Intel Details Thunderbolt 4 With More Capabilities, USB4 Compatibility

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Intel Details Thunderbolt 4 With More Capabilities, USB4 Compatibility

Intel has today made public more details on their next-generation Thunderbolt connectivity that brings more features while offering USB4 specification compliance. Thunderbolt 4 is coming with forthcoming Tiger Lake laptops...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Intel-Thunderbolt-4

[bug77]

Until more USB ports talk Thunderbolt, I don't think we should care too much. Sweet as Thunderbolt may be.
I give it at least 3 more years to reach mainstream.

[edwaleni]

Until more USB ports talk Thunderbolt, I don't think we should care too much. Sweet as Thunderbolt may be.
I give it at least 3 more years to reach mainstream.

What you will probably see is a mish-mash of laptops that have a USB-C port connected to the Thunderbolt controller in the CPU, but only exposing the USB3 protocols. They did the same with many of the price sensitive laptops where they installed a USB-C port but it only provided USB2 speeds.

This way they can differentiate their products by feature and by rote, the price.

Same CPU, same chipset, but variations on what is exposed for the user.

[numacross]

Until more USB ports talk Thunderbolt, I don't think we should care too much. Sweet as Thunderbolt may be.
I give it at least 3 more years to reach mainstream.

It looks like this version also requires certification and only Intel makes controllers, so mass market adoption seems unlikely.

[bug77]

What you will probably see is a mish-mash of laptops that have a USB-C port connected to the Thunderbolt controller in the CPU, but only exposing the USB3 protocols. They did the same with many of the price sensitive laptops where they installed a USB-C port but it only provided USB2 speeds.

This way they can differentiate their products by feature and by rote, the price.

Same CPU, same chipset, but variations on what is exposed for the user.

I believe this time around Intel has waived all royalties in order to speed up adoption.
But yes, I fully expect bottom of the barrel SKUs to come up with all sorts of cost saving ideas.

[pal666]

looks like intel-branded usb4. probably with zero appended to price

[cl333r]

Thunderbolt 4 can drive dual 4K displays or a single 8K panel

What a loser, can't even drive three 8K displays at 144 Hz.

[darkbasic]

Is it capable of dual 5K monitors?

[bug77]

Is it capable of dual 5K monitors?

Same bandwidth as TB3 (40Gbps). You do the math

[ssokolow]

and mandates VT-d-based DMA protection

Better late than never, I suppose, but I still won't be plugging any USB4 devices into any USB4 ports for a long time.