Intel released the Thunderbolt™ 5 chip for the Device side in Q3 2024, codenamed Barlow Ridge, which is designed to provide high-speed data transmission and multi-functional connectivity for high-performance peripherals.
Thunderbolt™ 5 has significantly improved data transmission speed, display output capability and power supply capability compared to Thunderbolt™ 4.
In terms of data transmission, Thunderbolt™ 5 has a total bidirectional bandwidth of 80Gbps, and the PCIE high-speed channel is upgraded to 4.0, and a unidirectional data transmission rate of 64Gbps is achieved through 4 PCIe channels, which is twice that of Thunderbolt 4. And with the bandwidth enhancement function, it can be flexibly adjusted according to usage, supporting up to 120Gbps of video bandwidth, greatly improving data transmission speed and efficiency, and better meeting the needs of professional users and gamers for fast transmission of large files, such as the sequential read and write speeds of external storage reaching 6200MB/s and 5300MB/s respectively.
In terms of display output, Thunderbolt™ 5 has been upgraded to DisplayPort 2.1, supporting simultaneous connection of three 4K@144Hz monitors or two 8K@120Hz monitors, and the refresh rate of FHD game screen can reach 540Hz.
In terms of power supply, Thunderbolt™ 5 adopts the Power Delivery 3.1 standard, supporting a maximum power supply of 240W. High-performance PCs such as gaming notebooks and workstations can achieve full expansion through one cable, which improves the convenience of device use.
Intel Thunderbolt JHL 9480 framework diagram, customers can define it according to product planning.
Thunderbolt™ 5 maintains good backward compatibility: Compatible with Thunderbolt 4 devices: Thunderbolt 4 devices can be connected using the Thunderbolt 5 interface, but the transmission speed will be limited by the Thunderbolt™ 4 specifications.
Purplelec launched the first Thunderbolt 5 SSD Enclosure, which uses Intel JHL9480 main control chip, supports Thunderbolt 5 protocol, and is backward compatible with Thunderbolt 4 and USB4 standards, providing up to 120Gbps theoretical bandwidth. TX001 supports the installation of M.2 2280 NVMe SSDs with a maximum capacity of up to 8TB, meeting users' needs for large-capacity and high-speed storage. In actual tests, the sequential read speed of TB501 is about 6200MB/s, and the sequential write speed is about 5900MB/s.
