Meet the world’s first Intel-certified Thunderbolt 5 dock: the Kensington SD5000T5 EQ.

“Thunderbolt 5, as you know, is the latest iteration of Intel’s Thunderbolt protocol. The main things it’s doing here is it’s increasing your speed, it’s increasing your resolution, and it’s getting all that through a single cable. You know, data cable, video cable at these speeds. If you really think about where we were last year and the year before, it’s a real step forward in the development of this technology,” said Michael DeCristofaro, Kensington North American regional product manager, during a product demo at Best Buy.

The SD5000T5 is aimed at professionals, content creators and especially gamers who want to hook up multiple high-resolution monitors and peripherals without experiencing any lag. For Windows 10 and up users, up to triple 4K (@ 144Hz) or dual 8K (@ 60Hz) displays are supported. Macs (macOS 11 and later) with M1 Pro/Max and M2 Pro/Max chipsets can handle dual 6K (@ 60Hz) screens, or a single 4K (@ 60 Hz) for M1/M2.

Made from 100 per cent post-consumer recycled aluminum, the silver and black brick is all business and has a minimalistic vibe to it. Hefty but not overly heavy considering the amount of functionality, a power supply and USB-C cord are included in the box.

A whopping 11 ports cover all the bases for connectivity: three Thunderbolt 5 downstream and one host, three USB-A 3.2 Gen 2, one combo audio jack, one UHS-II SD and one Micro SD and one 2.5G Ethernet. In addition, the 140-watt on-board charging provides plenty of power to all connected devices and accessories. Fully backwards compatible, this dock should leave users satisfied for quite a while.

“We’ve all heard about what Thunderbolt 5 can do: 80 gigabits per second on the transfer speed, which is like double what Thunderbolt 4 was. And Thunderbolt 4 is only three or four years old. We still see [it] staying in the market for the next year and a half to two years. But right now, we’re focused on Thunderbolt 5 because of what this can do for content creators and gamers. So, the content creator, the photographer, the people that need to just transfer data, imagine being able to transfer 100 gigabits of data in less than five minutes.”

In Canada, look for the SD5000T5 EQ to drop soon at Best Buy and other online retailers for $499 MSRP. Visit the Kensington website for a full list of specs.