External GPU I hear you say? There’s a solution that could work
Intel has announced Thunderbolt 5 connectivity will be available in 2024 on Windows-based PCs, most likely those equipped with Core and Xeon processors rather than AMD’s Ryzen and Threadripper ones. But the real winner in this announcement could be Apple.
It’s easy to forget that the iPhone maker is the company behind Thunderbolt, and there are more Thunderbolt ports on Mac computers than on any other platforms.
Remember that Apple first introduced the original Thunderbolt back in February 2011 and has been faithful to the technology every since. All recent Apple computers have at least one Thunderbolt 4 port with some – like the MacBook Air – sporting Thunderbolt ports only.
One of the most exciting use cases Thunderbolt 5 introduces is the ability to use an external GPU (eGPU) thanks to 120Gbps bi-directional bandwidth available. Now while an external GPU cannot and will not replace an internal one, it can complement it quite nicely.
We can’t predict what Apple’s next move is when it comes to support for eGPU but the new iteration of Thunderbolt gives proponents of this theory, additional ammo.
