Thunderbolt 3 becomes USB4? - Intel Contributes Thunderbolt 3 to Create USB4 Specific

Thunderbolt is becoming USB4?



Read more about Intel contributing Thunderbolt 3 to create USB4.

I guess this is what Intel meant when they claimed they'd drop royalty fees and open the standard up a couple of years ago (And then never actually did it and kept on artificially blocking Ryzen from supporting TB add-in boards, charging royalty fees and requiring a license to make designs/controllers, to this day). Presumably the "Thunderbolt lanes" are still just optional alternative modes for the high bandwidth shielded wires as with USB3 just using or designing for them is free & a lot easier, and we'll probably again see USB4 assimilate every previous version under a confusing name (Or maybe just SS 5G/10G/20G/40G if they're sane) as many devices won't have a reason or capability to use even the PCIe3 x2 based "low power" TB mode. Of course, given there's still way less than 500 Thunderbolt3 certified devices in existence this is probably a move to help TB much more than one to assist USB.

And in the other thread when I suggested we just use thunderbolt everyone told me off.. looks like I was right lol

I mean it was inevitable after Intel made the announcement to go royalty free that they would just integrate it with USB since they already used the form factor.

NeverBackDown said:

And in the other thread when I suggested we just use thunderbolt everyone told me off.. looks like I was right lol

I mean it was inevitable after Intel made the announcement to go royalty free that they would just integrate it with USB since they already used the form factor.

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It makes a lot of sense for Intel to do this. Now Thunderbolt will be everywhere and Intel is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the technology early on. They already have CPU silicon in the works that will integrate Thunderbolt, so it is going to be super easy for Intel to take advantage of USB 4.0 early on.

The spec releases in Summer 2019, so devices won't ship until way after that. Earliest we will see this is with Ice Lake in 2020, assuming Ice Lake is on track.

I think it's still an overstatement saying Thunderbolt will be everywhere, this doesn't seem to change anything from a technical standpoint(From what's released so far), it seems to just be a change to the licensing & some branding, so it might become ubiquitous for Intel devices and eventually common on AMD ones with a little lag time but it doesn't solve all the issues Thunderbolt has in terms of how it interfaces or the requirements for a controller. Technically Thunderbolt was always an alternate mode for USB Type-C, and that's still just what it will be from initial info, just now the controller chips required to use the interface won't be expensive proprietary devices, and the alternate mode is an inherently supported part of the spec for cables & stuff. This still doesn't mean these speeds & the power consumption required to meet them will be viable in smartphones or whatever, they'll still keep using USB2.0 or occasionally 3.0 specs even if they're rebranded under USB4.

Intel say they're still going to push the Thunderbolt brand separately, so it seems this will be similar to how FreeSync is technically a part of the DP standard but is in no way a guaranteed feature. There's also no indication they aren't also working on Thunderbolt4 to take advantage of PCIe4.0's gains as Thunderbolts controller relies heavily on PCIe lanes(Which is also why it isn't practical in many areas USB is currently used) so this could be Intel essentially just opening up their outdated tech & letting it trickle down.

WYP said:

It makes a lot of sense for Intel to do this. Now Thunderbolt will be everywhere and Intel is uniquely positioned to take advantage of the technology early on. They already have CPU silicon in the works that will integrate Thunderbolt, so it is going to be super easy for Intel to take advantage of USB 4.0 early on.

The spec releases in Summer 2019, so devices won't ship until way after that. Earliest we will see this is with Ice Lake in 2020, assuming Ice Lake is on track.

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It also makes it cheaper as well which will be a good thing. It may also mean intel and USB-IF have the potential to work together to further improve upon it. I hope it means we get a Thunderbolt4/USB5 sooner for double the bandwidth. I would really like to get a ultrabook/external GPU box setup going, like a XPS13 and put my 1080 into a box. Just not worth it under Thunderbolt 3 speeds not providing enough bandwidth even on a x4 connection.

Actually a PCIe3 x4 link should only have a 1-2 fps drop almost all the time for a GTX1080:
https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/NVIDIA/GeForce_GTX_1080_PCI_Express_Scaling/3.html

The problem with TB3 for GPUs isn't really the bandwidth limit, much more the latency & overhead induced by the controller, I built myself an external GPU dock by soldering some USB3.1 spec wires to an expresscard adapter & a PCIe x1 riser with my HD7870XT(Also tried with a GTX780Ti & RX460), it's a direct PCIe2 x1 link at essentially full performance (Has no extra overhead because it just exposes the raw PCIe link).

Chances are a move to TB4 using PCIe4 links for around double the bandwidth wouldn't have much impact on gaming performance with most current cards, that is unless they change the encoding scheme & improve the controllers (Or now other people can make controllers maybe someone else can) to reduce the latency.