We knew about the first feature on this list (USB 3.0) would come with Ivy Bridge's 7-series chipset, but the second one was something I just heard about today. Ivy Bridge will integrate Thunderbolt into the chipset. Expect Thunderbolt adoption to skyrocket as a result in 2012.

Update: Intel tells us that while Thunderbolt will be featured on Ivy Bridge it will not be integrated into its 7-series chipsets.

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  • jjj - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    Thunderbolt adoption can't skyrocket if they keep it proprietary.
  • ahmedz_1991 - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    look at NVidia's PhysiX !!
    everybody would love to taste it even me the AMD fan!
  • A5 - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    No one cares about PhysX.
  • Cannyone - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    ...some of us do enjoy PhysX. And it can make a difference in most games. Of course, you're still free to tell yourself that its worthless.

    But whether Thunderbolt is really that much better than USB3 remains to be seen. The one thing in its favor is that Microsoft is probably more willing to pay Intel royalties, than they are to pay Apple. ;-)
  • kanabalize - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    "Integrated Thunderbolt"....

    so... i think might be support for thunderbolt only... not integration...
  • kanabalize - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    Why cant people design a notebook similar as showed on the slide...

    the illustration looks elegant plus sleek and clean... no extra crap...
  • quillaja - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    It looks like a macbook to me.
  • Izliecies - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    so thunderbolt is the new firewire? faster than the same gen usb, yet used by a few people..
  • Targon - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    I've had Firewire support on my motherboards for ages now, yet have seen so few devices designed to work with it that I wonder why space is taken up for the connector(s). Thunderbolt may follow the same route where it is THERE, but no one will bother using it due to very few devices with that connection. So, perhaps Intel feels that just because many systems will come with Thunderbolt support, that means adoption is high.

    If they build it, that does NOT mean that people will come. Microchannel was a case where a dominant player came up with something new and "better", and no one wanted it, so it died. This is Intel, so we will see Thunderbolt on many Intel based systems, but it will be like Firewire and never get used.
  • cactusdog - Tuesday, May 31, 2011 - link

    The difference is Firewire wasnt developed by Intel. Most people run Intel chipsets and CPUs so companies have more faith and long term confidence in Intel technologies.

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