News Thunderbolt 5 Debuts, 120 Gbps Speed is Three Times Faster Than Previous Gen

[Admin]

Intel announced its Thunderbolt 5 specification, which offers up to 120 Gbps of bandwidth, 3X its predecessor, employs universal 240W charging cables and steps up to PCIe 4.0.

Thunderbolt 5 Debuts, 120 Gbps Speed is Three Times Faster Than Previous Gen : Read more

 

[NeoMorpheus]

use Intel's discrete Barlow Ridge chip. Intel hasn't provided many details on this chip yet, like power consumption figures or the process node, but says it can be used with any host system. That means AMD and Arm systems can leverage the Thunderbolt 5 spec

This is very interesting and helpful for the whole industry.

I wonder if they will offer those chips at reasonable prices to others.

 

[Order 66]

Can't wait for more horrible naming schemes (Thunderbolt v5 2x2 gen 5 ultra max speed) I can't wait for manufactures to advertise thunderbolt 5 without including the worthwhile but optional features.

 

[dimar]

Prepare to lose TB 1, 2, 3, and maybe 4 backward compatibility because Intel decided so.

 

[NeoMorpheus]

Can't wait for more horrible naming schemes (Thunderbolt v5 2x2 gen 5 ultra max speed) I can't wait for manufactures to advertise thunderbolt 5 without including the worthwhile but optional features.

Actually, looks like they will keep it sane and only use one name, unlike the mess that USB has become.

But then again, the industry has gone crazy with naming, so lets expect that to become a mess. 🙂

 

[DougMcC]

A reminder that I am Trademarking USB 240! as the branding for 240w charging 240 gbps usb 5 cables.

 

[Order 66]

Actually, looks like they will keep it sane and only use one name, unlike the mess that USB has become.

But then again, the industry has gone crazy with naming, so lets expect that to become a mess.

When will they learn that all the features of the new generation of products need to be mandatory to get certified for that product? It is very misleading when a certain standard is advertised on the box despite only having the minimum features to be advertised as such.

 

[NeoMorpheus]

When will they learn that all the features of the new generation of products need to be mandatory to get certified for that product? It is very misleading when a certain standard is advertised on the box despite only having the minimum features to be advertised as such.

Indeed and thats what USB4 has become.

Really sad, considering that intel pretty much gave them thunderbolt tech to establish it and they went full clown mode with the names and requirements, etc.

 

[drajitsh]

I feel that by advertising asymmetric speeds 120/40 Gbps there is some intent to deceive. Why advertise it as160 Gbps in half duplex mode. That is 4x the speed.

 

[JamesJones44]

Prepare to lose TB 1, 2, 3, and maybe 4 backward compatibility because Intel decided so.

Right there in the 2nd slid it says it's backwards compatible with TB 3 and 4...

https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/yK9acyMfKg3Y8bzTAEhx9c.jpg

 

[Geef]

Sort of off topic but there are a lot of new cable types/speeds coming out. I saw recently that THX came out with a 48Gbit HDMI 2.1 cable certification. Up to 15meters or around 50ft and they sell an actual cable, not just a certification. Here is an Audioholics video explaining what they did to make it happen.

 

[Kamen Rider Blade]

Can't wait for more horrible naming schemes (Thunderbolt v5 2x2 gen 5 ultra max speed) I can't wait for manufactures to advertise thunderbolt 5 without including the worthwhile but optional features.

So far, Intel has kept a sane naming scheme.

Can't say the same for USB-IF.

I feel that by advertising asymmetric speeds 120/40 Gbps there is some intent to deceive. Why advertise it as160 Gbps in half duplex mode. That is 4x the speed.

The 160 Gbps is probably only for Video Out ONLY mode.

The 120/40 Gbps allows Assymetric UL/DL on the line.

 

[Li Ken-un]

Indeed and thats what USB4 has become.

Really sad, considering that intel pretty much gave them thunderbolt tech to establish it and they went full clown mode with the names and requirements, etc.

This sort of benefits Intel though, no? By tacitly allowing the mess that is USB naming, their Thunderbolt certification becomes very attractive.

What more assurance that a USB4 implementation will have all the bells and whistles than a lightning bolt emblazoned on the cable and/or product? If you’re a media editor, certainly you’ll settle for more expensive Thunderbolt-certified products rather than play roulette with a combination of suspect cables, ports, hubs, and devices.

 

[AkroZ]

This is very interesting and helpful for the whole industry.

I wonder if they will offer those chips at reasonable prices to others.

It is difficult to say at which price it can be lowered with your provider, you can find current chips like JHL8540 S RH4Q for at least $10.
But it is not so open, in fact it is more closed than most chips: you can't find any datasheet to integrate the chip (it's replaced by a commercial document), you need to reach Intel and sign a contract to start making a prototype (long before the certification test).
You have one major issue with the integration of thunderbolt with not Intel CPU: to provide the PCIe functionality it need to have access to the system memory. The system need to use Intel VT-d to protect access (amd cpu uses AMD-V) meaning don't hope on it. Mac pro 2023 has thunderbolt ports but you can't use PCIe through it.

 

[dehjomz]

The system need to use Intel VT-d to protect access (amd cpu uses AMD-V) meaning don't hope on it. Mac pro 2023 has thunderbolt ports but you can't use PCIe through it.

VT-d is just Intel's implementation of an iommu, AMD can use its own implementation to restrict access to memory.

And finally what do you mean Mac Pro 2023's thunderbolt ports can't use PCIe? Apple Silicon macs have thunderbolt ports that support PCIe tunelling. You can tunnel NVME (pcie) at over 3000 MB/sec. The macs even support new USB4 NVME devices based on ASMedia's USB4 chip (Zike Drive, HyperDrive, et al.) for even faster transfer speeds.

The thing to keep in mind whenever tunelling a PCIe device via thunderbolt is that the underlying PCIe device must have a driver for the OS. If there is no driver, there will be no functionality.

Apple Silicon certainly supports PCIe tunelling. For example, with certain external thunderbolt 3 NVME enclosures, you can add a m.2 to Pcie3x4 adapter, and add a PCIe device such as a Marvel AQC113s chip and it will work on Apple Silicon. Bus powered as well. In fact I've done exactly this to have 10 Gpbs ethernet with working AirPlay. I've done this because the 10 GbE thunderbolt solutions on the market, that use the predessor Aquantia AQC107s chip, provide 10 gbps ethernet, but Airplay fails to work properly. A bug in MacOS maybe. But with the AQC113s, Airplay works like a champion, even via thunderbolt.

Finally, video Cards such as AMD's video cards won't work in an eGPU on Apple Silicon Macs because there is no ARM driver for macOS for those GPUs.