The biggest thing I didn’t see at CES: Thunderbolt 5. Insiders explain why
Where are all the Thunderbolt 5 laptops? Dock makers say they won't arrive until 8K hardware becomes a thing.Interesting reading! He noted 2 factors in the way of larger scale adoption are the lack of Intel chipsets with integrated Thunderbolt 5 inside and 'stalled' transition to 8K content - a lack of 8K broadcast means a lack of 8K displays means hardware capable of rendering 8K content isn't as valuable - a 'chicken and egg' scenario.
" Abdul Ismail, the chief technical officer of the USB Implementor’s Forum (and a senior principal engineer for Intel), said his estimate was widespread USB 80Gbps / Thunderbolt 5 adoption was not until 2027 or so."
Jeff Lukanc, senior director of product marketing of video interfaces at Synaptics was noted to state:
"“What is happening is refresh rate.”
From what his business customers have told him, Lukanc said, “I’ve been told to plan on 165Hz for the next five years” with 4K displays."
I shared some prize pieces to convey trends here, but the original article is worth a read. From what I understand, Thunderbolt 4 is covering most people's needs, so it sounds like with TB 5 we should anticipate an incoming trickle, not a wave. For a couple of years, anyway.
In another thread I brought up the issue of beyond 4K video content (such as 8K) and whether and when it might be offered by streaming services such as Netflix, and what kind of bandwidth burden that would put on the Internet infrastructure in the U.S. The feedback I got was basically too much pain for too little gain, don't hold your breath.
Just thought this article was too good/relevant not to share. Glad Apple went to TB5 for M4Pro and Max chips across their late 2024 Mac line, but the PC market isn't likely to do so anytime soon.
Also, he didn't focus on a desire for high speed external SSDs such as one could use to avoid very high vendor costs of internal SSD storage. Hmmm...
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