Thunderbolt 5 is official and it’s a leap forward in terms of speed. It brings bandwidth from 40Gbps up to 120Gbps, has double the PCIe lanes, and can deliver up to 240W of power via a USB-C cable.
Technically, in a standard configuration, Thunderbolt 5 will deliver 80 Gbps, using two of its four PCIe lanes with bi-directional bandwidth. It’s twice as fast as Thunderbolt 4. However, when more bandwidth is needed (for example, for high-resolution displays), Thunderbolt 5 can send up to 40 Gbps on three of its four lanes, transmitting 120 Gbps and receiving 40 Gbps .
All this bandwidth will allow three 4K displays to run simultaneously at 144Hz, multiple 8K displays, or a single monitor at up to a ridiculous 540Hz.
With up to 240W of charging possible, Thunderbolt 5 would also allow gaming laptops to ditch proprietary chargers and use USB-C only.
However, Thunderbolt 4 is not going away. Intel will reserve Thunderbolt 5 for content creation, gaming, and workstation systems, while Thunderbolt 4 will live on for users who don’t need as much bandwidth.
Thunderbolt 5 is not part of Intel’s 14th generation processors and will instead require a discrete chip, codenamed Barlow Ridge. Intel says the first machines with Thunderbolt 5 will arrive in 2024.
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