I tried a cheap and expensive Thunderbolt 4 cable 

I recently re-tried this test using a 40Gbps enclosure and the Samsung 990pro, which gave me pretty high speeds of about 2800Mbsp. Both cables worked fine and gave same results in speed. Let me know if you want to see that in a follow up video.

I think the power draw test would have been more conclusive if your MacBook had a low charge on the battery

From my experience, these cheap cables work just fine as long as you don't need to really fully utilize them. When connecting for example external GPU, you will find out, that many of the cables will just straight away fail and stop working (you have to unplug and plug everything back in) or they provide subpar connection resulting in bugs and unexpected behavior. I am definatelly not a fan of Apple pricing, but to be honest, the Apple Thunderbolt 4 cable is the only one which give me literally zero issues while using eGPU, fast external SSDs, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, a couple of 3.1 USB-Cs and two displays. So yeah, for 95 % of the people, the cheap cables are the way to go. But for heavy duty use, go with the from a reputable brand.

The reason Aliexpress vendors can't give accurate shipping times is because they use China Post, which is super cheap. Also, they can't predict how long the destination country's customs service will take to clear the item (or wave it through), since China Post doesn't use a broker like the regular couriers do. So, it may take a month, or it may take 10 days to receive your goods...

Would have liked to see a longer cable tested. These cheap cables are generally problematic when they are pushing the capabilities of the spec.

I think when it comes to high refresh monitors it becomes interesting. I had a lot of problems in the past with Displayport cables and also Thunderbolt cables. Some of them just don't reach for example 3840x1600 @ 144 Hz.

If you're looking for a fast SSD for testing. The combo I use for production is the ORICO-M2V01-C4-GY enclosure and the Samsung 2TB 970 Evo Plus. I get 2794 MB/s Write and 2638 MB/s Read when connecter to an M2 MacBook Air. I hope this if helpful.

New subscriber. Clear, concise and thoughtful explanations....thank you.

I think the best way for testing bandwidth of these cables, is to use high refresh rate 4k or qHD monitors and check they're using the maximum hz supported by the monitor. EDIT: no it's not (read replies here), but it's a useful test for checking the cable video output claimed specs

The display test came down to if a picture was displayed or not, no input lag, display tearing, high resolution or framerates support... The power test was performed on a charged device that wasn't demanding a high power draw from the charger. And the data speed test used a drive with speeds not even close to the capabilities of thunderbolt. This could just be a regular USB-C cable and nowhere in the test would you be able to detect if that is the case

Thanks for this very useful video !

Great video! really liked the style of this review

Hey love the way you use the camera and the angles of speaking to it. Creative!

Thanks for doing the tests for us.

I am no Apple fan but this cable takes the cake for super complexity under the skin. There is literally an entire set of micro circuits and a micro motherboard hiding encapsulated inside that fat plug. Maybe this is why they cost way more than other so called Thunderbolt 4 (USB-C) cables. First learned about this on Adam Savages Tested, A Look Inside Apple's $130 USB-C Cable.

@08:30 Yes... Working with a Developer setup with a Mac Mini and and an external Seagate Firecuda 520 2TB SSD PCIe Gen4X4 NVMe as the boot drive via Thunderbolt 4. Versus upgrading the MacMini with an over priced ssd. Getting around 2500mb read and write as the external boot drive compared to the internal Mac Mini nvme which is around 3100mb read and write.

You should have done a sustained data transfer like backing up/copying your home directory to that external drive, then formatting it and doing it again with a different cable.

congrats on 100K subs Alex!!! 🎉🚀

Excellent audio quality, nice job.

100K! Sweeeeeeeet! Well deserved, man, congrats!

I went through this process not long ago went I bought an external thunderbolt enclosure with an nvme m.2 drive. Went with own cable due to reputation for being good and lasting. No regrets

