Almost a year after Thunderbolt 5's official debut, products utilizing the ultra-high-speed connectivity standard are finally materializing. Cable Matters has unveiled the world's first Thunderbolt 5 cable, offering the spec's full 120 Gbps of raw video bandwidth in 1 ft, 1.6 ft, and 3.3 ft lengths.
The cable manufactured by Lintes Technology is now available from Cable Matter's Amazon store. Pricing starts at $22.99 for the 1ft cable, while the 1.6 ft and 3.3 ft counterparts go for $26.99 and $32.99, respectively. Because Thunderbolt 5 only has one standard, the cable supports all of Thunderbolt 5's capabilities, including up to 240W of power delivery, backward compatibility with Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 Type-C ports (as well as USB 4 and USB-Type-C), 120 Gbps of maximum video bandwidth in bandwidth boost mode, and up to 80 Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth.
Thunderbolt 5 is the latest iteration of the Thunderbolt standard. The new standard was unveiled last year and is currently the most performant consumer-based connectivity standard the public can access. Thunderbolt 5 is founded on the USB 4 Version 2.0 standard, taking on all the features of its USB counterpart and adding one additional Thunderbolt-exclusive perk on top.
That perk is Thunderbolt 5's "bandwidth boost mode" that goes beyond USB 4 V2.0's maximum 80 Gbps bandwidth limit, providing a whopping 120 Gbps for displays only. This attribute was achieved by switching three of the four 40 Gbps lanes to transmit mode, boosting the specifications total bandwidth from 80 Gbps to 120 Gbps in one direction but limiting the receiving connection to 40 Gbps. This isn't a problem, though, for displays since the vast majority of data (video data) only needs to be sent in one direction). 120 Gbps was tested on USB 4 Version 2.0. Still, Thunderbolt 5 is the first to bring this capability to the market as a finished product.
Bandwidth mode will only be activated when enough displays or displays with a high enough resolution/refresh rate demand more than 80Gbps to operate at full speed. With this new bandwidth feature, Thunderbolt 5 can support multiple 8K displays and up to 4K 540Hz (or 8K 120Hz) refresh rates for hardcore gamers, boasting 50% more bandwidth compared to the already speedy DisplayPort 2.1 (which is the first DP standard so far to run 4K at 240Hz without DSC).
Thunderbolt 5 also takes advantage of PCIe Gen 4 for the first time, giving the standard up to 64Gbps of PCIe-specific bandwidth. This is aimed at data-hungry PCIe devices such as SSDs and external graphics cards (eGPU docks). The jump from Gen 3 to Gen 4 with Thunderbolt 5 dramatically improves the data PCIe Gen 4, and Gen 5 devices can consume through Thunderbolt 5-equipped hardware.
Cable Matters is the first cable manufacturer to debut a Thunderbolt 5 cable. Unfortunately, you won't be able to do much with it since no products on the market today take advantage of the new connectivity standard. We didn't see any products at Computex 2024 that utilize a Thunderbolt 5 Type-C port, so there's a good chance we will be waiting until very late 2024 or 2025 before Thunderbolt 5 PCIe cards, docking stations, and other Thunderbolt 5 devices arrive on the market.
