You don’t have to own the latest motherboard with the Intel Z890 chipset to take advantage of Thunderbolt 5 data transfer technology. Gigabyte has released a PCIe 4.0 x4 Thunderbolts 5 expansion card equipped with two of these connectors.
Image source: Gigabyte
The problem with the new Thunderbolt 5 interface is that there aren’t many devices on the market that support it at the moment. For example, so far none of the manufacturers have presented external video cards that support this interface, which makes it of little interest in the eyes of enthusiasts. However, Thunderbolt 5 even now has many advantages to offer. One of them is higher data transfer speed. In addition, unlike Oculink, it is compatible with a regular USB Type-C connector.
The Gigabyte Thunderbolts 5 expansion card is equipped with two 6-pin power connectors. They are really needed, since the new product supports the Power Delivery 3.1 function for transmitting power up to 100 W to an external device. You can connect to it, for example, external monitors without their own power source.
Gigabyte Thunderbolts 5 is based on the Intel JHL9580 controller. The expansion card offers two Thunderbolt 5 ports (USB-C, each with speeds up to 80 Gbps bidirectionally or up to 120 Gbps single direction). It is possible to connect up to 10 devices through (5 per port). In addition, the new product is equipped with three DispalyPort 2.1 with support for 8K resolution and a refresh rate of 60 Hz.
Gigabyte did not specify the cost of the PCIe 4.0 x4 Thunderbolts 5 expansion card. According to the VideoCardz portal, the new product has not yet been found on sale either.