Thunderbolt 5
Let’s get up to speed with Apple’s next–gen connectivity standard
The MacBook Pro with M4 Pro and M4 Max, which features Thunderbolt 5, is aimed at professionals with heavy workloads.
HOW IT WORKS
YOU WILL LEARN What Thunderbolt is, what it does, and how it compares to older versions
KEY FACT
When we discuss Thunderbolt’s speed, we’re actually referring to the total available bandwidth. That’s why the technology doesn’t talk about a speed boost but a bandwidth boost when it’s seeking to provide up to 120Gbps. When this feature is in use, bandwidth is being dynamically reallocated so more data can flow in one particular direction at the expense of the other.
The M4 Pro Mac mini now comes with Thunderbolt 5, which more than doubles data transfer speeds.
SOME OF OUR readers will be lucky enough to have one of those swanky new Macs with Thunderbolt 5, while some may still be wondering what all the fuss is about. After all, it’s just a hardware interface that lets you connect devices to your computer, isn’t it? Well, yes, but it also happens to be a technology that offers lightning–fast transfer speeds to give it the power to be utterly transformative.