According to Neowin, Thunderbolt 4 does not differ much from its predecessor but instead enhances minimum specs. Thunderbolt 3 also supports speeds of 40 Gbps and two 4K displays. But the difference is now the minimum specification for Thunderbolt 4. It is known that a series of ultrabooks use Thunderbolt 3 ports but only provide bandwidth is half that. OEMs won’t be able to do that anymore with the new standard.
There are also a number of other enhancements to Thunderbolt 4. First, it now supports cables up to 2 meters long and users can also connect it to an 8K display. The sockets can currently support up to four Thunderbolt 4 ports and when the mouse or keyboard is connected to the dock, users can click to wake their computer from sleep mode.
Intel will not change its Thunderbolt brand. As the image depicts, there are many ways to recognize different types of USB ports, but there is only one way for Thunderbolt. With Thunderbolt 3, it’s easy to recognize because it used USB-C, while its predecessors used Mini DisplayPort. For Thunderbolt 4, it still uses USB-C.
Finally, the report shows that users will be able to buy computers with Thunderbolt 4 later this year. New technology will be integrated into Intel’s 11th-generation Tiger Lake.