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USB 4 version 2 promises 80 Gbps speeds over existing cables
- sylware 4y agoHow fast could we could with a 2nm USB controller? Actually, what is the limiting electronic part?
- NotYourLawyer 4y agoWill it also fail (or silently degrade) over certain cables that look exactly like the cables that work fine? That’s my favorite USB C feature.
- 0xbadc0de5 4y agoThe cynic in me sometimes enjoys the irony of watching USB become the fragmented ecosystem of loosely (or not) compatible interconnects that it was designed to replace. (ok, it's not quite /that/ bad, but you get the sentiment)
- nine_k 4y agoIt's like a mountain range: the base is rock-solid, but the peaks (in speed, power, capabilities, even length) are standing apart.
- psurge 4y agoAnd successfully scaling different peaks requires using different kinds of safety rope. Helpfully, the different ropes all look exactly the same.
- thrown_22 4y agoSounds like we should add some type of visual guide to help people realize which ropes to use. Maybe make their physical shapes different enough so that you can't connect things which fail catastrophically together?
- nine_k 4y agoThe thing is that they never fail catastrophically; t worst you get USB 2.0 level of interoperability. But if you wan these top Mbps or W, or want 60 Hz 4k video, you may find out that not everything works with everything else, and proper cables play a crucial role, while being visually not distinctive at all.
- Pxtl 4y agoIt's so much worse than what it replaced because physical incompatibility meant you had no confusion. A VGA cable was a VGA cable, a power port was a power port, a ps/2 mouse was a ps/2 mouse. The only thing it improved over was the hellscape if charging ports.
- nomel 4y agoYou just need the secret logo decoder card: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usb-c/USB-Type-C/main/pics/USB-IF_Logos_Chart.jpg https://raw.githubusercontent.com/usb-c/USB-Type-C/main/pics...
- radicaldreamer 4y agoHardly any of these cables are labeled properly. Even Apple has a Thunderbolt 3 and Thunderbolt 4 cable that it sells for $150 without any difference in the labeling.
- buildbot 4y agoIs there a difference from the cable point of view with thunderbolt 3 vs 4?
- KerrAvon 4y agoI have many USB-C cables; zero of them are labeled with those icons.
- nomel 4y agoAh, you need the scratch and sniff version of this card. My only complaint is how subtle the difference is between between the smell of the 45W fast and regular charging cables.
- bb88 4y agoAlso that list excludes the thunderbolt versions which have a thunderbolt and a number. There are some cables that show the power throughput [1], I would like to see cables that show data throughput as well. [1] https://www.amazon.com/Charging-Display-Wattage-Braided-Transmission/dp/B09P9SYYLV https://www.amazon.com/Charging-Display-Wattage-Braided-Tran...
- Pxtl 4y agoLet's put resister color codes on the wires, 2 sets of 3 bars (digit digit exponent), 1 for megabytes and 1 for milliamps. So red black yellow space green black red is 20 gb 5 amps.
- chiph 4y agoI seem to recall that back in the early days of USB, the organization would hold a conference where all the vendors brought their devices, and everyone would go around testing compatibility with everyone else's devices. Often by making the most convoluted device configuration tree possible (because that's what the users would do). Myself, I ran into an incompatibility for the first time ever last week in over 24 years of using USB devices. A new Thinkpad with Windows 10 would lock up it's USB bus if I plugged a USB speaker in using the hub on my Dell monitor. Hooking it up directly worked fine. These are all "legacy" USB 3.0 devices with Type A and Type B connectors, and have worked for years with other computers (PC + Mac). What a shitshow USB has become.
- dismalpedigree 4y agoI also had a situation where a usb device was able to lock up the bus last week. Windows 10, dell dock, usb 3.0 hub. Same setup worked fine 3 weeks ago. I almost wonder if there was some Windows driver update causing it.
- ajsnigrutin 4y agoI'd be happy if a USB-C charger actually charged USB-C devices, even at a degraded (500mA) rate... but even that's not a 100%. And i'm not alone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDPtcKycQeI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDPtcKycQeI
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- nomel 4y ago> over existing cables Over existing Thunderbolt 4 cables, it appears. So not USB 2.0, USB 3.1 Gen 1, or USB 3.1 Gen 2 cables.
- yjftsjthsd-h 4y agoSo, is that USB 4.2, or is the numbering system just sort of made up?
- nicoburns 4y agoThe numbering system is completely made up, and wildly inconsistent. Apparently it's intentionally confusing because the hardware manufacturers that control the USB group like it that way.
- cromka 4y agoAnd then people are surprised when free market yet again proves it doesn’t like standardization, so bodies like EU have to step in. Probably a matter of time before they do on that matter, too.
