Thunderbolt 3 Technology Explained!

Have you ever seen a lightning symbol near a USB-C port on your premium laptop or motherboard? If so, congratulations🤝. Your device is thunderbolt 3 certified! Why is that a big deal?😕 Well, now you can have up to 40 GB/s bandwidth from a single port, highest compared to any other ports like USB 3.2😲. The original Thunderbolt technology was designed by Intel and Apple in the early 2000s and all the rights are currently reserved under Intel Corp. But for what it is used for? You can plug in almost any device into it without the fear of bottleneck. So in this post, let’s take a closer look at the most advanced port available for PC😎.

What are its capabilities?

Like I mentioned above, it’s peek bandwidth is around 40 GB/s which means you can run multiple devices at once on a single port. But why Thunderbolt 3 is so fast? It’s because this port is directly connected to the PCI express bus (Gen3). It can transfer a 4K movie in less than 30 seconds and can charge your devices like notebooks up to 100W💥. You can use up to 6 separate devices simultaneously by daisy chaining them👏. Use a dock and you can transform your laptop into a workstation with just one cable, how cool is that!😍

What exactly are the use?

There are many devices that supports Thunderbolt 3 protocol. Some of the are mentioned below👇

⭕External NVMe SSDs with transfer speeds up to 40Gbps.

⭕4K capture cards for high quality video capture and playback.

⭕External display support for dual 4k or single 5K monitor.

⭕Raided storage towers without any performance hits.

⭕10Gb network cards for high speed internet.

⭕Audio interfaces for studio quality recording.

⭕PCIe expansion chassis for connecting more devices

⭕External graphics cards. Yes! You can run modern AAA titles on your not so powerful notebook using an eGPU.

⭕Thunderbolt 3 dongles which have multiple ports like USB, HDMI, VGA, Display Port, audio jack etc.

Should you pay extra for this?

Thunderbolt 3 technology comes only in premium motherboards and notebooks like MacBook or Razor Blade Stealth etc☹. You can see the devices which interfaces with Thunderbolt 3 are also costly. Even the cable costs double the price than a regular one😑. Therefor Thunderbolt 3 is definitely a premium option to have. It really depends on your use to decide whether you need this technology or not. Want to transform your thin and light notebook to a powerhouse workstation? Want high speed data transfer to external devices? Then you might want to pay for this✔. If USB 3.2 speeds are okay for you, then paying for this premium doesn’t make any sense🤷‍♂️. Hope this helped you to get a clear understanding about Thunderbolt 3 technology. Have a wonderful day!🤗