What is the difference between thunderbolt and usb 3.0

Thunderbolt, announced earlier this year , offers twice the performance of the latest SuperSpeed USB 3. Salvator said Intel sees Thunderbolt as "complementary" to the USB protocol, which Intel also co-developed, but it is serving the needs of devices with higher performance requirements. All three told Computerworld that they're still "evaluating" the technology. USB is among the most successful interfaces in the history of personal computers.

The USB installed base is more than 10 billion units, and those devices are growing at more than 3 billion a year. So it's hard to imagine any external device interconnect technology that could challenge USB.

SuperSpeed USB is optimized for power efficiency. Read Aseem's Full Bio. Your email address will not be published. We hate spam too, unsubscribe at any time. Reading: USB 2. Thunderbolt vs. Firewire vs. Ethernet Speed. Ethernet Speed The lowdown on what you plug in and where. Table of Contents. Subscribe on YouTube! Did you enjoy this tip? If so, check out our very own YouTube channel where we cover Windows, Mac, software, and apps, and have a bunch of troubleshooting tips and how-to videos.

Click the button below to subscribe! Leave a Reply Cancel reply Your email address will not be published. Do not share my Personal Information. Thunderbolt 4 will also work with cables that measure up to two meters, with longer support expected in the future. And laptops below the W charging mark will need to include at least one port capable of charging. The bottom line here is that laptops with Thunderbolt 4 can guarantee better port performance.

Thunderbolt 3 is still an excellent alternative and can do a whole lot, but buying Thunderbolt 4 is the way to go if you want the best option heading into the future. There's also a USB 3. Otherwise, you were looking at 5Gbps and 10Gbps respectively for the first two standards. See how confusing this is? USB4 was made partly possible by Intel essentially giving up its Thunderbolt 3 rights to be used without all the licensing. USB4 is built on a Thunderbolt 3 backbone, so many of its capabilities are the same.

Whereas USB 3. Previous USB versions split bandwidth between all connected devices and relied on split lanes for data and video with no crossover. With USB4, the lanes can be shared for whatever purpose, allowing you the potential to hit the bandwidth ceiling with, say, the best laptop docking stations. USB4 will allow for dual 4K displays or a single 5K display, as well as up to W of charging power. Just like Thunderbolt 3.

Have to bring a boatload of data to your friend's house? Just unplug your USB 3. Even if he doesn't have USB 3. That's not the case with Thunderbolt, which is extremely rare even on the Macintosh platform, where it's been supported for more than a year.

If you want to lug your project on your Thunderbolt drive to your friend's house, you'd better bring your computer too, because he or she likely doesn't have Thunderbolt.

Hell, by the end of , Intel is hoping that we'll have devices that support Thunderbolt. There are likely USB 3. Why is Intel wielding iron-fisted control over Thunderbolt instead of releasing it to the world? We believe the company is trying to fast-track the technology by using a unilateral approach to bypass the usual rule-by-chaos that's so common to committee-driven standards. Even so, Thunderbolt isn't perfect. We could not hot-plug our Thunderbolt device without hardlocking the system.

So, epic fail? Not really.