In September of 2023, Intel announced Thunderbolt 5, a new update to the Thunderbolt specification that doubles the bi-directional bandwidth to 80 Gbps (Thunderbolt 4 supports up to 40 Gbps). A feature called “Bandwidth Boost” provides up to 120 Gbps for video content.
About a year later, the Thunderbolt 5 has made its Mac debut in the new Mac mini and MacBook Pro models that include the M4 Pro processor. Macs that have the regular M4 processor still support Thunderbolt 4.
The standard is built on USB4 V2, DisplayPort 2.1, and PCI Express Gen 4 and is fully compatible with previous Thunderbolt versions. The increased performance is achieved using a new signaling technology called “PAM-3” which should enable today’s printed circuit boards and passive cables (up to 1 meter) to achieve this performance.
Read more at Macworld.com