A prominent hardware leaker has alleged that while Thunderbolt 4 will come standard for Intel Core Ultra 200 CPUs in the Z890, the next generation of CPUs will miss out on Thunderbolt 5.
As spotted by Videocardz, hardware leaker Golden Pig Upgrade has claimed that Intel Arrow Lake will lose Thunderbolt 5 support for Z890 motherboards after all, despite its introduction last year. If true, it's disappointing news considering Intel 14th Gen also missed out on Thunderbolt 5 at launch.
As a frame of reference, both Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 are capped at 40Gbps, meaning there isn't a huge jump in the two technologies despite their seven-year age difference. In contrast, Thunderbolt 5 can achieve double that at 80Gbps, which can be increased to 120Gbps via Bandwidth Boost.
Golden Pig Upgrade also claims that the Ultra Core 200 CPUs will feature just four Xe cores integrated into the chip, which is half of what is currently available through Meteor Lake for laptops. This is unlikely to be a big deal considering most (if not all) users will pair the processor with one of the best graphics cards, but it's worth noting.
We can take the alleged specifications of the Arrow Lake flagship as a point of comparison. The Intel Core Ultra 9 285K is believed to feature 24 cores and 24 threads with a maximum boost clock of up to 5.5 GHz and a TDP of 125 W. In contrast, the current-gen Intel Core i9-14900K features 24 cores and 32 threads up to 6 GHz. It is certainly a different approach to move to disaggregated architecture from hybrid.
Not the best impression for Arrow Lake
If Intel Arrow Lake were to miss out on Thunderbolt 5, that would mean we'd probably have to wait until Lunar Lake on laptops and Panther Lake on desktops to get ahead.
The new connectivity standard would mean not only increased bandwidth for external GPUs and SSDs, but also increased resolutions and higher frame rates up to 540Hz and enhanced multiple monitors in 4K and 8K (via Intel).
