Thunderbolt 5: Hub coming from OWC

American manufacturer Other World Computing (OWC), known particularly for its Mac accessories, has announced another product with Thunderbolt 5. After the company already brought to market its own SSD and its own cable with connections (in competition with Apple), now the first TB5 port expander is arriving.

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With TB5 speed, but also compatible with older standards

Hardware is simply called thunderbolt 5 hub And allows – with appropriate end devices – typical TB5 80 Gb/s bidirectional (gross) and a maximum of 120 Gb/s for screen signals. The price is just under $190, plus postage and shipping, which isn’t cheap, but still relatively bearable for such a new technology. In addition to TB5, the hub also supports TB4, TB3, USB4, and regular USB-C.

A Thunderbolt cable and an external power supply are included. The weight is 382 grams, the chassis is made of aluminum, the rest of the part is made of polycarbonate. On Mac, the Thunderbolt 5 Hub works with macOS 14 and 15 (Sonoma, Sequoia), on Windows with Windows 10 64-bit, Windows 11, and Windows Server 2022. The notebook can be powered up to 140 watts.

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As far as ports that come with the hub are concerned, there aren’t that many

Ports included include one USB 3.2 Gen 2 port on the front as USB-A and a total of three Thunderbolt 5 ports (plus a fourth host port) as USB-C. HDMI, network or audio are missing. However, it is possible to output screen data via USB-C. The device is DisplayPort 2.1 capable and therefore can also display 8K at 120 Hz or 4K at 144 Hz – this may require an adapter cable.

With two screens, there are up to two 8K screens at 60Hz. To use all the Thunderbolt 5 features, you’ll need a Mac mini M4 Pro or a MacBook Pro with M4 Pro or M4 Max. Commendably, the OWC Hub has a power switch. It is expected that Thunderbolt 5 hubs with more ports will also hit the market in the near future – it is still useful to be able to expand the number of ports available with USB-C with an OWC device. A USB-A port might also make sense, as there’s still plenty of hardware around with the older standard.

(B.Sc.)