Since the launch of Thunderbolt the only cable supplier has been Apple. Given that no current Thunderbolt devices come with a Thunderbolt cable (save Apple's own Thunderbolt Display which comes with one for video input), anyone who wanted to use Thunderbolt had to pick up a cable at the Apple store for $50. Sumitomo Electric started shipping its Thunderbolt cables at the end of last year and Intel had a pair at CES this week. They are functionally identical to Apple's cable but come in a dark grey instead of white. No word on pricing unfortunately, although I do know that there's a definite push to drive the cable cost down this year.

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  • hmurchison - Friday, January 13, 2012 - link

    If it was easy to deliver cheaper Thunderbolt cable pricing Sumitomo would have had pricing. I doubt it's going to be that much more inexpensive than Apple's cables. The cost in Thunderbolt cables is the active electronics from Intel so I'm guessing that we'll see others try to beat Apple's pricing by 5-$10

    We'll see
  • solipsism - Saturday, January 14, 2012 - link

    "It's absolutely laughable to think it costs anywhere near this to make one."

    Since when is it assumed that retail pricing of a product is anywhere near the BOM cost?
  • Tech_Junkie - Monday, January 23, 2012 - link

    i bought what i thought was a thunderbolt cable from monoprice at the end of last year to connect my mac mini to my hp zr2740w display...was this sourced from sumitomo?

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