Thunderbolt 5 is Here and Ready to Dock Your Video Workflows

Here Comes Thunderbolt 5

While this device is a cool new piece of hardware, the real story here is the introduction of Thunderbolt 5. Since being first announced back in fall of 2023, Thunderbolt 5 has been slowly creeping towards mass rollout ever since a few controllers were released by Intel (set to release later this year).

Thunderbolt 4, which was only introduced back in 2020, has proven to be quite popular for those using M1 Apple products, yet has already hit some of its limits in terms of data protocol transfers. Which is where Thunderbolt 5 comes in as it will have at least two times the total bi-directional bandwidth capable of up to 120Gbps.

There’s more good news too as Thunderbolt 5 will also feature the same connectors as both Thunderbolt 4 and Thunderbolt 3 as well as USB-C devices, so it will be backwards compatible with these previous versions.

HyperDrive Next Thunderbolt 5 Dock

Launched by HYPER, an American company owned by Targus that specializes in all types of video and mobile accessories for all types of creative content professionals, this new Thunderbolt 5 dock should fit in nicely with its array of cables, adapters, power solutions, and the like.

As mentioned above, the HyperDrive Next Thunderbolt 5 dock will include support for three displays, SD and CFexpress cards, as well as support for a PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD inside. This dock will be desktop-oriented and also feature pretty much all of the input and output ports that you’d need for any type of video editing or creative projects, including:

• 3 x 4K144Hz Extended Display
• 3 x Thunderbolt 5 Downstream Ports
• 2 x Data Transfer Bandwidth at 80Gbps
• Up to 120Gbps Boosted Bandwidth to meet performance display need
• Extended storage with PCIe Gen4 M.2 NVMe SSD
• High-performance CFexpress Media Card Slot
• Ultra-Fast 5Gbps Ethernet Networking
• 140W PD 3.1 EPR Host Passthrough Charging

The HyperDrive Next Thunderbolt 5 dock will support two data transfer bandwidths of 80Gbps as well as a boosted bandwidth up to 120Gbps which should truly unlock the ability to use three 4K144Hz displays at once and with blazing speeds.

Price and Availability

While being announced here at CES 2024 in January, it doesn’t sound like this dock will be available for purchase until late 2024. The set retail price is reported to be around $399.99.

However, the exciting news here is that Thunderbolt 5 will begin to slowly creep into all types of devices and uses here in 2024 and should give creators more tools at their disposal to work with newer computers (like the M3 Macs) and the higher-end video needs sure to come the rest of the year as well.