OWC's Thunderbolt 5 Dock arrives with 8K display support

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OWC's latest Thunderbolt 5 Dock adds a lot of connectivity to Apple's M4 Pro and M4 Max Mac lineup, while also taking advantage of the massive amount of bandwidth.

Silver Thunderbolt dock with various connected cables and devices, including USB, HDMI, and SD cards, arranged around it for connectivity illustration.
OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock



In November, OWC introduced its Thunderbolt 5 Hub, which allowed users to gain more Thunderbolt 5 ports for their M4 Pro and M4 Max Mac. Six months later, it is bringing out another port-adding device that uses Thunderbolt 5.

The OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock again connects to the host Mac using Thunderbolt 5. However, this time it offers a wider selection of ports, to maximize the 80Gbps of bandwidth available through the connection.

There are a total of 11 ports, all starting with a Thunderbolt 5 port that connects to the Mac. That connection also offers 140W of power delivery to recharge a MacBook Pro on the same cable as used for data.

That's not the only Thunderbolt port on the device, as there are three others on the enclosure. There are also three USB 3.2 Type-A ports, with two operating at 10Gbps and one at 5 Gbps.

The other elements include a headphone jack, a 2.5Gbps Ethernet connection, and MicroSD and SD card reader slots that work with UHS-II support.

The rounded aluminum case is also capable of handling a lot of monitors, including two Thunderbolt 6K displays on a Mac. On a PC, it can work with up to three Thunderbolt 8K HDR monitors at 60Hz with DSC. Macs can only drive 8K displays at 30HZ as they lack Display Signal Compression.

The OWC Thunderbolt 5 Dock is available for preorder from the OWC website for $329.99. Shipping is anticipated to start in early July.

The pricing compares favorably to two other Thunderbolt 5 docks that were recently released. The Anker Prime Thunderbolt 5 has a similar array of ports and retails for $399.99, and the Sonnet Echo 13 has storage, and also starts at $399.99.



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Comments

  • Reply 1 of 4
    jeromecjeromec Posts: 225member
    "Macs can only drive 8K displays at 30HZ as they lack Display Signal Compression"
    May be true for M4 Pro and M4 Max.
    But Apple's own Mac Studio specs page begs to differ, indicating, for M3 Ultra Mac Studio:
    "Four displays with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at up to 240Hz" (clearly of Thunderbolt and not HDMI, because four.
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  • Reply 2 of 4
    hmurchisonhmurchison Posts: 12,449member
    Thunderbolt Hubs tend to be pretty boring. 

    8k Displays.  We can barely find affordable 4-5k displays 

    2.5gbe ...lowest networking upgrade possible.  

    Very niche. 
    jeffharris
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  • Reply 3 of 4
    Mike Wuerthelemike wuerthele Posts: 7,058administrator
    jeromec said:
    "Macs can only drive 8K displays at 30HZ as they lack Display Signal Compression"
    May be true for M4 Pro and M4 Max.
    But Apple's own Mac Studio specs page begs to differ, indicating, for M3 Ultra Mac Studio:
    "Four displays with up to 8K resolution at 60Hz or 4K resolution at up to 240Hz" (clearly of Thunderbolt and not HDMI, because four.
    I'm not going to get into it here, because MST is complex. This is still not MST when connected to M3 Ultra, and the dock-connection limit of 30Hz still applies.

    We'll be delving into it more in the future.
    edited May 19
    dewme
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  • Reply 4 of 4
    jeffharrisjeffharris Posts: 896member
    Pretty pathetic selection of ports.

    3 Thunderbolt and 3 USB-A. Slow Ethernet. Headphone/headset. SD and Micro SD Card Readers? 
    That’s it?
    AND for a mere $330?

    But seriously, USB-A in 2025? 
    MORE Thunderbolt or at least USB-C

    I like OWC, but this thing is a joke.
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