Intel confirms Thunderbolt 4 on way with four-times USB 3 speed
Malcolm OwenIntel EVP Gregory Bryant showing Intel's 'Tiger Lake' processors at CES 2020
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Intel has confirmed Thunderbolt 4 is on the way and will be supported by its processors in an upcoming generation, with the chip producer hinting at the connection's vast throughput capabilities at its annual CES presentation.
Part of a number of on-stage announcements at CES 2020, Intel made a rare comment about Thunderbolt 4, the anticipated follow-up to Thunderbolt 3. Intel Executive Vice President Gregory Bryant referred to Thunderbolt 4, making it possibly the first time the company has spoken about it in public.
Mentioned as part of its announcements for upcoming "Tiger Lake" mobile processors, Thunderbolt 4 is oddly described as having four times the throughput of "USB 3." As the base USB 3.0 has a maximum theoretical speed of 5Gb/s, this seems to be an unlikely claim to make, as Thunderbolt 2 is capable of achieving 20Gb/s, while Thunderbolt 3 is double at 40Gbps.
It is probable Intel is referring to the more recent update of USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, which is capable of up to 20 gigabits per second when using two lanes. If so, this would put Thunderbolt 4 as reaching a throughput of up to 80 Gb/s.
The 80 gigabits per second makes the most sense. Thunderbolt 3 uses four PCI-E 3.0 channels to achieve those speeds. In theory, Thunderbolt 4 would use four PCI-E 4.0 channels to get that higher speed.
More concrete specifications about Thunderbolt 4 are expected to be made available ahead of the launch of the first "Tiger Lake" processors, which were said to be shipping sometime in 2020. Even so, it remains to be seen when Apple will introduce support for the connection in its products in the future, as it will most likely rely on Intel's processors to facilitate the feature.
It remains to be seen if Thunderbolt 4 will make it to market ahead of USB 4. Finalized in late 2019, USB 4 offers throughput of up to 40Gb/s, power delivery of up to 100W, and backwards compatibility with earlier USB standards, along with Thunderbolt 3 connections.
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17 Comments
TB4 is great. Thinking that 100GbE still sounds like a myth or impossible for anything that isn't a data centre, this is simply one cable to rule them all.. However dear INTEL: TB is the only thing you have going for yourself. Disappointed with 10th gen for desktops, not impressed with 10th gen for laptops, frustrated with the 7nm roadmap. I don't see you holding your Xeon market share in 5 years time at this pace.. Time to innovate?
And someday the vaunted 100GB will finally be reached.
This is almost as bad as Intel Optane unit having to use AMD boards to demo their hardware. Nobody will care if new TB hardware emerges and it ends up running on slow, buggy Intel CPUs.
I got chewed out for daring to suggest the new MacPro was a poor investment as it was still using Intels soon to be retired chipset and had no usb 4 support, so will say it again, would rather wait fo usb 4, thunderbolt 4 and a much newer Intel chip before I replace a desktop workstation even if that's one to two years away.