14 DAY TRIAL // Once the USB Type-C has been declared the universal port connector among devices from all brands and manufacturers, it now can provide enough data speed and power that it can charge your laptop, deliver 4K video and transfer USB data, all through one cable, at the same time.
However, when talking about the speed, there's a secret in this word that can actually be key to revolutionizing mobile and especially laptop gaming overnight. The idea of bringing high-speed cables to connect straight into your motherboard and replace more traditional PCIe interfaces isn't new.
In fact PCI SIG (Special Interest Group) already thinks about bringing in a not-so-far future an optically connected PCI Express 5.0 cable that could connect with your PCI Express SSDs, and obviously, your external graphics cards. However, at Intel's IDF 2015 the USB Type-C Thunderbolt 3 demonstrated that it can already offer enough speed to conceive the idea of Portable Graphics Cards.
Who needs to wait until PCIe 5.0 when Thunderbolt 3 is here
The Thunderbolt 3 is fast enough that it can boost your weak laptop with a high-end graphics card, power two 4K monitors while also powering a dock full of ports including 2xHDMI ports, 2xDisplayPorts, Ethernet and an extra USB Type-C port in case you'd want to connect an extra SSD.
However, the best part is that you can plug a "portable graphics" card that comes in a special box, as it did at IDF 2015 and plug it in your thin MacBook Air and start playing some really graphically demanding games. In this case an AMD Radeon R9 M385.
Although really powerful, similarly "portable" gaming solutions already are on the market, like the Alienware 13 with its dual NVIDIA GTX 980 Graphics Amplifier, it is by no means as slick and elegant as the Thunderbolt 3 solution offered by Intel.
According to Hardware.info, no details have been given by Intel if such Thunderbolt 3 devices hit the market anytime soon, chances are that we'll get to eventually see something similar.
