The successor to Thunderbolt 3, aptly named Thunderbolt 4, will arrive alongside new Tiger Lake mobile processors, said Intel during its CES 2020 keynote. The CPU-integrated Thunderbolt 4 will make its debut in a yet-to-be-named thin and light hardware release later this year.
For Mac users, this is noteworthy simply for the fact that Thunderbolt 3 has such a prolific presence on all modern Macs. In fact, every Mac that Apple sells, from the cheapest Mac mini to the highest-end Mac Pro, features at least two Thunderbolt 3 ports.
Although details are still scarce, Thunderbolt 4 will likely require PCIe 4.0 support, which Intel doesn’t yet support on any of its currently available CPUs.
Intel notes that Thunderbolt 4 will be four times faster than USB 3. Assuming Intel is referring to USB 3.2 Gen 2×2, which is capable of a maximum throughput of 20 Gbps via two 10 Gbps lanes, it would mean that Thunderbolt 4 would be capable of 80 Gbps, or double the throughput of Thunderbolt 3.
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