- kukx 4y agoWhat about RJ45? Why it did not require any bureaucratic regulations to become the standard connector in network devices? I am convinced the less regulation in trivial matters the better.
- toast0 4y agoIt was an existing standard, already mass produced that was unencumbered, convenient, and sufficient. Wired networking standardization tends to be lead by groups that want to use the technology and also sell it, rather than by groups that mostly want to sell it. There still were four competing 100M ethernet standards, and now a fifth 100Base-T1 has appeared (but targetting specific niches). If all that changed between USB1.0 and USB 4 version 2 (or wtf it ends up being called) was twisting the pairs more (more or less), the cabling issues would be less too.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
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- Covzire 4y agoI hope they innovate a way to make the naming scheme even more confusing. I humbly propose: USB 4.0Gen 0a (USB 1.0 speeds) USB 4.0Gen 0b (USB 2.0 speeds) USB 4.0Gen 1 (also USB 2.0 speeds) USB 4.0Gen 1z (USB 1.0 speeds again) USB 4.0 (20 Gbps) USB 4.0e (40 Gbps) USB 4.0Gen 2a (also 40Gbps) USB 4.0Gen 2e (80 Gbps) USB 4.0Gen 2f (charging only)
- akira2501 4y agoNot far off from something like: IEEE 802.11af-2013. Which I like to read with the "af" translated the popular parlance of it's time.
- mtgx 4y ago
- oneplane 4y agoThey could also just make all those compatibilities non-optional. Problem solved. Want USB 2.0 but not USB 3.0 or 4.0? Just put a USB 2.0 port on the damn device. Want USB 4.0 but faster? Name it USB 5.0. USB 1.0, 1.1, 2.0 all used the same plug and nobody is confused about that. Same applies to USB-C and USB 4: either you implement it (fully) or if you don't want to: implement legacy USB instead.
- jorvi 4y agoA 1.8 meter USB-C 60w charging cable can go for as cheap as €7. That same cable with high speed bandwidth will set you back €20-35. Please don’t force everyone to buy (relative) very expensive cables if all they wanna do is charge their phone.
- oneplane 4y agoMaybe we should have thought of that ahead of time. USB-C with USB 3, 4 and Thunderbolt just pushed us back into RS232 DB-9 territory where the plug doesn't mean anything anymore, and while a lot of things might physically fit, you won't be able to predict what's going to happen, or if anything will even happen at all. That cheap cable probably also has an even cheaper variant that simply sets itself on fire if you put more than 10W through it. And that variant might only support USB 2.0 and as such transfer speeds are so bad people now have to think in terms of 'which one was my slow cable'.
- sen 4y agoAt this point the naming convention has to be purposely obtuse. Some attempt at rage-bait marketing or something.
- rowanG077 4y agoI honestly don't get why they would not just call it USB 5. If every new non-backwards compatible USB feature would just be a new USB version number none of this insanity with naming would occur. Slap a unique color on the logo to identify the cable and you would be golden.
- jl6 4y ago> The press release says that the update is “specifically targeted to developers at this time,” with final branding and marketing guides (including things like logos) to come later. I choose to believe that there is still time to fix all this. Here is what they need to do: * Specify a set of power tiers: 15W, 30W, 100W. * Specify a set of bandwidth tiers: 10Gbps, 20Gbps, 40Gbps, 80Gbps * Specify a set of icons representing protocol capabilities (e.g. “DP” for DisplayPort) * Mandate that every port and cable is labelled with those two numbers and any associated icons. * Call it USB 5. * Drop all the “2x2” and “version 2” and “Gen2” and “SuperSpeed+” terminology. Apologies if I forgot some dimension of USB functionality.
- imtringued 4y agoRather than damn names they should use colours like they did with USB 3.0
- dwaite 4y ago* Superspeed is the bandwidth tiers - 5, 20, 40, and 80 soon. High speed and Basic speed are for older and/or simpler devices (defined by USB 2.0). * They do specify power tiers, 15W is the minimum for chargers, 30W I believe is the minimum for power delivery cables, with cables being additionally certified (and marked) for 60W, 120w and 240W. * A certified cable with USB-C ports on both ends should be a USB cable, full-stop. Negotiation of alt modes is up to the devices on both ends. The problem is that there are a lot of vendors that use garbage terms like USB 3.2 2x2, which were never meant for the market at all. I suspect this is usually a consequence of those products not actually being certified, and thus avoiding using the official marks. IMHO, that there was anything publicly talking about "USB 3.2 2x2" is a side effect of the USB-IF not having the teeth to enforce use of the "USB" mark. Vendors would start using the right terms and running basic conformance if, say, they found they were no longer able to get their products imported. But the Implementers Forum is made up of the same vendors who are shipping broken devices, cheap charging cables, and motherboards with spec-invalid ports. When many people talk about USB 3.2, people assume there is some sort of semantic versioning of the port or cables itself. Thats not how specs work - everything which was USB 3.0 compliant is USB 3.2 compliant. If you want to mandate new things or break old ones, you create a new version like USB4. Many people have the same problem with HDMI 2.1a - there is no device certified with HDMI 2.0 that is incompatible with HDMI 2.1a. Thus, advertising 2.1a support means _nothing_ compared to advertising HDMI 2 support in general. It was a marketing failure that the HDMI licensing organization allowed vendors to use version numbers to imply _anything_, vs advertising that the devices you are connecting support features like 8K/60 or VRR.
