At CES 2024 this week, I've been looking at a lot of what's going to be the future of computers. Every year, we see iterative improvements over previous models, but this year, we're seeing computing head into a new era. One thing that we're seeing the beginnings of is Thunderbolt 5, and Razer was the first to show it off on a device.

The implementation was pretty straightforward. It was three 4K monitors connected to a Razer Book 18, all coming from a single port. It's something that hasn't been done before. Thunderbolt 4 has the ability to handle two 4K displays, and if you wanted to connect more than that, you'd have to use another port.

With Thunderbolt 5, not only can it support more than two 4K displays, but if you're still on two screens, it can handle two 6K displays.

Thunderbolt 5 essentially doubles the bandwidth of Thunderbolt 4, supporting 80Gbps of bidirectional speeds. It does support 120Gbps of unidirectional speed though, which is even more impressive.

There's going to come a time when Thunderbolt 5 is ubiquitous, but that time is not now. At CES, there were a few vendors that were showing off some Thunderbolt 5 docks, which presumably aren't shipping yet since there aren't any devices that will get the most out of them on the market yet. But while there are some Thunderbolt 5 accessories on the show floor, the only laptop with it is the Razer Blade 18.

CES is always a great show for showing off what's coming next in computing, but like I said, this year's leaps in technology are more generational than iterative. There are big leaps in AI, gaming, productivity, and more.

Indeed, 2024 is set to be a really exciting year for computing. Between Intel Core Ultra, Snapdragon X Elite, Microsoft Copilot, Thunderbolt 5, and more, it should be pretty cool.