Just When You Thought Your USB And Thunderbolt Connections Were Safe

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If you purchased a new computer in the last couple of years you were faced with new array of connection ports that most likely brought about a lot of frustration and expensive adapters. Yes, USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 are much faster and better in the long run, but the connector isn’t anything like what we’ve had before. If you’re like me, it meant a couple of unexpected trips to the computer store to make all your legacy peripherals talk to your new machine.

While you’re now probably at ease in our new connector world, there’s news that it’s about to be disrupted again, this time a bit more mildly. Intel just announced the new Thunderbolt 4 standard, and guess what? There will be a new USB-4 coming out soon too!

The New Kids In Town

Here’s the good news about Thunderbolt 4 – it uses the same connector and is pretty much the same at T3 (even the same speed). The difference? The minimum performance requirements bar has been raised and it will be capable of handling at least two 4k monitors or one 8k monitor (I know, you probably haven’t gotten around to buying a 4k monitor yet).

As for USB-4, it’s a bit more confusing. It looks to be the same specs as Thunderbolt 3 and uses the same connector. From what I can gather, it’s a way to get more manufacturers to commit to Thunderbolt without them realizing it. Right now there are only a handful of manufacturers that support the standard, and only 463 certified devices on the market.

So the good news is that soon we’ll have more devices on the market with the latest connector, which means they’ll be cheaper as well (Thunderbolt anything is expensive right now). It looks like USB-C will give out to USB-4, and we can just go back to being confused about which cable is certified and where to use it.

I personally can’t wait to dump all of my remaining Firewire peripherals once and for all (almost there) and the new standards hopefully will make that possible.

By the way, there was no indication of when we might start seeing the new T4 and USB-4 connections on new gear, so it might be a while.


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