USB 4.0 is Coming! And Why it’s Going to be Better than Thunderbolt 3

For filmmakers and video professionals, we’ve had a long history with both USB and Thunderbolt cables. As technology has changed and advanced at its current, rapid pace, file transfer, storage and read/write speeds have been a huge part of the digital filmmaking workflow.

And while USB 3.2 was only unveiled a couple of years ago, its peak performance represented 20Gpbs of data transfer speed, theoretically close to Thunderbolt 3 - which itself has enjoyed a great deal of success within the industry as well.

However, recently announced on the USB Implementers Forum, it appears that Thunderbolt 3 may finally meet its match with a new USB 4.0 which (amongst other perks) can reportedly push transfer speeds of 40Gps.

Introducing USB 4.0

What seems of most important to filmmakers and video professionals (along with the crazy two-lane transfer speed) would be USB 4.0’s backward compatibility and multi-connector functionality (USB Type-A, MicroUSB and USB-C) that could see the cable become the de-facto industry standard for years (at least until Thunderbolt updates itself).

No timeline for rollout or release has been reported besides a rough “18 months after the spec” reported. We’ll keep you update as news presents itself including timeline, pricing and availability.