Intel's Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt can drive two 4K displays, eyes 40Gb/s speeds

Leaked slide reveals all

Alpine Ridge gears up for some serious speed

Intel's new Alpine Ridge Thunderbolt interface is getting ready to strap on its skis and clock up some serious speed on the data slopes - up to 40Gb/s - according to a leaked slide for the design.

The image, revealed by VR-Zone, shows an increase of twice the bandwidth compared to existing Falcon Ridge Thunderbolt chips, which are already a big improvement over USB 3.0.

While speeds are set to go up, power usage is set to go down. The Alpine Ridge model touts a 50 per cent reduction in power consumption over current versions.

Feature frenzy

The chipset will come in four modes: TBT, DP 1.2, USB 3.0, and HDMI 2.0 via LSPCon. It will support PCI-e gen3, and will come with two SKUs, a 4C dual port connector for daisy-chaining, and an LP single port connector.

The connector itself will be revamped, allowing system charging up to 100W, higher bandwidth, a slightly smaller form factor, and room for backwards compatibility adapters.

The slide also highlights the intended use for supporting two 4K displays simultaneously, while also providing some system charging functionality.

Alpine Ridge is expected to launch in 2015, along with Intel's next generation of processors.