@Alex, as high frequencies run through a cable, especially longer cables, the higher frequencies tend to roll off. Think about it like this. You are listening to analog signals over a cable connected to your stereo. You use a 6 foot cable, and you can hear in your music, say Rhapsody on Blue, all of the horns bright and clear. You unplug that and you plug in a 250 cable, and you notice that the horns are not bright, they are almost dull sounding, maybe a little muffled. The other instruments, such as the drums, or harp or obo sound fine. With the very high frequencies capable of TB3/4 ( they cap at the same rate, with a very short cable, the capacitance of the cable isn't a factor, so if you want to drive a TB dock driving 2 6k monitors over one TB cable from the doc to the laptop, and it is a cheap short one, then you are likely to have no problem. However, if you take that same doc, and the same 2 6k monitors, and drive them over a 3 meter cable, the quality of the cable, the shielding, and even the insulator the wire is wrapped in, become immensely important. Since the tolerances of the materials are tighter, they are more expensive, mostly to guarantee longevity at a minimum performance. I noticed that the apple cable is stupid expensive, but it also the longest of all that were measured, and I am positive they are able to run at the full bandwidth of TB4, for many years. What you are paying for is quality of materials at extreme conditions, and longevity of said materials. Its funny that how we use cables today is extremely different than when I worked in Video Engineering with high def video decades ago, but how they charge for cables that handle extreme frequencies, hasn't. This was the simplest explanation, but I thought I would give a hint on why its so. If you were to get a longer cheap cable from AliExpress, and drive it hard ( video plus data likely being the hardest ) , you may see effects on your screen. Especially at high refresh rates.

I would love to see any test you come up with!

I am curious what a speed test with a faster ssd would be like. Also, maybe I should mention this. I bought a cheap thunderbolt 3 cable for $30 from Amazon about 2 years ago and it doesn't work with one of my monitor and an audio interface. I had to buy the more expensive Belkin one and that worked fine.

congrats alex on the 100k subs

Hi, what's the resistance values for Thunderbolt cables- comparing it to USB-C fast charger cables (w/ data). Does the cheap cable heat up at high wattage 100w? Is Thunderbolt cables better than USB-C? God bless.

thanks, very useful vid.

The apple cable has some pretty incredible engineering on the circuit board/ processors.

I have a Thunderbolt 2 Macbook Pro and bought a OWC Thunderbolt 4 Docking Station along with a Apple Thunderbolt 2 to Thunderbolt 3 adapter but my Computer does not recognize anything connected to the Dock. I was told the Dock would work with it hooked up this way, would you know if this is correct >?

Thank You for video

That was quite interesting. Regarding delivery I think they ship with ships :) And those can be delayed by months depending on weather est. I would also say that maybe they only go to the US when they have a full cargo hold so that could also count for delays.

Did you plug 2 x 4K monitors into the hub? i.e. did you test the difference between thunderbolt 3 vs 4

From about 6 years dealing with USB type-c including thunderbolt 4, cheap cables will degrade superfast if you use it on a daily basis. If you want to get a thunderbolt 3 or 4 cable that is more than 1 meter, make sure you got it with active chip not with passive chip. (learned that the hard way :D)

Nice honest Test

you should be testing on external GPU. That's how you pump up those speeds. Because for your test scenarios - even cheap USB Type-C cable would be plenty, lmao.

Thanks for the info and cheerful presentation, subscribed . 👍👍

Thanks for your sharing

Please test with a faster drive. You need to test the limit of the cables, you only tested the easy stuff.

Hi, are you able to check if the cheaper aliexpress cable is able to do 4k@120hz?

I need dozen of those mini ducks for debuging

The thing is to make the data rates quicker, the cable is usually one of the bottlenecks, as it isnt that easy to just send data with high frequency and or have high charging power that is also stable. The cables metal and especially the connectors resistance (that's why longer cables get especially expensive and rare) has to be more pure and near perfect to support those high rates and that comes at a higher price compared to older usb and thunderbolt versions. Luckily you will probably only ever need a thunderbolt hub and two or three cables and adapter for storage devices/lan cables or monitors and charging to profit from the combined connectivity of thunderbolt as even USB 3.2 from a hub is plenty fast for most stuff and storage/lan are probably the biggest use case for data thunderbolt 4 bandwidth and most thunderbolt hubs provide 100W power delivery while also providing plenty data bandwidth and ports for monitors, lan cables and storage devices. I guess it's a one time buy and enjoy kind of purchase, so it might be whise investing in a better hub that provides plenty of connectivity :-)

They do actually sell the apple thunderbolt 4 cable in a 1meter variant for 69.99(ive seen it on sale for 60). I think thats a more reasonable option if you just need a very reliable, high quality thunderbolt cable. Now if you need a longer cable that shit adds up real quick in price. It's a lot, but it is a really nice braided cable that should last a very long time.

