Intel’s Thunderbolt interface has long been one of the big draws of Intel-based PCs, and the company is already working on the next version. While it doesn’t have an official name yet, Intel has already announced the next generation of Thunderbolt, which we expect will be called Thunderbolt 5. While some details are still unknown, we already have an idea of what the next-gen Thunderbolt will be capable of. Let’s take a look.
What is Thunderbolt?
Thunderbolt is a hardware interface developed by Intel that was designed to allow users to connect peripherals to their PCs. Initial releases used the Mini DisplayPort connector, but Intel switched to USB Type-C, starting with Thunderbolt 3. While it uses the same connector, Thunderbolt has usually offered much higher data rates than standard USB, making the technology very compelling. Thunderbolt connections enable things like plug-and-play external GPUs like the Razer Core X, in addition to external monitors and other peripherals.
Of course, being developed by Intel, this technology is usually exclusive to Intel-based PCs. Thunderbolt 3 has been adopted by the USB Implementers Forum to be known as USB4, and there are a few non-Intel laptops that support it, like Lenovo’s ThinkPad Z series or Apple’s MacBook Air. But Thunderbolt is still Intel technology, and while it is royalty-free, it has higher requirements. There are costs associated with certifying a device for Thunderbolt, so it’s common for devices without Intel processors to forgo Thunderbolt certification and stick with regular USB ports. Even then, USB4 ports are still somewhat uncommon, at least right now.
What’s unique about Thunderbolt, specifically starting with Thunderbolt 4, is that the certification requirements are pretty high. A laptop can have a USB4 port that only supports 20Gbps of bandwidth with no power delivery (PD) support, or it can go up to 40Gbps and add PD support. It’s a flexible specification, but it can confuse consumers. On the other hand, a Thunderbolt 4 port has to support 40Gbps, power delivery, and PCIe tunneling for external GPUs. When you see a Thunderbolt 4 laptop, you have a much clearer idea of what you’re getting.
What’s new in Thunderbolt 5?
Intel has already started teasing the next generation of Thunderbolt, and we already know some of its capabilities, even though we don’t know the official branding yet. Intel hasn’t discussed the Power Delivery requirements, but we know it will significantly increase the available bandwidth to at least 80Gbps.
80Gbps bi-directional bandwidth (or up to 120Gbps uni-directional)
The big upgrade with the next generation of Thunderbolt is going to be the maximum bandwidth, which is doubling from 40Gbps to 80Gbps bi-directional. In other words, Thunderbolt 5 will use four lanes of data, with each lane supporting 40Gbps. In a standard configuration, two lines go in each direction, hence giving you 80Gbps of bandwidth.
However, for special configurations, such as using very high-resolution displays, the lanes can dynamically re-configure so that three lanes are sending data in one direction. That means you get 120Gbps of bandwidth in one direction, with 40Gbps still available in the other direction. If you use very sharp displays, this will make it possible to drive them using a single Thunderbolt port, even when you’re using more than one.
This new bandwidth limit will be supported even on existing Thunderbolt 4 passive cables up to 1 meter in length, thanks to a new signaling technology. As long as your devices support Thunderbolt 5, the cable shouldn’t be a concern.
All of these bandwidth improvements will also be available for devices using USB4 version 2.0, but again, the big thing to remember is that USB standards are flexible. While USB4 version 2.0 can have up to 80Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth, you might not always be able to tell which speeds are supported by a specific device. Thunderbolt 5 is going to have all of this as a baseline requirement.
New DisplayPort, PCI Express, and USB specifications
To go along with the new bandwidth limits, Thunderbolt 4 also supports the latest specifications for DisplayPort, PCIe, and USB data tunneling, just like USB4 version 2.0. For starters, that includes DisplayPort 2.1, which has specific improvements to how a DisplayPort signal is passed through a USB cable. This new version is more efficient, and it supports up to nearly 80Gbps of bandwidth for a DisplayPort signal, which can drive an 8K display at 60Hz with no stream compression or chroma subsampling.
The next generation of Thunderbolt will also double the PCIe bandwidth, allowing even faster external storage and graphics cards, which are somewhat constrained by the current bandwidth limits. For reference, current Thunderbolt SSDs can hit speeds up to 2,800MB/s (advertised), so doubling that would result in a whopping 5,600MB/s, which is almost as fast as many internal SSDs are today. The external GPU market has also been in something of a lull for the past few months due to graphics cards requiring more bandwidth than what Thunderbolt 4 allows since this capability hasn’t really changed since Thunderbolt 3 was introduced in 2015.
Finally, while Intel hasn’t mentioned it, the USB4 version 2.0 specification also includes a new USB data tunneling specification, supporting up to 20Gbps for data transfers. This is basically the equivalent of USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, which not many devices support. Still, if you do have an external drive that can support it, you can get much faster transfers now.
When is Thunderbolt 5 coming?
Intel hasn’t yet shared any details on the availability of the next generation of Thunderbolt, and so far, all we have is an early teaser. Intel has only shared some general information about bandwidth, but a release date is still unknown.
Intel recently introduced its 13th-generation processors for desktops and laptops, and Thunderbolt 5 has yet to make an appearance, so it’s safe to assume we’ll see it in the next generation of Intel processors, at the earliest. Those should make their debut toward the end of the year, so it will be a while before you can see these benefits for yourself.
Will my devices support it?
If you want to make full use of Thunderbolt 5, you’re going to need devices that specifically support it, which don’t yet exist. However, passive Thunderbolt 4 cables up to one meter in length can still support Thunderbolt 5, as we’ve mentioned above.
As for what devices will support Thunderbolt 5, you can expect most premium laptops with Intel processors to have it built-in. While Thunderbolt isn’t exclusive to Intel processors, most AMD laptops tend to miss out on support for it, and unless there’s a major shift, that will probably continue to be the case.
The next generation of Thunderbolt will be backward compatible with existing Thunderbolt versions, though, so any accessories you have based on Thunderbolt 4 will still work. Of course, the bandwidth will be limited to whatever your older Thunderbolt device supports, so you can’t get the benefits of Thunderbolt 5 magically on older devices. Thunderbolt should also work with devices regardless of the operating system — be it Windows 11, macOS, Chrome OS, or others.