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Thunderbolt 5 vs. Thunderbolt 4: Everything you need to know
- nottorp 2y agoIt's funny how everything is optional on the usb 4 features graph. Can you do 5 W and 1.1 Mbps and call it usb 4?
- InsomniacL 2y agoUSB4 20 Gbps: Also known as USB4 Gen 2x2 USB4 40 Gbps: Referred to as USB4 Gen 3x2 USB4 80 Gbps: Known as USB4 Gen 4 USB4 Version 2.0 120Gbps I guess if you're required to support 120Gbps on even cheap small electronics then USB 4 support doesn't make sense
- thecopy 2y agoIs this confusing naming scheme intentional?
- nottorp 2y agoI think so. They're been going at it since usb 1.1 super speed or not super speed. And btw the list above includes only the data speed, not the charging capacity.
- KptMarchewa 2y agoIt's still better than deliberately incompatible schemes, meaning you can't charge your small device from laptop charger.
- withinboredom 2y agoI think they mean "USB4 Version2" when it clearly isn't "version 2" but "version 5" or whatever.
- Dalewyn 2y agoYes.
- izacus 2y agoThe big question is whether VRR monitors will work fine via TB5 connections - because right now they mostly revert to fixed frame rate.
- seanalltogether 2y agoIf I could buy a 5k (retina) 120hz 27" monitor that would be endgame for me, I believe this finally has the bandwidth for that.
- madeofpalk 2y agoMy monitor endgame, as unrealistic as it is, is '5k' 120hz 34" ultrawide. There's some 4k ones out there that might suffice, but 2880px tall is my goal.
- mplewis9z 2y agoYou’ve been able to do that with Thunderbolt 4 for a while (with Display Stream Compression) - I currently drive an 8k ultrawide (7680x2160, or two 4K side-by-side) at 120 Hz off a single Thunderbolt 4 port.
- stephenr 2y agoTB4 supports DP2.0, which (in UHBR13.5 or UHBR20 mode) has enough bandwidth for 5K @ 120Hz (or 144/180 Hz with UHBR20). The issue is more likely to be availability, and marketability. In general the demand for high refresh rates on desktop displays is driven by gamers, far more so than resolution - it's pointless having a 5K or 6K display if your GPU can only render the game in a playable fashion at 1440P or whatever. This demographic is well known to sacrifice resolution for higher refresh rates. I guess a low detail image that animates smoothly is preferable to a high detail image that is jerky or looks like a slide show. A large part of the buying market for high resolution displays (particularly above 4K in the 27-36" range) is going to non-gaming users, who are doing regular desktop work where 60Hz is likely to be fine. Most people aren't going to be able to type or draw or do much else productive fast enough to "defeat" 60Hz for practical uses. I don't think it's a coincidence that Dell, ASUS, Samsung, LG and BenQ all have high-end displays shipping or announced, that explicitly mention support for macOS, and just happen to use a PPI that suits macOS' scaling "@2x" scaling mode perfectly. Nor do I think it's a coincidence that the 5K@60Hz spec they mostly support is viable on Macs as old as the 2016 MBP15, from 8 years ago. Heck even a 2018 Mac mini with just an iGPU will do 5K@60Hz. I'm not saying no manufacturers will support higher refresh rates, but realistically I think you're looking at a product that would be a niche within a niche. It's only recently that most of the above manufacturers have (re)entered the ~200PPI display market, it's going to take a while before there's enough potential customers for what you're talking about.
- InsomniacL 2y agoPeople were upset about Apple being forced to switch to USB-C, but just look at how the market moved on without them. Apple Lightening: 480 Mbit/s Thunderbolt 5: 120,000 Mbit/s
- SomeoneOnTheWeb 2y agoTo be fair, most phones with USB-C are 2.0 only, which means they're limited to 480 Mbps.
- morsch 2y agoMost phones sold, maybe, flagship phones had USB 3.x five years ago.
- masklinn 2y agoWat
- n42 2y agoRegardless of the fact that Apple’s laptops were shipping with Thunderbolt years before they were “forced” to add USB-C ports to iPhones, or that Thunderbolt and USB-C are orthogonal, Apple was involved in the creation of Thunderbolt in the first place.
- InsomniacL 2y agoAnd yet they're still producing and selling iPhone 14 Plus 512GB on apple.com for £1000 in 2025 with USB2.0 speeds from the year 2000.
- goosedragons 2y agoThe iPhone 16 is also USB 2.0 (not the Pro though). While it's kinda crummy for a phone of it's price, it's not alone. A lot of lower end Android phones/devices are still USB 2.0 with C ports.
- Lio 2y ago
- mcc1ane 2y ago(2024)
- MrBuddyCasino 2y agotl;dr TB4 to TB5: - 40Gbps => 80Gbps, up to 120Gbps - min 100 Watt - 140 Watt max => min 140 Watt - 240 Watt max PD charging This is great, finally there will be 240W charging hardware. There wasn't any last time I checked.
