5 ms·
> A USB 3.1 Gen 1 cable built and sold in 2015 would have been advertised to support 5Gbps operation in 2015. Fast forward to 2019 or 2020, that exact same phys
by Dunedan 7y ago
> A USB 3.1 Gen 1 cable built and sold in 2015 would have been advertised to support 5Gbps operation in 2015. Fast forward to 2019 or 2020, that exact same physical cable (Gen 1), will actually allow you to hit 20gbps using USB4.
I was prepared for most of the details, but that caught me by surprise. So you can't trust what a cable is marked with or advertised for by its manufacturer, but have to check every cable using software.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoI am not seeing why a cable performing better than marked/advertised (20 instead of 5) is a problem?
- Spivak 7y agoIt’s not really a problem but it means that old cables that might be labeled 5G actually are the same as the new cables labeled 20G. It just means that someone who is holding a USB-C cable can’t actually trust the markings printed on the wire to know it’s capabilities — you have to plug it into a computer to find out.
- irishsultan 7y agoYou can trust it's label when it says it's capable of 5G (or at least you can as much as you could before USB4). It's possible that it will perform better, but unless you have a use case where it needs to be slow I'm not sure why this erodes trust.
- diffeomorphism 7y agoI can totally trust the cable to give me at least 5gbs. Otherwise this is like complaining that my food does not immediately spoil after the best by date. That is the opposite of a problem.
- kayfox 7y agoI don't see how this is any different than Cet5 cables made when 100Base-TX was the standard and now work with 1000Base-T at 10x the speed. The cable was marketed based on the available standards at the time and now theres faster standards.