The first PCs using Thunderbolt 4 will arrive this year with new Tiger Lake processors, but it appears the new all-in-one standard won’t deliver faster data transfer speeds than the four-year-old Thunderbolt 3-year-old. Although TB4 still has other new improvements, it will be very difficult to become a competitor to the “king” of USB connection ports.
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First, what is Thunderbolt?
First appearing on Macbook models, Thunderbolt has now been used by Apple to completely replace other communication ports. Thunderbolt is a new connection protocol on computers, jointly developed by Apple and Intel and launched in 2011. In addition to the data transmission function, the Thunderbolt port also has the function of charging laptops.
Up to now, Thunderbolt 3 is still the newest protocol (and soon TB4). This is a combination of two different protocols, PCI Express (data transmission) and DisplayPort (image transmission), using the current popular USB Type-C connection standard. In addition to Macbooks, many other brands, typically Acer, have also started using this new connection standard.
Intel introduced a completely new generation of connection ports called Thunderbolt 4 at CES 2020. To improve native Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connection speeds, Intel introduced the Thunderbolt 4 port as a necessary feature. A must-have for your laptop shortly.
Will Thunderbolt 4 grow to the point of hype? Here is everything we know so far about this new standard, Thunderbolt 4 has both differences and similarities compared to Thunderbolt 3, and performance and features are somewhat superior when compared to the standard USB 4.
Thunderbolt 4 availability
Intel’s official announcement of Thunderbolt 4 at CES 2020 firmly established that Thunderbolt 4 will first be supported by its upcoming Tiger Lake mobile processors. In the immediate future, Thunderbolt 4 will be joined by other technological innovations such as support for 6 GHz Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 5.0.
Thunderbolt 4 performance
In terms of speed, Thunderbolt 4 is not likely to perform any faster than Thunderbolt 3. That’s a bit of a surprise, since speed is one of Thunderbolt 3’s big advantages, with a maximum capable throughput of 40 Gbps. In contrast, USB 3.2 2×2, the fastest USB port specification at this time is only 20 Gbps.
Thunderbolt 4 is expected to improve that for the first time, with Intel claiming that Thunderbolt 4 will be four times faster than USB, leading many to expect bandwidth speeds of 80Gbps for Thunderbolt 4. However, Intel soon clarified that Thunderbolt 4 will be four times faster than USB 3.2 Gen 2, with a maximum speed of 10 Gbps. Thunderbolt 4 should only operate at up to 40 Gbps throughput.
Along with the fact that TB4 is not faster than TB3, many people joke that this is just a generation of Thunderbolt 3 connection ports with a newer name.
Features of Thunderbolt 4
Thunderbolt is an optimized standard level with unique features, from enabling external graphics cards to providing Ethernet network access. At CES 2020, Intel executive Sarah Kane said that Thunderbolt 4 standardizes PC platform requirements and adds the latest improvements, but did not go into any real details about the improvements new advancement.
Some suggest that USB 4 will incorporate TB3’s capabilities in its features, making the data connection interchangeability between devices much higher. This means Thunderbolt 4 will be associated with more devices than USB 4 so it can become a more mainstream recognized technology. And of course, if Thunderbolt 4 doesn’t excel in terms of speed, the new technology will need to do something else unique to match the potential ubiquity of USB-C at USB 4 speeds.
Anyway, we still need to wait until more details about Tiger Lake come to light, then we will probably hear and know more about what TB4 will bring to consumers.
Summary
For now, Thunderbolt’s simplicity is certainly a big advantage over USB, especially for those who need high performance. And more importantly, the latest USB standards are confusing. Recent USB-C ports are small enough for both phones and laptops, but sometimes USB-C cables and ports can only handle the 480 Mbps data rate of the USB 2 generation.
Although USB-C is quite suitable for charging devices that require high power up to 100W (available on many high-end laptops), not all USB-C ports can be used to charge devices. Thunderbolt 4 offers a more consistent set of high-end capabilities, so you don’t need to worry too much about that.