Thunderbolt 5 is official and it’s a leap forward in terms of speed. It brings bandwidth from 40 Gbps to 120 Gbps, doubles the PCIe lanes and can deliver up to 240W of power via a USB-C cable.
Technically, in a standard configuration, Thunderbolt 5 will deliver 80 Gbps – using two of its four PCIe lanes of bi-directional bandwidth. It’s twice as fast as Thunderbolt 4. However, when more bandwidth is needed (such as for high-resolution), Thunderbolt 5 can send up to 40 Gbps between its four lanes – 120 Gbps transmit and 40 Gbps receive.
All this bandwidth will allow for three 4K 144Hz screens simultaneously, multiple 8K displays, or a single monitor up to a ridiculous 540Hz.
With up to 240W charging possible, Thunderbolt 5 will even allow gaming laptops to ditch proprietary chargers and just use USB-C.
