OWC has announced the first two-meter Thunderbolt 5 cable in advance of CES 2026, offering more convenience for Thunderbolt dock setups, as well as desktops, which aren’t constrained by space.
To date, most docks ship with a one-meter Thunderbolt 5 cable included, which is barely sufficient for a Thunderbolt dock on your desk. As I write this, my current dock sits rather awkwardly to the right of my laptop, with the cable stretched all the way behind it to the only Thunderbolt ports it incudes — which happen to be on its left-hand side.
Yes, I could rearrange my desk to move the dock, too, but the way it’s set up, with a power strip in a specific position, and a phone charger set up just so — well, you get the idea. I’d rather have a slightly longer cable to accommodate my current desk setup, rather than rearrange my desk to fit in a dock in a certain way.
OWC’s new $79.99 two-meter cable stretches 6.56 feet, versus the 3.2 feet a one-meter cable offers. Presumably, the cable is an “active” cable, which includes a bit of logic to amplify the signal as opposed to a thinner (and cheaper) passive cable. By comparison, OWC’s one-meter cable costs $34.99.
Apple supplies longer Thunderbolt cables as well, such as the two-meter Thunderbolt 3 cable it shipped for $129 five years ago, or the $159 three-meter Thunderbolt 4 cable it announced three years ago. It has yet to announce a longer Thunderbolt 5 cable, however. Meanwhile, PCs still tend to use the HDMI port for productivity, and DisplayPort for high-refresh-rate gaming connections. We do see some displays with dedicated USB-C connections, though.
For now, however, Thunderbolt 5 is primarily a Mac-specific technology. While a small number of PC gaming laptops include Thunderbolt 5 connectivity, Thunderbolt 5 isn’t natively integrated into any of the PC processor platforms, including Intel’s imminent Core Ultra Series 3 “Panther Lake” chips. (Thunderbolt 5 can be added if a laptop maker purchases a discrete chip, and a few gaming notebooks have done so.) Instead, the Mac Mini with an M4 Pro as well as the MacBook Pro with an M4 Pro or M4 Max chip integrate Thunderbolt 5, making them the preferred platforms.
Is a longer Thunderbolt 5 cable a necessity for PC users? No. But it’s certainly a welcome convenience.
This articles is written by : Nermeen Nabil Khear Abdelmalak
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