Thunderbolt 4 is the latest generation of Thunderbolt. These ports are suitable for PCs equipped with the latest Intel® Core™ mobile processors, or systems equipped with Thunderbolt 4 controllers. Compared to Thunderbolt 3, Thunderbolt 4 brings many improvements and new features.
1. Speed: Thunderbolt 4 ports have the same high-speed 40Gbps bandwidth as Thunderbolt™ 3. However, the requirement for PCIe data has been increased from 16Gbps to 32Gbps. This means that high-speed external PCIe devices such as storage and external graphics cards can significantly increase transfer rates and performance.
2. Security: VT-d based DMA protection helps prevent security threats by remapping requests from external devices and checking for proper permissions.
Waking up from sleep. This feature allows the PC to be woken from hibernation by peripherals connected to the dock.
While all ports fulfill the basic purpose of connecting input/output devices to a PC, Thunderbolt 4 ports have several distinct advantages:
1. Flexibility: Some ports provide power to your device, others transfer data from the device to the PC, and still others transfer the video signal from your PC to an external monitor. Thunderbolt™ ports do all three. It enables high-speed data transfer, outputs a video signal, and can simultaneously power compatible devices (including charging a light laptop).
2. High bandwidth: Thunderbolt 4 ports have 40Gbps (gigabits per second) bidirectional bandwidth. This means data can be quickly moved to external storage, and up to five Thunderbolt devices can be connected for flexible device configurations - all powered by a single port.
3. Universal connectivity: Thunderbolt 4 ports are compatible with many connectivity standards, including previous versions of Thunderbolt™, USB, DisplayPort and PCle. The port fits a standard USB-C type connector.
