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Typically when we get a new version of some kind of technology, one of the key selling points is

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it's way faster than your old one! And in fairness to Intel, Thunderbolt 4 is

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four times faster than USB 3, except for one small problem. USB 3 is not the previous generation

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technology for Thunderbolt, and it turned out that Intel was also referring to the version

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of USB 3 that is 10 gigabit per second, not 20 gigabit. So at 40 gigabit per second,

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Thunderbolt 4 actually has the exact same transfer speeds as its predecessor Thunderbolt 3. So then

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is there any real reason to get excited? Well, maybe. As it turns out, that 40 gigabit speed

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was actually a little misleading before. While it was already the maximum overall speed,

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some Thunderbolt 3 ports only supported speeds of up to 16 gigabits per second

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for PCI Express devices. That limited the top speed of high performance devices like

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external storage solutions and graphics cards. Thunderbolt 4, by contrast, increases this to

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32 gigabits per second with Intel claiming that users could see external SSD speeds of up to 3

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gigabytes a second. That could be helpful if you're a video editor loading tons of footage onto your

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external storage device from a camera, or if you're just someone who moves a lot of files around for

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fun. And even if you're not constantly shuffling huge amounts of data back and forth, Thunderbolt

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4 offers the ability to connect two 4K displays or one 8K display. And with all the multitasking

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we're doing these days, driving multiple high resolution external monitors with a single compact

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port on an ultralight notebook could be pretty convenient. Now some Thunderbolt 3 systems could

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also handle dual 4K displays, but that wasn't the case across the board. So the summary

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version is that Thunderbolt 4 has more stringent minimum requirements, making it significantly

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easier to understand the capabilities of the device that you're buying. Thunderbolt 4 will

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also enable docks with up to four ports, which is double that Thunderbolt 3 supported, and it'll

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allow input devices like keyboards or mice that are connected via a Thunderbolt 4 dock or port

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to wake up the system. Surprisingly this didn't always happen before, even though it's something

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we've taken for granted over USB for quite some time now. There's also a requirement for

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lightweight laptops that at least one port to get Thunderbolt 4 certification will enable USB-C

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charging, so you'll be able to get power delivery on any ultra portable that supports Thunderbolt 4.

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And it's also fully compatible with USB 4, which hasn't made deep inroads into the market just yet,

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but probably will over the next year or two. To top it all off, Intel is promising that Thunderbolt

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4 has enhanced security to protect against vulnerabilities like ThunderSpy, which made

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headlines in mid-2020, and also that the cables should work to up to two meters, so you shouldn't

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need active cables at or below that length. That'll hopefully drive costs down a little bit.

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As you might expect, Thunderbolt is still an expensive protocol compared to USB though,

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and it's not exactly easy to tell which devices support Thunderbolt 4. Now Intel says that all

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you have to do is look for the Thunderbolt icon, but it isn't always obvious whether the sticker

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indicates Thunderbolt 4 or an older version of the standard, and they use exactly the same Type-C

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connector, so you'll want to pay extra close attention to those spec sheets if you're in the

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market for a PC with a Thunderbolt port. The first computers to offer Thunderbolt 4 are going to be

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laptops featuring Intel's Tiger Lake 11th Gen processors from late 2020, which support the

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new protocol natively. Hopefully that change helps to make Thunderbolt a more common and, again,

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more inexpensive standard. But in the meantime, you can always just try to earn some money on the side

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if 10 gig USB is really too slow for you. I mean, you know, who has an 8K camera anyway?

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So thanks for watching guys, like, dislike, check out our other videos,

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book you never returned. I know you did it, Craig.