Asus Z87 Deluxe or Z87 Deluxe/Dual: How important is Thunderbolt?

[DavidNJ]

Question: Are the dual Thunderbolt ports and NFC device on the Deluxe/Dual worth the $60 premium over the Deluxe? Otherwise the boards are identical.

While Thunderbolt devices are rare, I do a fair amount of video work and BlackMagic Designs, a major manufacturer in that space, is using Thunderbolt on many of their products. This includes their new $4k 4k camera with S35/APC sensor and Canon EF lens mount. That camera has a Thunderbolt port for their PC/Mac based video scopes. The other advantage is in very high speed external disk access. So far that hasn't been an issue; both Deluxe boards have 10 SATA III 6Gb/s ports.

While I have a Galaxy S3 with NFC, NFC is limited and I'm not sure it would have a meaningful purpose. Does it have have meaningful purpose?

Thanks,

David

[pcunite]

I would imagine you could purchase a PCIe Thunderbolt add-in card should you need it someday. Having the ports onboard is a welcome convenience for those users who already know they need it.