Intel Thunderbolt 5: 3x Faster And No Restrictions For External GPUs
Almost a year after the initial announcement, all the details about the new generation of the Thunderbolt interface became known. The VideoCardz portal published slides from Intel’s upcoming presentation, which describe in detail all the characteristics and advantages of Thunderbolt 5.
The most notable upgrade to Thunderbolt 4 is the ability to connect two 4K monitors or one 8K monitor. In addition, Thunderbolt 4 received USB4 standard specifications, as well as the ability to transfer up to 100 W of power to a connected device, in particular to a laptop, while providing data transfer speeds of 32 Gbps. However, despite all these improvements, the total maximum throughput of Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 remains the same at 40 Gbps. In addition, they operate according to the old PCIe 3.0 protocol.
The new Thunderbolt 5 interface is compatible with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3, as well as DisplayPort 2.1, USB4, USB 3.2 20G and PCI 4.0 compliant. Additionally, the new standard supports up to 240W of power to be sent to an external device, eliminating the need for separate power supplies and cables for Thunderbolt-equipped laptops. The inclusion of support for the PCI 4.0 protocol in Thunderbolt 5 means that the interface has a higher potential for providing throughput, for example, when connecting external video cards, and in this case is free of the limitations associated with the same Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4. However, for the full implementation of such system support with external video cards must be equipped with PCIe buses capable of operating at 64 Gbps.
