Japanese electronics company Elecom announced it will introduce a pair of 80Gbps USB cables in mid-December. The 80Gbps USB interface is sometimes called USB4 version 2. Each cable can operate at 80Gbps, but one can deliver as little as 60W of power while the other offers the full 240W of power. According to Elecom, this is the first officially certified cable 80Gbps Japan 60W USB and of course the common DisplayPort Alt Mode feature works with both cables. The DP Alt Mode USB 80Gb/s version can reach up to 8K resolution at 60Hz.
Row 0 – Cell 0 | USB4/USB 40Gbps | USB4 v2 / USB 80 Gb/s | OCuLink | Lightning 5 | Lightning 4 |
Supported transfer speed | 40 Gigabits | 80 Gigabits | Up to 64 Gigabits with 4 PCIe 4.0 lanes | 120 Gigabit (for displays; otherwise 80 Gbps) | 40 Gigabits |
Supported connectors | USB Type-C | USB Type-C | OCuLink | USB Type-C | USB Type-C |
Supported power modes | Up to 240 W | Up to 240 W | Not applicable | 240 W | 100W |
Supported alternate modes | DisplayPort Alternate Mode | DisplayPort Alternate Mode | DisplayPort Alternate Mode | DisplayPort Alternate Mode | DisplayPort Alternate Mode |
If you are not up to date with current connection standards, Thunderbolt 5 cables supporting all of the above standards except OCuLink have been widely available on the Western market since June. Right now, the best options for eGPU users definitely start with OCuLink, followed by either the 80 Gigabit version of Thunderbolt 5 or what is essentially USB4 v2, although it’s officially called USB 80 Gbps to differentiate them purely by capacity. Interestingly, with 80 Gbps USB cables and older 40 Gbps USB cables (formerly USB4), you should still be able to get 80 Gbps throughput on a standard USB4 cable, as long as both the client and host devices are updated to operate USB 80 Gbps. However, make sure the cable in question still meets the Power Delivery specifications.
In any case, it’s nice to see Japan getting its first officially licensed 80Gbps USB cable, especially the 240-watt version. While we’re sure that Japanese users who really need these cables have probably already imported them, it’s still good for the Japanese market to have their own options, which will likely be more readily available in electronics stores and the like. However, most of our US readers will probably be joyful with purchasing a Thunderbolt 5 cable to enjoy all the 80Gbps USB features with an additional 40Gbps bandwidth when connected to a display in 120Gbps boost mode.