Many of the items sold on Amazon are purchased in bulk by the sellers from AliExpress. Also, several of the different brands are made by a single manufacturer to the same specification, the only difference being the logo on the items.

Amazing class🎉

I think the power draw test can be improved in number of ways - laptop should have the same charge when the test starts for example 50% to remove the battery charge variable -if the laptop is not charging at the full power throw some benchmarks on it (some laptops while charging above certain %of charge use slow charging to decrease the wear on the batterys so throwing a bench mark uses the incoming powe there for it can be equal to the total Power usage of that device (Normally when plugged in laptops dont use battery)). Allow the systam to reach normal temps before testing the next cable to avoid thermal throtiling (batter or overall systam) as well. Also you could take two or more measurements to ensure there is no errors like the cheap cables storage speed test

Can you test if both work as a display cable for an external monitor? I would like to avoid paying $160 for the apple cable to use my monitor 3m away.

It's not about actual speed (it will be the same if cable is up to spec at all), it's about features. Apple's 2m cable is pretty special in that it has retimers for ALL of tb3, usb3, usb4. Normally cheap tb cables only do tb3 if they are over 2 meters (only usb 2 speeds if you are not using thunderbolt). Basically Apple cable is the ultimate usb-c cable. It can do everything at once, while with other ones you have to carefully check it it will support your usecases.

it's quite lovely seeing Bear Grills making tech videos !!

Was PCIe tested as I would think that is the biggest cost to support for the cable (at least what was shown in an Adam Savage video)?

Try to establish tcp ip connection using thunderbolt 4. I made it between MacBook m1 max and Mac m2 mini. No matter what I would do, which cable I would connect it sucks with 20gbps instead of 40gbps. I switched many tcp params including jumbo pockets and still 20gbps. So I don't understand the price

Would be interesting to know the difference in bluetooth interference of these cables, I had lots of lags on bluetooth speakers when using a cheap thunderbolt cable.

I dont know what this test was about ? These TB4 cables have 2 highlights, that is, data bandwidth and power bandwidth. You need to have necessary hardware to super load those bandwidth. You will need to have expensive over 5000MB/s speed nvme in an thunderbolt 3/4 enclosure to touch the transfer limit of these cables. 2-3$ cables will perform the same as what you showed. I like your videos tough and please continue making them. Thanks

FYI ... I owned an Apple sales // repair retail store for about 10 years. I can't confirm if this TB4 isn't 'better' ... etc, but CableMatters cables were my favorite, BAR NONE. They're made EXCEPTIONALLY WELL. Lasted longer than Apple -- and they're thinner (better flexibility). A++

Larger cables require an amplifier and that is exactly why they are so expensive. Perhaps in this case there is a huge difference, especially for use with devices such as audio interfaces.

My dude, congratulations on 100K!!! 🙌🏼 P.S. great test; it's REDICULOUS how expensive thunderbolt cables are.

Please keep being awesome. I know this comment is not related to the video, but I'm sending this to you. Please keep doing experiments and things related to ML and AI projects on those fast computers you have. Please keep doing not copying others. Congratulations on your 100K, you deserve more, and I hope double it in the coming months. Best,

Quick note, I see a lot of people ask, or compare thunderbolt to USB, prices/effects/why “this and that”. From my own experience, the thunderbolt cable specs do mater and the prices do reflect the specs ( especially if using things like EGPUS w. 2m cables.) There’s a noticeable issues/degradation when using an incorrect cable and the pricing deferential does reflect that. IT IS NOT “JUST” the typical CABLE scam. It is dependent on the use case. Personally, using thunderbolt for sustained small files I/O writes with thunderbolt3 m.2 external drives, I have not noticed any difference between cables (bandwidth doesn’t really stress it/ IO seems to be accurate over long periods 1~4 hours, huge swaths of differing data sizes… unlike usb). With EGPU’s I have had issue with cable type/spec/quality. When using non-active 2m thunderbolt cables there was evident degradation of application quality (ones that needed bi-directional throughput), ie gaming 10-20% frame-rate decrease + stuttering (using a EGPU vs internal for gaming is already at 10% frame loss already.) Applications that needed realtime rendering (UE4/5/EEVEE) also experienced temporary lockups/ poor user ui experiences. I never tested things like GPU rendering with non-spec cables, and I notice there is little difference I found from speed with internal PCIE. (USED: Aktio EGPUx2/imac pro/macbook pro 16…. w. 2080tix2 or Radeon7x2 or 3090x2 or 6900xt x2) Hardware matters too. I found with windows/pc/laptops thunderbolt integration/use to be a poor experience, ie laptops, most split the thunderbolt controllers, in many cases giving only 2 PCIE lanes per connection vs the full 4 you would get with most (if not all apple hardware?) As well as using adapters in-between your connection, ie hubs/interconnects, most if not all do not run to spec or are sharing/dividing resources through the same pipe slowing/causing new issues.

