The wizards over at iFixit tore down the new 27-inch Apple Thunderbolt Display which has two Thunderbolt ports that let you hook up the display to a Thunderbolt-equipped Mac and have the display’s USB, FireWire and Gigabit Ethernet ports at disposal, all via a single $49 Thunderbolt cable. iFixit “were struck” by the Thunderbolt Display’s ease of disassembly. Inside, they found a lot of chips that support a plethora of ports on the back.

The display is the same model number LM270WQ1 by LG Display as found in the iMac Intel 27″ from October of 2009. A thing of note: The display rocks a 49 Watt 2-speaker sound system, including a miniature subwoofer, while a Flextronics power supply provides 250 watts of maximum continuous power. As for the panel, it’s basically the same as in Dell’s competing 27-incher (UltraSharp U2711), sans LED backlights and matte coating.

Unlike the Dell display’s 6 ms response time, Apple’s display has twice as much. There is also “a large, brushless fan to keep the colossal Thunderbolt Display cool and quiet”. Apple also engineered a solution that prevents the Thunderbolt cable from being detached from the logic board’s Thunderbolt socket, as seen in the below image. “Interestingly enough, the Thunderbolt cable that routes into the display also plugs into a standard Thunderbolt socket on the logic board”, iFixit explains. The most impressive aspect of the display has got to be the logic board full of chips. More information after the break.

iFixit says that both sides of the logic board are packed with so many chips “that it’s hard to believe there’s no computer inside”. Component winners include the following companies and chips:

  • Pericom PI7C9X440SL PCIe-to-USB 2.0 host controller

  • L129NB11 EFL, which looks to be the Thunderbolt port controller

  • Analog Devices ADAV4601 audio processor

  • NXP LPC2144 USB 2.0 microcontroller

  • Delta LFE9249 10/100/1000 Base-T LAN filter

  • SMSC USB2517-JZX USB 2.0 hub controller

  • Maxim MAX9736B Mono/Stereo high-power Class D amplifier

  • LSI L-FW643E-2 open host controller interface

  • Broadcom BCM57761 Gigabit ethernet controller

  • Supertex HV9982 3-channel switch-mode LED driver IC