- catdog 4y agoUSB 4.2.1 Gen 100 v12 SuperMegaHyperSpeed?
- jiggawatts 4y agoHere's a wild suggestion: Call it USB 5 instead of USB 4 v2 Gen III mode 80 or whatever madness the USB consortium keeps coming up with.
- guyzero 4y agoThey got scared by what happened to IP v5
- 8n4vidtmkvmk 4y agoThere was a 5?
- isatty 4y agoExactly. Though it wasn’t exactly more bits or what v6 solves: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Stream_Protocol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internet_Stream_Protocol
- Hnus 4y agoIs there some official document describing USB naming convention or reasoning behind those seemingly randomly chosen combinations of numbers and letters? Usually when products have confusing names you can at least see how by deceiving the customer its benefiting the whoever is making the product but with USB cables??
- dismalpedigree 4y agoI doubt it, but if there was I would expect it to be several thousand pages of highly technical jargon.
- moondev 4y agoPretty incredible that this will work with existing 40Gbps cables. Does this indicate that you can potentially hook up a PCIE 4.0 x4 or PCI 3.0 x8 enclosure over USB4v2?
- keepquestioning 4y agoOh my god. What's the fundamental limit for data speed over a cable?
- bismuthcrystal 4y agoSearch for Shannon's theorem and twisted pair cable bandwidth.
- capableweb 4y agoWhat's the fundamental limit of the length of a rope?
- BuckRogers 4y agoPrice. You can multiplex as much as you want. See the undersea internet connections.
- whatever1 4y agoI don’t care about the name. Can you please write the version on the cable? I have a dozen of USBc cables in my drawer and I have no idea what each one is capable of.
- derefr 4y ago1. It's either a regular USB-C cable or a Thunderbolt (USB4) cable. If it's a Thunderbolt cable, it'll have a large, long, square strain-relief section behind the connector (there are active logic components inside this part.) Otherwise it won't. 2. The charging speed is fundamentally constrained by how thick the cable is. So thick cables are very likely fast-charge cables (they wouldn't spend the extra money on lower-gauge copper if they weren't going to need it for something), and thin cables definitely aren't.
- CWuestefeld 4y agoThere are lots of charge-only USB-C cables, without the data lines connected.
- Dylan16807 4y agoAnyone making those doesn't care about the spec. The single slow data pair is really easy to put in.
- Gigachad 4y agoThose are usually recognizable because they are about 10cm long.
- Dylan16807 4y agoI don't think that works. Plenty of thunderbolt cables are passive. Also there are cables that bulk up on insulation to pretend to be more premium.
- stephen_g 4y agoI think all Thunderbolt cables are actually active, it’s just the chips at each end are pretty tiny so for a lot of cables you wouldn’t know it’s hiding inside the connector.
- mabbo 4y agoGenuine question: does anyone here have a use case for 80Gbps? Maybe some kind of very high end VR headset?
- magixx 4y agoHigh resolution monitors can take up quite a bit of bandwidth.
- imtringued 4y agoAnd you can plug more than one into your docking station.
- NegativeK 4y agoPCIE 5.0 NVME is supposed to hit up to 14GB/s. I would absolutely love to have full speed external NVME drives.
- kissiel 4y ago6k@120Hz
- causality0 4y agoIt's getting so I see a port or a cable and I have no goddamn idea what it can do.
- efitz 4y agoI don’t want usb4 cables. USB-C was a cluster** when launched with varying levels of compatibility and interoperability that you couldn’t tell by looking at the cable. T3 and T4 also look identical to USB-C except for the thunderbolt icon; how you differentiate T3 from T4 without plugging it in is beyond me. The USB folks have a good thing in USB-C at the current 3.X revision. Let it simmer for a while. Introduce Thunderbolt 5 if someone really needs that kind of bandwidth, but let USB4 mature before inflicting it on the world.
- noahtallen 4y agoI figured USB4 was the way to know for sure that you had a good version, without dealing with all the BS from 3.
