It is a great time for USB-C. Not only is the iPhone finally getting it,
but there's a fast new version of Thunderbolt, namely Thunderbolt 5, that uses the USB-C connector.
It gives faster maximum data transfer than Thunderbolt 4,
but it turns out Thunderbolt 4 isn't even the current top dog
that Thunderbolt 5 is trying to beat. Instead, that title belongs to USB-4 V2.
And confusingly, Thunderbolt might not look all that different
in USB-4 V2, which it's based on at first glance.
In fact, it has the same maximum data rate, 80 gigabits per second in each direction,
or an asymmetric mode that gives you 120 gigabits one way
and 40 the other. So what exactly is the point of Thunderbolt 5 then?
Well, one is to provide a higher performance floor than what USB-4 V2 offers.
Although both Thunderbolt 5 and USB-4 V2 can optionally handle 240 watts of charging,
there's no guarantee your ports can actually deliver anything close to that.
Your ports just ain't ready. Thunderbolt 5 though,
requires at least one computer port that could charge a PC
needing up to 140 watts of power and 15 watts of power for accessories,
as opposed to the standard USB-4 minimum of just seven and a half watts.
This means that Thunderbolt 5 can provide extra power
to higher end laptops, especially compared to Thunderbolt 4,
which only mandated a minimum of 100 watts.
And the same is true in terms of data transfer rates. Thunderbolt 5 has to provide a max data rate
of at least 80 gigabits per second one way up from the 20 gig minimum of USB-4.
But what does this mean in more practical terms? For example, if you're connecting monitors,
storage, or an external GPU. Now, if we're talking transferring data
over the PCI Express 4.0 bus that Thunderbolt 5 supports,
you'll have 64 gigabits per second of speed, which is roughly equivalent to four PCI Express 4.0 lanes.
Although external GPU enclosures haven't been in vogue for a while,
Intel is touting Thunderbolt 5 as a way to get better performance
if you are using an eGPU, as it doubles Thunderbolt 4's PCI Express bandwidth.
While the performance still won't be the same as plugging a card into a full length internal slot,
it should still be a noticeable improvement over existing solutions.
And although the equivalent of four lanes is a bit of a bottleneck for a GPU,
it should offer great performance for external SSDs,
useful for video editors who need to work with large amounts of footage.
So what about those 80 and 120 gigabit numbers we previously discussed?
In addition to matching general USB 4V2 data transfer speeds,
these higher data rates are useful for monitors.
The upgraded speeds over Thunderbolt 4 enable a pair of daisy-changed 6K monitors.
And that might sound like a fairly weird resolution, but it's relatively common in professional-grade displays.
For a more standard or gaming-type setup, you can drive three 4K displays at 144 hertz as well.
Thunderbolt 5 will switch into 120 gigabit mode automatically
when a display needs the extra bandwidth, but Intel is still sorting out exactly
what display modes will trigger that switch at the time we wrote this video.
To achieve these higher data rates, Thunderbolt 5 uses what's called PAM3 signaling.
We went over PAM3 in more detail in this video,
but basically by sending signals at three different voltage levels instead of two,
Thunderbolt 5 can effectively transmit one and a half bits per cycle instead of just one.
Pretty cool. But when should we expect products supporting Thunderbolt 5
to hit the shelves? And is it a must-have piece of tech?
Well, the first devices should be coming out in 2024, but Thunderbolt 5 will likely remain the province of enthusiasts
who need the higher bandwidth, at least for now, especially since you don't have to have Thunderbolt 5
to take advantage of the latest version of USB power delivery
if you're just trying to do something like charge your laptop. Sadly, we don't yet live in a world
where we're all using 8K displays on the regular.
But one day, hooey, that was a whole video just now.
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