs.
According to HP spokesperson Xavier Lauwaert, the company did consider adopting Intel’s Thunderbolt protocol, but decided to go with USB 3.0 due to wider industry support.
“We [certainly] did look at [Thunderbolt]. We’re still looking into it. [But we] haven’t found a value proposition yet,” Lauwaert told PC World.
“On the PC side, everybody seems to be content with the expansion of USB 3.0. Do we need to go into more fancy solutions? [We’re] not convinced yet.”
Interestingly enough, a high-ranking Intel executive recently claimed Thunderbolt would peacefully co-exist alongside USB 3.0.
Indeed, Kirk Skaugen, vice president at Intel’s Architecture Group, described the relationship between the two standards as “complementary,” rather than competitive.
Nevertheless, sources within the PC supply chain believe Thunderbolt will “greatly [and negatively] affect” industry adoption of USB 3.0.
Formerly known as “Light Peak,” Thunderbolt boasts transfer speeds of 10 gigabits per second, which is twice as fast as what USB 3.0 has to offer.
The advanced protocol also features two bi-directional channels with transfer speeds up to 10Gbps each and delivers PCI Express directly to external high performance peripherals such as RAID arrays.
In addition, Thunderbolt I/O supports FireWire, USB consumer devices, Gigabit Ethernet networks, DisplayPort for high resolution displays, as well as existing adapters for HDMI, DVI and VGA displays.
