Intel to Make Thunderbolt Available for the PC in April

When Intel launched its Thunderbolt connector this past spring with the help of Apple and its MacBook Pro refresh, it was difficult to tell what sort of future the technology had. Part of the reason for this was its exclusivity to Apple hardware, with no definitive release date for PCs running Windows, Linux or other OSes. According to industry-reporting site DigiTimes, the drought that PC users have been experiencing should soon be over.

The site states that Intel will unveil Thunderbolt for the PC this coming April, with several first-tier manufacturers ready with product at that time. You could expect to see the connector not only on select motherboards from the likes of GIGABYTE, ASUS and likely others, but also on notebooks. The report says that ASUS has plans to unveil high-end notebooks at that time with the connector.

One problem with Thunderbolt has been its cost. The cable still retails for close to $50, and the chipset itself costs $20. This is compared to USB 3.0 where cables are basically free (included with the product unlike Thunderbolt) and the chipset which likely costs no more than a few dollars.

With the launch to the PC, however, we should see these prices plummet – at least I hope so. I am still not confident that most people need Thunderbolt, but on high-end products, it’d be nice to at least have the option – especially if you are in a line of work where ultra-fast data transfer speeds are required that USB 3.0 just can’t handle.

With this launch, next summer should be pretty interesting on the hardware side of things.