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What is Thunderbolt 5?
In This Article
It’s been more than a year since Intel first introduced Thunderbolt 5, the newest generation of the Thunderbolt connectivity standard.
More recently, Apple has announced itsM4 Pro and M4 Maxchipsets, bringing Thunderbolt 5 to theMac MiniandMacBook Profor the first time.
Keep reading to discover everything you need to know about Thunderbolt 5.
What is Thunderbolt 5?
Thunderbolt 5 is the latest version of Intel and Apple’s Thunderbolt connectivity standard. It was announced in September 2023, with the first devices arriving in early 2024.
The update is designed to deliver improvements in Thunderbolt’s display, data transfer and charging capabilities.
Thunderbolt 5 can deliver 80 Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth, or up to 120 Gbps with Bandwidth Boost. This is triple the amount of bandwidth of the best alternative connectivity solution, ideal for connecting high-resolution displays and reducing latency when working with large video and data files.
Compared to Thunderbolt 4, Thunderbolt 5 also doubles the PCI Express data throughput, enabling faster storage and external graphics, and offers double the bandwidth of Thunderbolt Networking for high-speed PC-to-PC connections.
This update also takes advantage of a new signalling technology called PAM-3, which allows these performance increases to work on today’s printed circuit boards, connectors and passive cables.
Thunderbolt 5 is built on USB4 V2, making it compatible with older versions of USB and Thunderbolt. It also supports up to 240W charging up from the 100W available on Thunderbolt 4, though this last detail isn’t a mandatory spec for all Thunderbolt 5 devices.
You can see more differences between Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 5 in the graphic shared by Intel below:
Where can you find Thunderbolt 5?
Thunderbolt 4 was almost exclusively found on Intel and Apple devices and we’d expect the same for Thunderbolt 5. However, that isn’t to say that AMD and Qualcomm couldn’t invest in the technology in the future.
Thunderbolt 5 is also designed for premium devices, so we expect Thunderbolt 4 to stick around on more mainstream devices for the next few years at least.
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Hannah joined Trusted Reviews as a staff writer in 2019 after graduating with a degree in English from Royal Holloway, University of London. She’s also worked and studied in the US, holding positions …
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Founded in 2003, Trusted Reviews exists to give our readers thorough, unbiased and independent advice on what to buy.
Today, we have millions of users a month from around the world, and assess more than 1,000 products a year.
Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
