Thunderbolt on mobos

Yeah, I'm aware that SD cards and flash drives have inherent limits...I'm just hoping that ASRock has SOME GOOD REASON for adding Thunderbolt. My suspicion is that they just added it for the sake of saying the board has it (i.e. to pad the spec sheet), and they have no idea at all how content creators (people who supposedly are the target audience for the Creator mobo) would actually make use of the TB ports. That seems to be the problem--if you don't know why you're doing something, you probably aren't going to do it well. These TB ports seem to be functionally useless. If you did plug in a card reader, the dongle would barely allow the reader to wrap around the back corner of the case, and you would have to duct tape it to the side of the computer to be able to use it...and that's only IF the dongle is long enough.

What a cool posting! An important Thunderbolt expert made my day!

Sadly to notice that there is no Asrock staff scanning this forum for such important postings...

I really like the basic idea of Thunderbolt. What's not to like about 40gb/sec thru-put? I was originally looking at the x570 MSI Godlike & Gigabyte Xtreme, but both have short-comings (like not having Thunderbolt). Then I heard about the Creator and that it had Thunderbolt ports...and I was instantly sold. That is, I was sold right up until I realized that the actual use cases for it are very limited from a practicality perspective.

Now, for laptops, they make tons of sense and are highly useful. However, due to some limitations, those benefits diminish rapidly in desktop systems. First, there is the cable-length issue. Short cables work fine, but longer ones lose throughput power. A short dongle is just fine for a laptop on a desk, but when the Thunderbolt port is located 1-2 ft. above the surface of the desk (or below the top of the computer, if it's flat) AND on the back of the system case, the utility and value is practically gone even before you can begin to access it. Because the Thunderbolt ports are on the rear I/O, they may as well be on the moon, for two reasons. They are inaccessible, and they won't have TB throughput speed if you run a cable long enough to provide access.

I am aware that there are expensive powered cables that extend the TB throughput up to 2 meters, but that also severely restricts the kinds of uses the TB port can fulfill.

My main desire for TB is to accelerate file transfer speeds from SD cards and flash drives that have audio and video files on them, which can be many gb's in size. That is, in theory, a perfect use case for this tech...and, it just so happens, the Creator (as it's name implies) is SUPPOSEDLY designed for video creators. But there is a pretty significant problem, which was already pointed out above--YOU CAN'T ACCESS THE THUNDERBOLT PORTS, because they are on the back of the system. So my question is this...WHY did ASRock include Thunderbolt ports on the Creator mobo?? Specifically, I want to know HOW the designers expect the ports to be used? Seriously, I want to know if they gave PRACTICAL USAGE any thought at all...and if they did, what exactly is that supposed to look like?

It seems to me, practically speaking, that Thunderbolt ports HAVE TO BE IMMEDIATELY ACCESSIBLE, and therefore the only logical place for them to be is on the FRONT of the case as part of the front I/O, because, otherwise, they are practically useless. The traditional laptop uses are meaningless to desktop users. There is no need to run a monitor through TB because the video card inside the system has all the necessary ports that a laptop can't natively support. The primary "creator" use would be for file transfer, and that is effectively shut down due to port placement. So again, I ask...what is the ENVISIONED USE CASE for the Thunderbolt ports on the current ASRock mobos? And if the Thunderbolt ports are useless, why then is this board called Creator and what exactly is it that makes content creators want to use it?

I'd like someone from ASRock to address all of the above questions. Thanks.