Thunderbolt 5 cables are here! But only one is worth buying right now

A Thunderbolt 5 cable has finally appeared, even before Thunderbolt 5 docks have begun shipping. Cable Matters is now advertising several “Intel Certified” Thunderbolt 5 cables capable of 120Gbps—but only one is worth buying, eventually.

Cable Matters is selling Thunderbolt 5 cables at Amazon for $32.99 apiece, with a 10 percent discount coupon on top of that. That nabs you a 3.3-foot cable, which is probably the ideal length. Cable Matters is also selling cables in 1-foot for $22.99 and 1.6-feet for $26.99.

I wouldn’t recommend the shorter lengths, especially the foot-long, which may be great for a sandwich but not for your desk. It’s too short for practical use. The 1.6-feet length could be okay depending.

Thunderbolt 5 is the next iteration of the Thunderbolt specification for PCs and Thunderbolt docking stations. While Thunderbolt 4 transfers up to 40Gbps in either direction, Thunderbolt 5 doubles that to 80Gbps bidirectionally, plus an optional 120Gbps “boost” in the display direction if needed.

Keep in mind that none of these three cable lengths will truly satisfy a Thunderbolt 5 desktop PC placed under your desk, which is a key reason for buying a standalone cable in the first place. (I’d also expect every Thunderbolt 5 dock to ship with its own cable, too, which are typically about 2.5- to 3.5-feet long.)

But the release of these cables does signal that Thunderbolt 5 devices are drawing nearer. We saw the first Thunderbolt 5 hardware at CES this past January, with the caveat that they would ship later this year. We’re still hoping for Thunderbolt 5 hardware to arrive this fall, even though it won’t be officially integrated into Intel’s Lunar Lake processor.

Cable Matters’ Thunderbolt 5 cables are here

Author: Mark Hachman, Senior Editor, PCWorld