Intel may have had an “oopsie” moment, after a high-ranking member in its ranks accidentally let slip a small yet crucial detail about its upcoming Thunderbolt 5 standard, all through one photo on Twitter. The image was deleted almost immediately, naturally, but not before the good folks at AnandTech managed to make a copy of it.
For specificity, the image was shared by Gregory Bryant, EVP and General Manager of Intel Client Computing Group, and was one of four images shared via his official Twitter account, taken at Intel’s R&D facilities in Israel. Moving on, the photo shows an Intel engineer presenting a slide on Thunderbolt 5 and more specifically, the technological features that it will supposedly carry.
On that note, the upcoming standard will use a new 80G PHY Technology that will, in turn, rely on a PAM-3 modulation. Technically speaking, this means that the new Thunderbolt standard would allow 1.5 times more data to be transmitted through not two, but three amplitude stages: -1, 0, and 1.
The more important takeaway point, though, is that if this is already set in stone, then Thunderbolt 5 will have double the transfer speeds of the current Thunderbolt 4 standards. More importantly, it will continue to use the same USB-C connector as it has been using since Thunderbolt 3.
(Source: Anandtech, Videocardz // Image: Anandtech)
