Thunderbolt 5 promises the best USB-C cables ever

Key Takeaways

Thunderbolt 5 cables offer significant speed and performance improvements over Thunderbolt 4.
Thunderbolt 5 supports 80Gbps bidirectional bandwidth, 120Gbps data-transfer speed, and multiple 8K displays.
The updated technology is backwards compatibility with previous Thunderbolt generations.

The first batches of Intel’s new Thunderbolt 5 cables have shipped from Cable Matters, and while there’s not much you can do with them just yet, they offer an impressive step up in speed and performance compared to the last-gen Thunderbolt 4. We’ve been waiting for a long time to get our hands on Thunderbolt 5 cables and tech to do hands-on testing to see how they compare with previous Thunderbolt generations. While we’ll still have to wait a bit longer as not many laptops or other devices take advantage of Thunderbolt 5 yet, we’re one step closer, thanks to Thunderbolt 5 cables officially being on the market.

If you’re wondering what exactly Thunderbolt 5 is and why you should care about it, I outline all the details for you below, so you’ll know everything about the burgeoning port format when it’s more widely available in a few years. Read on for our full breakdown on why you should care about Thunderbolt 5.

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What is Thunderbolt 5?

More speed, more power, and full backwards compatibility

Thunderbolt 5 is the next evolution of Intel’s Thunderbolt USB-C standard, which was introduced in 2011. The idea behind the Thunderbolt standard is to have laptops and other devices utilize a single port for data transfer, video, sound, and networking. This, in theory, would allow laptops to become more lightweight and thinner, thanks to there not being a need to have four to five separate ports for USB, video, and sound.

This brings us to Thunderbolt 5. While Thunderbolt 4 cemented the speed increases delivered with Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 5 is the first generational leap we’ve seen in a while. It’s fully backwards-compatible with prior Thunderbolt generations, allowing it to be the catch-all when it comes to Thunderbolt USB-C tech.

“While many of Thunderbolt 5’s new features are aimed at pro-level users, particularly content creators, everyday users will see the benefits of faster file transfers, better charging, and straightforward backwards compatibility with older Thunderbolt generations.”

Intel claims that Thunderbolt 5 can deliver bidirectional bandwidth at 80Gbps, doubling the 40Gbps Thunderbolt 4 delivered. Intel also says that Thunderbolt 5 can reach a maximum 120Gbps of data-transfer speed, thanks to bandwidth-boosting technology. This is excellent news for anyone that needs high-speed file transfers, and I foresee this being a solid feature for videographers and photographers who are often dealing with transferring large file sizes between an external drive and a laptop.

Thunderbolt 5 also has the ability to support multiple 8K displays at once, including three 4K displays at 144Hz. While Thunderbolt 4 supports multiple 4K displays, it’s limited to a 60Hz refresh rate. There’s also 240-watt power support with Thunderbolt 5, which means gaming laptops or other high-power devices will possibly no longer need their own external, often cumbersome, power adapters. We also might see external GPUs becoming more of a thing thanks to Thunderbolt 5 featuring PCIe Gen 4 support, allowing gamers to potentially opt for less expensive gaming laptops.

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Why you should care about Thunderbolt 5

The next evolution

It will still probably be a little while before Thunderbolt 5 becomes mass-adopted. Currently, there’s only one laptop with a Thunderbolt 5 capable port, and that’s the obscenely expensive Razer Blade 18 (it costs $4,500). The ultimate hope and promise of Thunderbolt 5 is that it will cutdown on weight in your travel bag. This means no more 240-watt brick power adapters, no more conversion cables for 8K displays, and improved networking performance with a theoretical max of 64Gbps network speeds compared to Thunderbolt 4’s 32Gbps.

While many of Thunderbolt 5’s new features are aimed at pro-level users, particularly content creators, everyday users will see the benefits of faster file transfers, better charging, and straightforward backwards compatibility with older Thunderbolt generations. Cable and port standardization is good for all of us. I can remember a time when bringing a laptop out and about also meant bringing multiple conversion adapters and cables, and having everything make use of USB-C connections with Thunderbolt 5 cuts down on the mess.