Cable Suggestions Thunderbolt 5 Dock Review

Why can you trust Techradar
We spend hours to test every product or service we have reviewed, so you can be sure that you buy the best. Learn more about how we tested.
Cable Suggestions Thunderbolt 5 Dock: 30 Second Review
The view of the Thunderbolt 5 dock looks a little early. It’s like coming to a restaurant, showing your seat and finding a dessert waiting for you.
Nevertheless, this version of Thunderbolt will of course be popular at some point, but with this port and relatively a small number of devices to use this standard, Thunderbolt 5 docks are a curiosity rather than a necessity.
The cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock offers a highly designed metal form that can be horizontal or upright, and the latter significantly gets significantly less table space.
Thunderbolt 5 or 4 is designed to work with USB4 and USB-C, but Thunderbolt connection points are recommended to achieve the best experience.
What makes this design different from many quays is that even if technology supports the connection of the monitors with it, it does not have special connection points for video. The insertion of screens requires monitors or Thunderbolt with Thunderbolt port points to DP/HDMI adapters.
The well -made and designed cable, Thunderbolt 5 Dock provides a flexible pier for Thunderbolt 5 when this technology becomes more common.
But unfortunately, it is currently sold only in the USA. Probably the best laptop placement stations for TB5, which has been seen so far, but this is from two elections.
Cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Price and Usability
- What is the price? $ 349
- When did he come out? It starts to be present in the US now
- Where can you get it? Directly from cable issues or from Amazon
Direct cable issues, the quay has a price. $ 349.99 For a single unit, but if you buy more than one unit, the cost is reduced to $ 341.35. This company also has business customer accounts, so collective buyers can get better agreements by asking.
Those who want this hardware quickly can take at the same price. Amazon.com.
Currently, cable issues are sent directly to the USA and distribute Amazon products internationally. However, we could not find this product in a European Amazon, including England.
After asking for cable issues, this equipment was told to be special for the United States.
The only Thunderbolt 5 pier we tested was that we were the first example of MSRP and Kensington SD5000T5, although it was a little cheaper.
OWC Thunderbolt, which sells $ 189.99 in the US and $ 203.49 in the UK, is a cheaper option if you are not happy with a hub, not a quay.
However, this only has a limited port and the LAN port, a card reader and multiple USB port is one of the cheapest TB5 options for a cable matters solution.
Cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Features
Compatibility |
TB5, TB4, USB4, USB 3.2 (Gen 1/Gen 2) and USB-C Host (MFDP) |
Number of ports |
11 |
Port |
1X TB5 Up Flow UFP 140W, 3x TB5 DFP down flow, 2x USB 3.2 GEN 2 TYPE, 1x USB 3.2 Gene 1 Type-A, 1x Combo Microphone and Headphone Port (Front), 1x SD 4.0 Card Reader, 1x MicroSD 4.0 Card Reader, 1x |
Flow down power |
1x 60W TB5 DFP, 3x 15W TB5 DFP, 1x 7.5W USB-A |
Upstream |
140W thunderbolt |
Dimension |
176 x 77 x 42 mm (W x D x H) |
Weight |
? 1746g |
Accessories |
Adapter 180W 21V 8.58A, 50cm Thunderbolt 5 cables |
Cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Design
- Great Building Quality
- Double direction
- Thunderbolt sharing
- No screen output
In fact, although I have no proofs about this, both this design and Kensington TB5 do not have incredible port selection, which shows that these early designs may have followed a template created by Intel for Dock producers.
Since the solid aluminum outer shell is significantly designed better than the opponent device, I liked the important points of the cable more than Kensington.
When you touch the dock, he feels cool and heavy, which implies that the three silver sides are probably connected to the inner chips as a passive cooler. The surface grooves created by designers on both sides support this concept.
The second thing I liked was that this was a more compact design; It can stand vertically and horizontally. This is great for those who review this, which has a scattered table because it occupies much less space in vertical mode.
To help stability, the cable issues contained a foot where the dock sits comfortably, and using it prevents any of the metal edges from contacting with the desktop.
The correct vertical orientation is probably with the power button that probably placed the power input back. However, you can go upstairs in another way, which inserts the card reader on the top and bottom power button.
At least, unlike Kensington SD5000T5, the power button is on the front, where you will want.
There are two SD card readers nests on the front, a sound jaki, USB 3.2 Gene 2 Type-A port and a Thunderbolt downlink. Another two lightning downlink, a thunderbolt uplink, another USB 3.2 gene 2 type-A, a USB 3.2 gene 1 type-A and a single 2.5GBE LAN port.
This quay, like the SD5000T5, provides Thunderbolt Share technology and can use Thunderbolt Download to make two computers cry through Thunderbolt, which can get much higher transfer rates than 2.5GBE. Using Thunderbolt as a network technology is not particularly new, but the ability to connect a desktop and laptop over the quay is new in this new incarnation of the concept and provides much more functionality.
