Thunderbolt interface, in English, is jointly developed by Intel and Apple. Since its official release, it has gone through three iterations. Thunderbolt 1 and Thunderbolt 2 are Mini-DP interfaces (used in old MacBook), and Thunderbolt 3 is replaced with a more advantageous USB Typ-C interface.This interface integrates PCIExpress, DisplayPort and other technologies.

The transmission rates are respectively

The Thunderbolt 1 has a transmission speed of 10Gbps

The Thunderbolt 2 has a transmission speed of 20Gbps

The transmission speed of Thunderbolt 3 and 4 is 40Gbps

These Thunderbolt interfaces are widely used in MacBook, ThinkPad X1 and other high-end notebook computers for the connection of peripheral devices, such as external display, external graphics card, external docking station, external hard disk cabinet and so on.

At present, Intel officially released the Thunder 4 interface standard, compared to the previous generation of Thunder 3 technology, the improvement is not very obvious.The bandwidth is still 40Gbps, but it's mostly an upgrade for compatibility.

Four differences are outlined below:

1. Display support

Once upon a time the lightning 3 interface is also support 4 k video output, but can only support a 4 k display, to use two more than 4 k display screen machine friends very unfriendly, now thunder then enhanced video transmission rate, want to lightning 4 certification, interface to at least two 4 k display, or to a 8 k display.This is a very useful upgrade for graphic designers who work on laptops.

2. PCIE data transmission speed

If you want to pass the Thunder 3 interface certification, the PCIE data transmission speed is at least 16Gbps, that is, the speed of at least 2, which is a headache for some external graphics card players, because the interface is not full of Thunder 3, then the performance of external graphics card will be greatly reduced.So Thunder 4 this time PCIE data transmission speed certification starting point to upgrade to 32Gbps, equivalent to the speed of PCIE 3.0X4, can basically meet the external needs of some high-end graphics cards.

3. Safety

Lightning 3 interface security in general, can not stop attacks the DMA, and Intel in the lightning four interface certification added based on Intel VT - d direct memory access (DMA) protection, in order to avoid physical DMA attack, to some extent improved the security of the interface of the thunder and lightning, of course the average user is of little use to us.

4. Sleep arousal

If the Thunder 4 interface is connected to the docking station and the keyboard and mouse are connected to the docking station, the Thunder 4 interface allows the computer to be awakened from sleep by the keyboard and mouse.The Thunderbolt 4 interface will also support this function, just as we use a computer to light up an extinguished screen by tapping the keyboard or clicking the mouse.

In addition to the above points, Thunderbolt 4 will support docking stations with up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports, and PCs can be charged on at least one computer port and can reach a nominal speed of 40Gbps on a 2-meter long universal cable.The Thunderbolt 4 interface will be available as an early addition to the Tiger Core 11-generation mobile processor

First on Lake.

The list of the first devices is shown below (the above data is up to September 2020 for reference only, and the ranking does not score before and after).