Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: How do they compare?

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: Whether you’re looking for an external graphics card or a way to connect multiple high-resolution displays to your laptop, you’ve likely considered Thunderbolt at some point. The interface was once only available on a select few computers, such as the MacBook Pro series, but it has now become much more widely available. Over the years, we’ve also seen interface gain support for higher display resolutions, data transfer speeds, and bandwidth-hungry accessories. In this article, let’s explain how the latest Thunderbolt 5 differs from Thunderbolt 4 and what improvements are offered.

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4 comparison: At a glance

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: Are you in a hurry? Here’s a quick look at how the latest Thunderbolt 5 compares to its predecessor. Read on to learn more about how these numbers will impact various productivity and gaming use cases.

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: First off, Thunderbolt 5 will continue to rely on the ever-popular USB-C port as the backbone of its connectivity. This doesn’t mean that all USB-C ports will support it; It just means you won’t have an extra dedicated Thunderbolt port on your laptop or computer. Most computers use a lightning bolt symbol to indicate whether a particular USB-C port supports Thunderbolt.

That aside, how fast is Thunderbolt 5? The fastest USB4 devices have a maximum bandwidth of 40 Gbps when using two lanes of 20 Gbps each. In reality, most USB-only devices use a single lane for a maximum speed of 20 Gbps. In 2021, Thunderbolt 4 increased this minimum speed to 32 Gbps, with the ability to support up to 40 Gbps of total bandwidth.

Switching to Thunderbolt 5, Intel increased the maximum data transfer rate to 64 Gbps and the total bandwidth to 80 Gbps. Numbers aside, this actually means Thunderbolt 5 is twice as fast as Thunderbolt 4. We actually didn’t see much improvement on the top end as we moved from Thunderbolt 3 to 4, so this is one of the biggest upgrades in recent years. .

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: With twice the bandwidth offered, it’s no surprise that Thunderbolt 5 supports many more video connections than its predecessor. While Thunderbolt 4 can only support two 4K displays at 60 Hz, the latest interface supports three 4K displays at 144 Hz each. Alternatively, you can connect 8K displays at 60Hz, which wasn’t possible before.

Thunderbolt 5 consists of two 40Gbps lanes in each direction, making four in total. However, the link can also allocate three lanes for bandwidth-hungry applications to “boost” the 120 Gbps bandwidth. Intel says this mode will kick in for display connections that exceed Thunderbolt 5’s base 80 Gbps capacity. So this may be the case if you connect several 4K (or even 8K) monitors over a single connection.

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: Thunderbolt was once popular in the laptop gaming world because it supported PCI Express, the interface that graphics cards use. However, the 40 Gbps bandwidth offered by previous versions was insufficient even for last-generation GPUs such as Nvidia RTX 3080. This made external Thunderbolt graphics enclosures obsolete.

However, Thunderbolt 5 seems to revive the market with higher bandwidth and PCI Express Gen 4 support. It still doesn’t match what you’d get from a typical PCIe Gen 4 x16 slot on a PC motherboard, but most GPUs don’t saturate all the bandwidth anyway. In other words, you leave less performance on the table when you use an external graphics card via Thunderbolt 5 instead of an internal solution.

When it comes to high-performance workloads like gaming, Thunderbolt 5 also gains the ability to deliver more power to connected devices. The previous generation Thunderbolt 4 interface supported up to 100W via USB Power Delivery 3.0.

100W wasn’t enough to charge the most power-hungry laptops, so we’re glad to see Intel now mandates at least 140W charging power via Thunderbolt 5. Moreover, manufacturers will also have the option to support up to 240W of power, probably via USB-PD 3.1.

Thunderbolt 5 and Thunderbolt 4: If you already have an ecosystem of Thunderbolt devices, you don’t have to worry about the gradual transition to Thunderbolt 5. As with previous generations, Thunderbolt 5 is backwards compatible not only with previous generation interfaces, but also with other versions of USB. This means you can continue to use your Thunderbolt 4 dock or accessory with your existing cables; But don’t expect to take advantage of the latest interface.

Simply put, there’s no need to upgrade to Thunderbolt 5, even if your next PC or Mac supports it. You can even buy a Thunderbolt 5 accessory, such as a high-speed SSD, and use it with a Thunderbolt 4 port. It’s not ideal, of course, but it means the accessory will always have extra performance when you upgrade your PC later.

In summary, Thunderbolt 5 is a major upgrade over Thunderbolt 4 in almost every respect. Thanks to twice the bandwidth, we get support for more display configurations and faster data transfer. The increased charging power also makes it much easier to dock your laptop with a single cable.

Thunderbolt also became royalty-free a few years ago, meaning manufacturers can add it to their devices without paying Intel for the privilege. However, they must apply to an independent laboratory for certification, which slightly increases the barrier to entry compared to USB. However, with these expanded capabilities, we can see brands positioning Thunderbolt 5 support as a selling point once again.