- pdimitar 4y agoWe don't have actual standardizing bodies with teeth so enforcing anything is just not happening. I'll never miss communism but the fact is that here in Eastern Europe we had an actual agency that vetted various cheese and milk and sausage products with class A, B, C etc. You knew what you were getting for your money. I miss that. At one point the world has to return to it -- constantly swindling the consumers is not a sustainable business strategy.
- BuckRogers 4y agoThat’s interesting. Eastern European perspectives always are. We do have “grade A” eggs and such (in the US). It requires a balance of free market and regulations. Tough to strike the right mix. I’m a free market, no government intervention guy for non-necessities like phones. Less a fan of such an approach on basics. Still needs to be lighter touch. Food should be heavier handed since it leads to healthcare outcomes and productivity losses.
- londons_explore 4y agoWe need cable self testing.... I want my computer to warn me if I plug in a faulty cable. Or a cable that is preventing some functionality of the device - eg. Lowering speeds or charging slower than it could.
- RadixDLT 4y agodoes that mean the cables are going to get hot?
- watersb 4y agoUSB 5G
- mjan22640 4y agoDear USB Committee, please bump the major version on major technical improvements, else shopping for the desired performance gadgets becomes a nightmare. Thank you!
- snird 4y agoPeople here and in media seems to be only obsessed about the naming scheme. But I have an important question I haven't seen anyone address - does the 80 Gbps performance means the eGPUs will be that much less constraint? Will this enable true gaming and AI work with a laptop connected to an eGPU?
- ephbit 4y agoSeriously .. the world is going up in flames .. and at the same time there's all these people walking around in the global west who're apparently hooked on gigapixels and ever more bandwidth/storage space/gigaherz and so on .. it's so f*** up. An example of a slower and less dumb way to run our ecosphere into the ground: I convert all podcasts I listen and want to keep to opus @ 20 kbit/s which on average results in 1/5 of the original file size.
- tgv 4y agoConversion also costs energy. Save more energy by not listening to podcasts. But that's the cheap shot at your slightly ranting arguments. USB isn't going to run us into the ground. Transport uses up so incredibly much more energy, almost none of which comes from sustainable sources at the moment. Cooling and heating too, obviously. Don't worry about a better USB cable if you're really concerned with the environment.
- ephbit 4y ago> Transport uses up so incredibly much more energy, ... True. I never claimed otherwise. > ...almost none of which comes from sustainable sources at the moment. I know. The world is roughly at 80 % fossil energy right now, as far as I remember. Trust me on this, energy is one of the topics I spend time reading and thinking about several times a day. > Don't worry about a better USB cable if you're really concerned with the environment. Here's the thing. It's about this mentality of: this small thing here doesn't really matter. But people in this "ever more culture" reliably put one "small thing" after the other in their basket of consumption capacity .. until it's full. These people ask "I can have more, why shouldn't I?" rather than "I can have more, do I really want/need more?" Do you enjoy watching your movie at 8k 4 times more than at 4k because it comes with 4x the pixels? If you do, I pity you. I recently watched some Linus Tech Tips video where he installs their 1 PB of storage and boasts about their new camera that can record videos with a data rate of 300 MB/s ... 1 TB per 3 seconds ... yeah! ... sorry (not sorry), despite all my fascination with tech, this attitude is just so heinously wasteful and damaging. As if these hundreds of HDDs hadn't taken any ressources and weren't consuming quite a bit of electricity. Again .. > Don't worry about a better USB cable if you're really concerned with the environment. I don't worry about the cable. I worry about the f*** up culture/attitude.
- jbverschoor 4y agoWell it can't handle proper displayport 1.4 without hickups..
- nuker 4y agoI just bought a USB SSD 2TB with USB3.2 gen 2x2 (20 Gbps). Almost no computers today support 2x2. Will future USB4 devices support it or 2x2 is a dead end in USB development?
- jhoelzel 4y agoI wonder at what point internal components go external again. Imagine having a slot for an usb-stick in your notebook, which contains your hard drive. Laptop broken? take your usb-stick and a new Laptop and off you go working again. Actually I just realized thats what I want. Want a backup? put stick in Nas and wait 30 minutes. Want a new PC? take your win10 install and go. Private surfing on employer hardware? Put the stick into the machine and remove the other one. PS: I do realize that booting from USB is a thing since a long time, this "vision" is more like an actual end to end concept and, you know, 80GB ps ;)
- ansgri 4y agoThe Framework laptop sorta has it -- it has 4 bays for 'modules' which are actually USB-C interfaces of some fast variety, and you can put a bootable 1TB SSD there.
- KingOfCoders 4y agoI wish for color coded rings around the cable to show capabilities. I got 50 and d* are those icons in black on black small, if there are any.