Thunderbolt 5 is the name of the new connectivity standard announced by Intel, arriving in 2024. Among the main innovations, the bandwidth which, thanks to Bandwidth Boostcan reach up to 120 Gbps, triple that of current Thunderbolt 4. The fifth iteration of the technology originally developed in collaboration with Apple, also introduces support for a greater number of monitor 8K.
With Thunderbolt 5, users will also benefit from the charging up to 240Wmaintaining full compatibility with USB4 2.0 and DisplayPort 2.1 standards.
The next generation of Thunderbolt will be powered by controller Barlow Ridge and will offer a useful interface for connecting PCs to displays and storage drives. Just in recent days, we have seen how USB4 and Thunderbolt can become replacements for Ethernet connections, in case of particular needs or when there is a need to move data with an even greater bandwidth.
Intel Arrow Lake desktop CPU heralds Thunderbolt 5 support
A well-known one leakerparticularly appreciated for his preview “revelations” (which promptly proved to be reliable…), made it known that – according to his sources and the content of some documents that escaped Intel’s grasp – the CPU desktop Arrow Lake they will be the first to support Thunderbolt 5.
When Intel presented the controller in September 2023 Barlow Ridge, it turned out that the component is equipped with four PCIe 4.0 lanes which allow it to obtain a bandwidth of 80 Gbps in both directions. Barlow Ridge can also support 120 Gbps in one direction and 40 Gbps in the other – a useful configuration to support special needs.
According to the latest information that has come to light, Intel engineers have increased the number of lanes PCIe 5.0bringing the total to 20. This is an important figure because it means that Arrow Lake desktops will be able to use all the PCIe lanes availabletargeting GPUs and SSDs.
The CPU Raptor Lake of the current generation offer 16 PCIe 5.0 lanes and four PCIe 4.0 lanes: while the GPU uses sixteen lanes, an SSD can use four.
When a user installs both a GPU and a PCIe 5.0 SSD in a 12th, 13th, or 14th generation Intel processor-based PC, the two components (i.e., the video card and the flash storage media) must share the lanes available.
If the SSD takes the four lanes it needs, the GPU can only use 8 of the remaining 12 (four will remain unused, possibly exploitable with a second PCIe 5.0 SSD). The “super-controller” Barlow Bridge opens up new interesting horizons, with the possibility of improve significantly performance.