You need away faster drive to test out the two different cables. I’ve run into this issue with a cheaper cable only doing 20 Gb per second. When I purchased a better cable I got my 40 Gb per second. And the cheaper cable came with the dock and was supposed to do 40 Gb per second.

As someone who's living in South East Asia, I used Orico thunderbolt 4 cable and it works great with my WavLink TB3 dock!

Oh you love those mini ducks. They help you debug your code.🤓

The OWC Thunderbolt 4 cable that came with my OWC dock is terrible. It rattles around both in the dock itself and in my Mac, and it disconnects with the slightest touch.

Nice video bro!! please do a benchmark video on Microsoft Volterra!! thank you :D.

depends how customers consider what the durability really means to them. broken? same price you can buy it 12 times. considering this condition, cheap one gives us longer time of usage. And maybe, before we buy the 4th one, it is time to upgrade devices to thunderbolt 6. of course, comparing durability of a single cable, it is not rare that cheap one springily gives better durability. such as planed worn out of offical apple power cables.

oh hey, I have the tb4 owc dock. I got an air m1 on the cheap and having that extra tb-capable port has made it (the m1 air) an unexpected workstation.

the computer world is not getting a taste of what the audiophile marketing arm has perfected.

Charge the macbook while doing a cpu performance benchmark. I am curious if the cheap cable will catch fire.

Transferring 2K+ pictures and videos using the six inches cable USB 3.2/ Thunderbolt provided with the sandisk portable SSD from my Samsung 22 ultra to a 12 years old computer are darn fast, the photos and videos just blips one by one, you should try

This is the only Type C cable I purchase for use with my Apple host systems. Cable Matters [Intel Certified] 40Gbps Active Thunderbolt 4 Cable 6.6 ft with 100W Charging and 8K Video - Fully Compatible with USB C/USB-C, USB 4 / USB4, and Thunderbolt 3 $ 59.99 US. Works with whatever I plug into my Mac's.

Thunderbolt 4 can do 8k 60hz display support can you test that

Thanks Alex. Great video. Although AliExpress didn't mention it directly in their emails, I think they were trying to hint that if you buy and wear a wig from them while using this cable the performance of the cable would increase dramatically. Pink wigs are preferred and work best from what I've heard.

I need one for a power station car charger. Jackery 300 watt. Hope it works.

Could a cheap TB4 or TB3 cable damage your computer?

For some reason i am unable to buy some Anker or Benks products from Australia - I managed to get Anker 622 power bank from Ali Express for a similar price to what they charge in US - it has the Anker branding on it and works the same. Some products from there are the same - some not so good.

You should do a "DIY SSD" by getting a really fast NVMe and a 40gbps Thunderbolt 4 enclosure and then test that.

The video linked below takes the Apple cable apart & it amazed me the complexity & amount of components inside the plugs & amount of individual strands of wire in the cable. After seeing that it seems cheap. I wonder if the other cheaper cables have all the same components inside? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-LBWnb0ZIlEA.html

I have some opinion with your test! 1. Thunderbol 4 cable supposed to go with 40 Gbps(data can reach to 32Gbps), but you only test with 10Gbps SSD....,that makes no different a lot of cable can do that. 2. The Thunderbolt 4 supposed can connect two monitor with "4K" ,does the cheaper one can do that? I doubt that. 3. I was wondering when you plug a lot of divices on thunderbolt dock and connect with Thunderbolt 4 cable was both test the same?

Basically those Apple cable are made in China as well for 1-3 dollars and with some certification cost maybe Max 7-10 dollars. But it is basically the same product.

The apple cable is for sure superior. Cheap cables have solder voids which cause impedance variations, the wire has impurities in it, less copper, cheaper chips and the list goes on. You will get slower data speeds. slower charging. And audio will not sound as good either. I use apple TB4 for my studio interface and it does make a difference.

