ASUS launches Thunderbolt 5 add-in card: up to 120Gbps bandwidth, with DisplayPort 2.1 support

ASUS has just joined the Thunderbolt 5 add-in card (AIC) party with the introduction of its new ASUS ThunderboltEX 5 AIC, right after GIGABYTE announced its new Thunderbolts 5 AIC.

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The new ASUS ThunderboltEX 5 AIC has a single 6-pin PCIe power connector, with ASUS claiming it has USB-PD support of up to 130W through an in-house feature ASUS calls Flexible FastCharge. A single USB Type-C port is limited to a maximum of 96W, which will handle an Apple MacBook Pro laptop but not other laptops that are 100W+ power.

Inside, ASUS is using the same Intel JHL9580 Thunderbolt 5 controller that powers the GIGABYTE Thunderbolts 5 AIC, as well as using a PCIe 4.0 4 interface with support for up to 3 x DisplayPort 2.1-based 8K monitors at 60Hz refresh rate, but ASUS underlines that this will require DSC (Display Stream Compression) technology.

There are also 3 x mini DisplayPort inputs, with the card even including 3 x DP to mini DP adapters in the box, as well as 2 x USB Type-C cables. ASUS also mentions that Windows 11 is the only operating system supported with its new ThunderboltEX 5 AIC, with Windows 10 not getting a driver, and probably not Linux either.

ASUS ThunderboltEX 5 key features:

• Intel-certified Thunderbolt 5 add-on card
• Dual USB Type-C ports support up to 130W total of fast charging, and up to 96W for one device
• Up to 5 x Thunderbolt devices can be daisy-chained
• Up to 120 Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth for super-fast data transfers and video output
• DisplayPort 2.1 port supports up to 3 x 8K 60 Hz displays with DSC