The technological evolution of USB 4, which soon promises speeds of up to 40 Gb/s or even 80 Gb/s, requires Intel to modernize its Thunderbolt standard. Taking advantage of the announcements of its upcoming Raptor Lake processors, the manufacturer discussed the future of its USB protocol, without giving all the details.
Up to 80 or even 120 Gb/s
The Thunderbolt standard, Intel’s in-house solution based on USB-C, will seek as usual to impose high standards with a bandwidth of 80 Gb / s which could go up to 120 Gb / s for the display on a monitor. In practice, this would allow PCs or USB hubs to manage 8K displays and creators to handle video streams with three times more bandwidth than with Thunderbolt 4.
The new speeds announced. © Intel
If the improvement of the Thunderbolt is welcome, one can however wonder if these elements are not a little too ahead of their time. 8K is still very far from reaching the general public and data transfer – to SSDs for example – is not close to reaching the 40 Gb / s offered by Thunderbolt 4. The enormous bandwidth delivered by this future Thunderbolt is therefore currently targeting a niche audience, but anticipates future technological developments.
A name for the moment mysterious
You will have noticed, we did not mention Thunderbolt 5, and it is simply because Intel did not communicate on the official name of its technology, only mentioning “Thunderbolt Next Gen”. This part of the mystery may indicate that the manufacturer is still reluctant to stick with a name that would stick with the current USB 4 standard so as not to confuse consumers too much, but we will know more in future announcements. Similarly, no date has been advanced for its arrival on PC, Mac and other commercial hubs. Anyway, in any case, we will have to wait until 2023.