Now aliexpress got competitors temu everything dirt cheap. I don't know about shipping cost and how long it's going to arrive.

To test the power draw, you absolutely have to drain the battery to actually *charge* it, otherwise there isn't any power going anywhere. If the battery is full, it's not going to accept charge it doesn't need. The cables at least provide power, but any USB cable could do 10W. Most USB C cables should do 60W, and you need a particular chip for 100W. I'd suggest actually draining the MacBook down to 20% or lower to actually do any sort of charging test. You'd also want an actual ThunderBolt SSD to get any useful speed tests out of it, or a dedicated monitor as another comment suggested, as that can properly saturate the bandwidth.

"Focus Alex" 😄

First off, there's a huge difference between a USB-c cable and an Apple USB-c Thunderbolt cable. A lot of USB-c cables work for charging a device, but they don't transfer data. A company called Lumafield did a Cat Scan of a bunch of cables. The Apple cable had a mini circuit board with a micro processor and about 20 wires inside that little handle. The knockoffs were mostly just wires soldered to a connector. There is a reason why the Apple cables cost so much more. The Thunderbolt cable is a data transfer cable. If all you want to do is recharge a device, get a quality USB-c cable.

I had a Drobo. I went through cables almost as quickly as my iPhone.

Could you compare the orico with 240 watt, thunderbolt 4. 40gbps. ? I paid 37.00

These types of videos are a nice addition to your usual content. Excellent review - helpful to see other "expensive" cables and cords that developers use!

Thanks for the video! Really didn't expect the Aliexpress cable to work! I had exactly this dilemma a few weeks ago - ended up going with the OWC cable.

I go to Ali express like everyday . The marketplace is so cool

Just a comment about using Ali Express vs Amazon. They seem to have a ton of sellers offering the same item you’re shopping for and the description of the item requires some careful scrutiny before clicking on the ‘purchase now’ button. Next is the estimated delivery date. As they are shipped out of China delivery to your actual address can be very difficult to accurately predict. Im in Canada on the west coast but my delivery from China has to go first to a main distribution centre in the eastern part of Canada, clear customs and then redirected to the western part of the country to my address and that adds to the actual delivery time- sometimes by as much as 10 days! On the whole my experience has been positive, but it requires a lot of patience on my part

Hey Alex! any word on that Dev kit (project voltera) video yet? :D

I don't know but if you have the kind of money to buy a thunderbolt compatible device in the first place why would you cheap out on the cables and accessories is my question? Personally, if I were to buy cable I buy it from a known brand.

You didn’t mention active vs. passive cables either.. Those with the I-marker chips can take full advantage of theoretical maximum data (and power?) transfer rates, but those without cannot past around a foot. The active ones cost more than the passive ones also

ANKER is a good brand. However, the quality of the Apple cable is off the charts.

Waiting time one month is common. Crappy quality is normal. When shopping on Aliexpress you have to know what you are looking for quite well. Fakes are also common. I think you should have included comparisons with tb3 and usb-c?

I doubt the cable will last long under heavy use. These are active cables with electronics inside them - not just a wire with connectors so there's certainly a lot more components that could go wrong.

Why did you not just used some battery in the Macbook and testing charge properly?!

Hey Alex, any thoughts on testing or verifying if a cable like this might come with compromising components before connecting it to personal devices?

way to go making a video about a cable very entertaining

For max power delivery you can run benchmark while connecting directly to 140w charger. For speed you can connect it to your owc dock and run multiple disk transfer, if you wanna know the speed without thunderbolt drive. I got similar cheap thunderbolt cable and they performed similar to the apple cable in term of speed, but i only have the macbook air so cant testvtje power delivery. For longer than 2 meters i will not trust this cheap cable though.

Wished you open up the cheap ones so we can see inside.

i purchased a brand name headphone cable from Ali to test it... It looked legit but way cheaper - also with many positive reviews. Once received and comparing it to the original cable sound-wise, it was obviously counterfit as the sound quality was terrible. So buyer beware. It's not always the case, but I would imagine that there are a lot of copied or no-name items where the quality is less. However there are also some good products that are much cheaper from overseas as sometimes, its just a case of a business importing the item from overseas and making profit in your local country by selling it for a lot more.