It is increasingly necessary to ensure that a computer has the highest possible speed connections, and one of the standards that seeks to offer extremely fast connectivity is the new Thunderbolt 5 that comes from Intel. Although it has a big problem, and that is that the support it has is minimal because it is an extremely new technology, so we cannot find it on too many motherboards, not even on the new Z890 which are the ones that will arrive together with Intel Core Ultra processors.
Many times we can find that a motherboard is quite limited by its connectivity options, and there are models that stand out for offering some of the most current technologies, while others simply want to offer the ability to connect a series of really basic peripherals. In the case of high-end ones, we can find really strange models such as those that only incorporate ports for USB-C or Thunderbolt, but even if this is the case, it is most likely that they do not offer the newest standard of these technologies, so that we may need to add it in some other way.
The easiest way to add Thunderbolt 5 to a PC comes from Gigabyte
There are a large number of companies that offer products to increase the capabilities that our PC can have through expansion cards, since they offer us to add a series of additional functionalities that we may need at any time. One of the best-known cards of this type among users is the graphics card, which allows us to add greater power to our PC in terms of 3D rendering, allowing us to use the computer to play games or to use applications that require this feature.
But there are many other expansion cards on the market, and Gigabyte has announced one that incorporates the latest technology in terms of connectivity, Thunderbolt 5a standard created to change the speed limits that we can encounter when physically transmitting data. In this case, they present us with a PCIe 4.0×4 add-on card that uses a single slot, requires two 6-pin power connectors, and offers two high-performance Thunderbolt 5 connectors along with three additional Mini-DisplayPort ports.
The key aspects that this expansion card offers are the following:
- Intel® Thunderbolt 5 Certified Add-on Card
- Intel JHL9580 Thunderbolt 5 Controller
- Dual Thunderbolt 5 ports (USB Type-C)
- They provide bidirectional bandwidth of up to 80 Gb/s, or unidirectional bandwidth of up to 120 Gb/s.
- Provides maximum support for DisplayPort 2.1 with 8K at 60 Hz.
- Daisy chain up to 10 devices (5 devices per port)
- Supports PD3.1 standard (up to 100W)
The only thing we would need to know about this new component would be the price, since the company has not yet specified how much it will cost, but taking into account that it incorporates cutting-edge technology and that there are not too many that do the same, it is most likely which is not exactly cheap, as we can well imagine.
