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No. At this point in time Thunderbolt is basically USB4 ( or USB4v2 in TBv5 case). USB4 leaves a bunch of useful stuff 'optional'. Primarily Thunderbolt makes a larger subset of the USB4 standard mandatory. Plus it pragmatically mandates that you don't 'cut corners' when implementing USB4.

All of this 'extra mandatory' stuff gets certified by Intel and then get to put a "Thunderbolt" label on. More than a few vendors are just going to slap USB4v2 on their implementation and just ship it ( skipping the official TB certification. That is cheaper).


TBv5 also pulls folks toward correctly implementing DisplayPort v2.1.

[ Even Thunderbolt v1-3 were not compatible with FireWire either; before the 'merge' with USB. ]


What? You can go from firewire to thunderbolt (2?) then to thunderbolt 3...

Video here

 
Probably not.

Apple has been dragging their feet on DisplayPort v2 (and v2.1 ). That is required for TBv5.

A decent chunk of Mac line up isn't Thunderbolt v4 qualified. ( don't support enough external displays. )

Apple probably isn't completely absent , but they are pretty far from being core technology drivers at this point.
No one outside Apple or Intel probably knows but Apple historically played a role in both making thunderbolt a commercial product and in rolling out new versions. The assumptions they are aware or part of this push is reasonable. The timing of this announcement doesn't seem coincidental but it also seems to early to know what (if anything) it means. Even if it just means M3 Macs & next-gen Intel will support TB5 and they want third-parties to start making peripherals.

Apple not fully implementing certain thunderbolt features shouldn't be taken as a sign they don't fully support the standard. After all, they are the only computer maker to offer thunderbolt on ALL their traditional computer systems so it makes sense the low-end Macs don't have the requisite display support. Low-end PC systems have spotty support for multiple displays they just ALSO don't support USB 4 or TB 4!
 
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Thunderbolt is an Intel/Apple partnership. The Thunderbolt name was Apple's idea, and they gave the trademarked name to Intel. No one is stealing anyone's limelight.

It started off that way. Not so much true at this point. Thunderbolt at this point is a subset of latest USB standard that closes optional loopholes . ( more consistent, but also more expensive to implement. ).

Intel wanted to fiber optics and so had the name "LightPeak". Apple wanted to dump fiber optics ( so could deliver power on copper and shift to "one port to rule them all" tactics. ). They had Lightning so Thunderbolt.

Intel and Apple were biggest contributors to USB-C socket standard. So yeah Apple has had contributions.

Thunderbolt v5 is layered on top of DisplayPort v2.1 and USB4v2 . Apple doesn't even implement DPv2.1 (or v2.0) ... so hardly is a 'driving force' there. There lower end laptops don't qualify for TBv4. ( so bulk of mac units shipped are not TBv4. ) . Not much of a partner if not implementing the standard on the bulk of the stuff shipping.
 
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the firewire adapter for thunderbolt is basically a tiny fw pcie card w/ 1 port. The reason you can plug a usb device into a thunderbolt 3 port with a cheap adapter is because usb is included on thunderbolt soc.
Ahhh, gotcha. Well, that at least still beats having a valuable PCIE slot taken up when it could be used for anything else. So I much prefer that solution. I’d rather have any form of thunderbolt available than none at all, but it just wasn’t an option a couple years back.
 
What? You can go from firewire to thunderbolt (2?) then to thunderbolt 3...

Video here


That is an adaptor. There is a Firewire controller inside that adaptor. Thunderbolt delivers PCI-e data to the connection of THAT controller which delivers the Firewire.

There is an Ethernet Adaptor also. Same thing. host PCI-e ---> Thunderbolt ---> PCI-=e in adaptor --> Ethernet controller --> Ethernet socket.

In neither case is Thunderbolt actually dircectly 'talking' to the port.
 
faster is nicer but can someone tell me what is real world usage of this? Can we connect an external GPU and works like internal one?

I hate multiple connector types, can this replace HDMI in tvs?

also , what did they discover in a couple of years that made them able to make TB be 3x as fast?
 
I am confused. Why it says "Intel today announced Thunderbolt 5, the next-generation version of the connectivity standard present on all Macs and iPad Pro models"

As I know, no Mac nor iPad Pro has Thunderbolt 5.

So M3 MacBook Air can support more than two external 4K displays?
 
That last point, does that mean it can deliver more power to devices? As someone who often has to be very mobile, but with peripherals, the more I can run off the laptop power rails, the easier it is!
 
I am confused. Why it says "Intel today announced Thunderbolt 5, the next-generation version of the connectivity standard present on all Macs and iPad Pro models"

As I know, no Mac nor iPad Pro has Thunderbolt 5.

So M3 MacBook Air can support more than two external 4K displays?

How on earth could you be confused by that. It clearly says it's the next generation version of what is currently the connection used by Macs and iPad Pro models. They have Thunderbolt 2, 3, 4 on them currently.

There is no M3 MacBook Air and it won't support Thunderbolt 5 so i've no idea how you've been confused by the first statement and then jumped straight to that.
 
Dont think so...this is an 2025 Mac thing

Won't be available for M3 by Q1 2024.

I expect it to be released with Intel Arrow Lake (15th gen) Q3 2024.

Then will see it on M4 MacBooks sometime in 2025.

It literally says in the announcement:

Computers and accessories based on Intel's Thunderbolt 5 controller, code-named Barlow Ridge, are expected to be available starting in 2024.

Apple has been very quick to adopt the latest Thunderbolt standard in the past. I don't expect to see this on M3's, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it on M3 Pro/Max based systems in 2024.
 
That last point, does that mean it can deliver more power to devices? As someone who often has to be very mobile, but with peripherals, the more I can run off the laptop power rails, the easier it is!

Probably the old standard is 100w, but USB-C already broke that standard (or at least Apple did) to charge the new MacBook Pros. There's a chance it'll support 130w charging officially.
 
faster is nicer but can someone tell me what is real world usage of this? Can we connect an external GPU and works like internal one?

I hate multiple connector types, can this replace HDMI in tvs?

also , what did they discover in a couple of years that made them able to make TB be 3x as fast?
Even with TB4, laptops and desktops can't support 5K or 6K/120 displays. So for the next generation of higher-refresh monitors, we need a new protocol that will fit the form factor of a laptop.
 
And todays timing with less than 2 hrs to go for iPhone 15 Pro, yeah it’s getting TB4!

TBv4 ... unlikely. The M1/M2 can't even get TBv4; let alone the smaller A-series option.

USB4/Thunderbolt yes. But likely to fall short on the TBv4 requirement of supporting multiple monitors.
 
It literally says in the announcement:



Apple has been very quick to adopt the latest Thunderbolt standard in the past. I don't expect to see this on M3's, but I wouldn't be surprised at all to see it on M3 Pro/Max based systems in 2024.
It's also worth mentioning that Intel first publicly "previewed" Thunderbolt 5 almost a year ago already. You can bet that manufacturers such as Apple likely had preview hardware in-house long before that.
 
Apple, this doesn't mean you can reduce the available ports down from four to two in your next products. o_O
 
Going to 11 ....

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Image source
 
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