In addition to the network function, both systems can access any kind of periphers, including screens, keyboards, mice and storage. The only warnings are that computers have Windows 11 PCs, Thunderbolt 4 or 5 ports, and Thunderbolt Share should be installed.
This design is a elephant and the same problem in the exercise, the lack of traditional monitor connections with DisplayPort or HDMI. So far, the logic applied to the Thunderbolt 5 dock is to keep everything flexible by providing three lightning downlinks instead of locking the bandwidth of the bandwidth. This means that if you do not have Thunderbolt monitors, HDMI or DP adapters because it is not included in this dock, extra costs will be needed.
Considering that these devices are already on the expensive side of the Thunderbolt 4, they can take a dock plus adapters of financial threshold.
In general, I liked this quay because it has a well -thought -out order and was designed in a magnificent way.
Cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Features
- Bandwidth management
- Power management
With USB and Thunderbolt docks, it was the problem that you couldn’t add anything to every harbor, because technology had insufficient bandwidth to support all of this at full speed.
Thunderbolt 5 can have more bandwidth, 80 GBPS for data and 120 GBPS for data if you separate video channels, but each porting point point is largely purified as it can process the larger bandwidth.
What is required by this scaffold and the data that the data flow from a well -used dock is a logic of bandwidth management that can distribute the bandwidth in real time according to the need and use. It is still possible to squeeze the style of a connected storage device, but it is much less likely to make a file transfer in such a way that it starts to make mistakes or disrupt.
I talked in more detail in my Kensington SD5000T5 review, so if you are wondering how the 80 GBPS is sliced when you connect 100 GBPS bandwidth requests, read it.
But these days, the bandwidth is not about excessive subscription; More recently, we have seen that there has been the power to be subject to ration.
This cannot be a coincidence, but the cable TB5 pier has exactly the same capacity as the SD5000T5, the 180W output unit that gives 21V in 8.58A. He claims to charge 140W with a connected laptop.
For those who are curious, when it is strengthened, when it is idle, the dock consumes about 3.5W and it rises to 8.5W when connected to a mini PC (no charge). Each of the Downlink Thunderbolt ports can send 15W to the connected peripheral, so if all three are used, there is not enough power to drive the device and give 140W to a charging laptop. What is happening is the losing laptop here, because there is the most to give up. If you charge only 96W or 100W, this is not a problem, but if you have a mobile work station that needs too much power to charge, it is something you should consider.
Fortunately, most of the mobile workstation does not use USB-C connectors for charging, because a heavy barrel connector is a better choice for both charge and the power required to run these platforms at the same time.
Cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Performance
- TB5 usability
- USB4 compatibility
Due to the existence of Thunderbolt 5 machines and peripherals, I decided to test how this scaffold could perform if it was connected to Thunderbolt 4 and USB4. This scenario is much more likely for the majority of the quays where cable issues are currently sent.
Previously, when a USB4 SSD’s performance is connected over a USB4 port on the AMD Ryzen Mini PC, I reduced the USB4 SSD’s performance to USB 2.0.
The cable is better in the important dock, but they are not completely fixed.
The USB4 SSD, a significant EX400U, was a USB 3.2 gene 2×2 drive that provides approximately 1700MB/s reading and writing. If the Dock is connected to the Intel Mini PC using a Thunderbolt 4 port, the same driver offered the full performance of 4000MB/s readings.
Although these results are better than the other TB5 pier I have tested, Intel still has some tasks that need to be done with the USB4 compatibility, and we can hope that it is only transferred to a product software update in the future.
Currently, if you don’t have Thunderbolt 5 ports and very few, the next best thing is Thunderbolt 4, USB4 is the poor cousin in this family.
Cable is important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Final Decision
I like this quay, even if it was a solution to a problem for almost all practical purposes. If you are lucky enough to have a machine with some peripherals that can use Thunderbolt 5 and extra bandwidth, this is the dock.
However, for the majority of computer users, the fact that 2025 is the year when the USB4 has become popular and that technology is much cheaper than that.
The cable is important TB5 pier is made in a beautiful way and offers many features and flexibility, but now selling in the USA, it strongly implies that it is a bit of a niche device.
Hopefully, cable issues, TB5 options will be globally on the ground because it will change enough to come to Europe.
Cable Important Thunderbolt 5 Dock: Report Card
Value |
Less than Kensington, but not cheap |
4/5 |
Design |
OTUGH Construction and Elegant Profile |
4.5 / 5 |
Features |
Chooses TB Downlinks through special video ports |
4/5 |
Performance |
Great for TB5 and TB4, not perfect for USB4 |
4/5 |
Comprehensive |
Limited use without TB5, but a magnificent dock |
4/5 |