Thunderbolt 5 Cable is Here! But is it of any use?

 Intel's Thunderbolt 5 may be the best USB-C cable ever, with 120 Gbps unidirectional bandwidth, 240 watts of power, and enough power to drive external SSDs, eGPUs, and high-resolution, high-refresh displays from a single cable. an unprecedented level. But first, you have to send it! Today, Cable Matters is shipping the first three certified Thunderbolt 5 cables, bringing us one big step closer to something practical, not theoretical.

Source: Tom's Hardware

Available today on Amazon in 0.3m, 0.5m, and 3.3ft lengths for $23, $27, and $33 respectively. Of course, the new cables don't do everything themselves - you'll need a computer with a Thunderbolt 5 port and some kind of dock or accessory to really get the most out of it.

But so far, the only laptop we've heard of with a Thunderbolt 5 port is the Razer Blade 18, and even there it's not guaranteed. To get this port, you have to buy the $4,500 Mercury version of the laptop. (You can also get an Intel i9 and a mobile RTX 4090 for that money.)And if you don't own two of these laptops, you still can't do much with a Thunderbolt 5 cable these days, because the peripherals that we saw at CES, still not working: Belkin, J5Create, OWC, and Sabrent still don't carry any of these Thunderbolt 5 products on their websites, and Hyper still lists its $400 dock as sold out and "Signed." ." to notify" button.

But if you have two identical $4,500 Razer laptops, can you use Thunderbolt Share to transfer files ridiculously fast? Inquiring minds want to know. If not, I think you can use it as a USB4 / Thunderbolt 4 cable now.

According to a press release from Cable Matters, this cable is manufactured by Lintes, the same company that supplied the prototype cable we saw at CES.