What distinguishes Thunderbolt from DisplayPort?
- In May of 2006, the Video Electronics Standards Association (VESA) proposed the DP (DisplayPort) standard as a next-generation hd audio/video interface. The current version is DP1.2.
- The Mini DP and ThunderBolt interfaces are physically identical.
- Mini DisplayPort lacks the data transmission function (PCI) that is present in the ThunderBolt interface.
- ThunderBolt is a composite interface, which can be understood as it provides PCI-E to external devices (Computer graphics card, sound card, etc., connected to the CPU via the PCI slot), a feature which Intel fully exploited in developing the Thunderbolt interface, ThunderBolt = DP + PCI, that is, the lightning interface can be thought of as a combination of DisplayPort and the PCI bus. The display port (DP) is capable of sending PCI data along with audio and video signals to the monitor.
- Mini Displayport is a reduced-size variant of the original Displayport interface that only provides support for Display. For the Display-only cable, their purposes are identical; however, ThunderBolt is based on Mini Displayport, making ThunderBolt 2 the predecessor of ThunderBolt 3, and Mini Displayport the predecessor of ThunderBolt 2.
- There are now many displays and hard drive storage options that center around the ThunderBolt interface, which has replaced MiniDP on all new Apple Mac products.