Unofficial information about the I/O specifications of the new processors arrives today, among which the arrival of the even faster Thunderbolt 5 standard for connecting peripheral devices and transferring data at an impressive 120 Gbps speed is highlighted.

Thunderbolt 5 enables accelerated data transfer

In addition, the new generation of Intel Core processors for the desktop PC platform will finally integrate proper PCIe 5.0 hardware support. It will no longer be necessary to share the available tracks between the graphics card and the M.2 SSD, which is the current practice with the 13th and 14th generation Intel Core processors. The processors and their system controllers will use 20 PCIe Gen5 lanes, where 16 will be dedicated to the discrete graphics card, and four to the first M.2 SSD device.

Communication with the rest of the system (chipset or peripheral controller) with the new processors will take place via a DMI connection with eight PCIe Gen4 lines. This part will support an additional M.2 PCIe x4 drive, but will also be used to run the new Barlow Ridge "Thunderbolt 5" controller.

This controller will provide two USB-C ports, which will enable a data transfer of 80 GB/s or 120 Gbps for the transmission of video signals through a bi-directional connection. Thunderbolt 5 relies on a new industry standard that includes USB4 V2, DisplayPort 2.1 and PCI Express Gen 4, fully backward compatible. Implementation of the Thunderbolt 5 standard on the desktop PC platform is expected in the period between 2025 and 2026, reports wccftech.