- jeroenhd 2y agoThe last two months I've seen some news about them pop up. The ADP-240KB can do 240W over USB C already, if you're looking for a charger.
- prmoustache 2y agoI sometimes wonder why we have to be so gradual? I mean thunderbolt 1 spec was released in 2013. Thunderbolt 5 is the 5th revision in 11 years. Thunderbolt 4 spec was published in 2020, you cannot possibly think about all future needs/usages but couldn't we have anticipated in 2020 that 5k and 8k screen would be a thing and that people would want more bandwidth than 40gbps? All these standard changes every 2.5 years just create a compatibility mess and confusion for the consumers who don't understand why monitor A doesn't work well with computer B with cable C. Couldn't we have jumped from thunderbolt 1 to 3 to 5 capabilities directly? Would our life have been more miserable had we had to wait a little bit more from an upgrade from say thunderbolt 3 but if it meant that thunderbolt 4 had been released in late 2021 or 2022 with capabilities of current thunderbolt 5 already? Like trading latency for higher improvements over generation? Does that even make sense or where there limiting factors that prevented thunderbolt 5 capable equipment to be built in 2022 already?
- HenriTEL 2y agoFor marketing reasons, to justify value in the new gen of devices.
- riobard 2y ago> limiting factors that prevented thunderbolt 5 capable equipment to be built in 2022 already Lots of factors e.g cost, chip availability, heat dissipation, etc. Sure I would prefer upgrading laptop ports from 10Gbps directly to 100Gbps, but not if it costs 10x more and burns up battery.
- rswail 2y agoBecause getting something into production is much more than just the specification. You can specify anything. But producing hardware that complies with that spec is much harder. Then you've done a lot of research and development, so you have to sell it in a way that is backwards compatible, so you have to wrangle a whole group of organizations (foundries, chip designers, customers) who each have their own product lifecycles to think about. Intel might be ready, but Apple is delaying their release, etc.
- ThinkBeat 2y agoThose cables always seem to be insanely expensive and the hardware I have bought up to v3 (I dont have anything with v4 or v5) does not deliver on the promised / potential speed. (the promised speed now is far arger) This is primarly external storage. and I paid huge premium for the ThunderBolt 3 external drives to use wy Imac (or Macbook). A USB C drive I use under windows (that at least does not declare itself as Thunderbolt 3, and using a standard (to what extent that exsists) USB C cable is far faster. (and swapping in the true Thunberbolt cable does not not make it any faster)
- ThePhysicist 2y agoNice, I'm eager to upgrade as it's really cool to have a single cable to hook up my laptop to all my peripherals and monitors, but so far resolution & refresh rate were quite limited in multi-monitor setups, I think that new standard should finally be able to drive a 4k display at 240 Hz. I don't see many Thunderbolt 5 docks yet though, always liked the Lenovo ones but it seems they don't have an upgrade yet.
- tiffanyh 2y agoAdam Savage (Myth Buster) did a video on why Apple Thunderbolt-4 is so expensive ($130), by looking at the detail in construction vs cheap alternatives. https://youtu.be/AD5aAd8Oy84?feature=shared https://youtu.be/AD5aAd8Oy84?feature=shared
- sebstefan 2y agoI would really love to ditch my desktop and invest in an external GPU but the performance left on the table on most video games when you do that is huge I'm eager to see benchmarks of eGPUs on Thunderbolt 5
- aitchnyu 2y agoWill this be common with AMD laptops? I had very few choices in India 2 years back for driving a 5k screen, and they were all Intel and TB4. That Asus doesnt charge and send video at the same time, although my Mac does.
- diogonr95 2y agoDefinitely not something to expect. AMD and Thunderbolt is not usually something you’ll see together. But you should be able to charge and do 5k with USB 4
- crote 2y agoThunderbolt these days is nothing more than USB 4 with a few optional features made mandatory. Many AMD laptops support everything found in Thunderbolt but don't call it Thunderbolt for legal reasons.
- kennethrc 2y agoIsn't that exactly backwards? "USB4 is TB with optional features ...?"
- izacus 2y agoPretty much all new higher end AMD laptops have Thunderbolt, what are you talking about?
- afiori 2y agoAMD laptops cannot use the term "Thunderbolt" as it is owned by Intel and they do not want AMD to use it.
- jeroenhd 2y agoHP doesn't care: https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-omnibook-ultra-laptop-14-fd0087nr https://www.hp.com/us-en/shop/pdp/hp-omnibook-ultra-laptop-1... > 2 Thunderbolt™ 4 with USB Type-C® 40Gbps signaling rate (USB Power Delivery, DisplayPort™ 2.1, HP Sleep and Charge)[..] "Thunderbolt" is just a name like "USB". AMD didn't have Thunderbolt support because they'd need to license the technology from Intel, but that changed when Thunderbolt 4 was donated to USB.