Term of the Moment
HDR
Redirected from: Thunderbolt I/O
Definition: Thunderbolt
A peripheral interface from Intel introduced in 2011. First used on a MacBook Pro laptop, Thunderbolt provides simultaneous transfer of DisplayPort graphics for the monitor and PCI Express data for storage and other devices.
Thunderbolt 4 (TB 4)
In 2020, TB 4 launched with the same speed as TB 3, but USB was upgraded from 3.1 to 4. Following are the Thunderbolt generations, and each is backward compatible with the previous one. See Thunderbolt Display and Thunderbolt Bridge.
Mini DisplayPort (mDP)
Thunderbolt on a Desktop Mac
Thunderbolt 4 (TB 4)
In 2020, TB 4 launched with the same speed as TB 3, but USB was upgraded from 3.1 to 4. Following are the Thunderbolt generations, and each is backward compatible with the previous one. See Thunderbolt Display and Thunderbolt Bridge.
Data
TB Rate ---Interfaces--- Port
Gen (GBps) DP PCIe USB Type
1 (2011) 10 v1.1a v2 x4 --- mDP
2 (2013) 20 v1.2 v2 x4 --- mDP
3 (2015) 40 v1.2 v3 x4 3.1 USB-C
4 (2020) 40 v1.4 v3 x4 4 USB-C
Thunderbolt 1 and 2 use the Mini DisplayPort plug and socket; however, Thunderbolt 3 switched to USB-C (see USB Type C).
Two of the six Thunderbolt ports are used on this 2nd-generation Mac Pro. The black cable delivers DisplayPort to the monitor, and the orange cable transfers data between an external drive over PCI Express. See Mac Pro.