22 ms·

USB4 v2 is also 120 Gbps

• bee_rider 4y ago
  We should really mandate little bands on USB cables, like resistors have, to tell us their properties.
• pmalynin 4y ago
  When are we going to hear about USB4.1 2x2 Gen 1 V2? Surely that will be compatible with existing cables.
  • deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  • bxparks 4y ago
    I think you are joking about "USB4.1 2x2 Gen 1 V2", but I can't tell. USB naming is messed up.
    • marcosdumay 4y ago
      I think it's only a matter of they renaming every model every time the standard is updated. So models come with $standard_version $standard_revision $main_model_version $minor_model_version, and there are different sets of all of those numbers that refer to the same thing. Or maybe they have another naming schema orthogonal to that that I don't know about.
    • MBCook 4y ago
      To make it less confusing they’ll be moving to the old WiFi style names. The new versions will be called, in order: USB-A, USB-B, USB-R, USB-CZ, USB-L2, USB-S, then USB-D. To avoid confusion they’ll use the same physical port, which is now Type-C, but renamed Type-1138. USB-D is somewhat theoretical as we’re likely to go through more renaming by then. But I digress. It’s important to note each version of the standard supports both active (“o”) and passive (“u”) variants depending on distance. Power levels are a simple scale of 10^nth milliwatts, expressed as a Roman numeral for readability. So I = 10mw, II = 100mw, etc. Soon you can buy a highly advanced passive USB cable capable of delivering 10kW to your car for charging. USB-SuX.
      • deleted 4y ago
        [deleted]
      • Dalewyn 4y ago
        Thanks, I hate it.
      • ffhhj 4y ago
        Waiting for USB-BSU
        • MerelyMortal 4y ago
          Sounds like a knock-off of NTSF:SD:SUV:: (a great show by the way)
          • whynaut 4y ago
            when I see that many letters, I just think Law and Order.
      • drdaeman 4y ago
        But in the end they'll "restart" it and call it just "USB".
    • jeroenhd 4y ago
      On consumer devices, this would be "USB4 120Gbps". Look for this when you're in the store. If you're designing circuit boards or writing drivers, you'll need the full spec. Assuming the new spec pushes 60Gbps over a single lane, that would be "USB 4 Gen 4x2" going by the USB spec. Two lanes (x2) at the new lane type (4), part of the new USB 4 spec. A device only capable of driving a single new fancy lane would be "USB 4 Gen 4x1".
    • CuriousCosmic 4y ago
      This kills me because USB naming is actually super straightforward. USB3.0, USB3.1, and USB3.2 are spec revisions. USB3.1 (and 3.2) support Gen 1 and Gen 2 physical layer/transmission modes (gen 1 is 8b/10b encoding and gen2 is 128b/132b encoding). USB3.2 adds support for using the extra differential pair in the cables to transmit data. So now you get x1 and x2 which correspond to the number of lanes available for data transmission (akin to PCIE x1, x4, x8, and x16). So USB3.2 gen 2 x2 is just the USB3.2 standard using 128b/132b encoding over 2 lanes. The problem is that everyone decided to use the tech spec identifiers rather than the consumer identifiers for labeling products. If you are in engineering working on making the product which uses USB ports, then you would look for ICs that support USB3.2 gen2x2 operation but if you are selling a consumer product, you are supposed to label it as a USB3 SS+ 20Gbps port.
  • Dalewyn 4y ago
    The touted 80gbps one is presumably USB4 Gen4x2x2 (or Gen4x4?), this is presumably USB4 Gen4x3x1 or something. No, I don't even know. Can we please just call them fucking USB11 and USB12 or something?
    • sophacles 4y ago
      No, V1 of the USB versioning scheme has been deprecated for several versioning scheme versions now.
      • bee_rider 4y ago
        The simple solution is to specify which versioning scheme you referring to when talking about USB, so USB4 Gen4x2x2(V1)
        • LexGray 4y ago
          Even easier. Just have the EU mandate that everybody will be required this year to support USB4 Gen4x2x2(v1) on all devices. This will solve everything!
    • Dylan16807 4y ago
      The number after the x is the number of lanes, FYI.
    • jeroenhd 4y ago
      80gbps is a bit of a weird one. To work with 120gbps, that would imply that 80gbps is two lanes and 120gbps is three lanes in a single cable. I suppose this is possible with the type C connector as it has plenty of pairs. This would make USB4 80gbps (the sticker you see on the box) USB4 Gen 4x2, as there are two lanes of the fourth lane type. The 120Gbps one contains three lanes of the fourth lane version, or USB4 Gen 4x3. There's no need for USB11 and USB12. Look at the 10/20/40/80/120Gbps sticker on the box. That tells you all you need to know.
      • Dalewyn 4y ago
  • metadat 4y ago
    But what revision? R1 or R1.31? If you use an R1 cable on a 1.31 device, you may end up with a brick, or even worse a fire. Before plugging them in, I always dissect open the ends of my cables and examine the chips under a microscope just to be certain. Sometimes a delid is also needed, in such instances I head over to Ken Shirriff's house. :P
  • al2o3cr 4y ago
    Personally, I'm waiting for USB4 HD Chain of Memories 358/2 Birth by Sleep Remix Final Chapter Prologue 2.0
    • ArcMex 4y ago
      Wow, this comment is a sight for Soras
  • dheera 4y ago
    I dunno but why can't we just use fiber already
    • jabbany 4y ago
      Doesn't pass power? A huge chunk of the newer USB protocols has also been support for higher wattage faster charging.
      • dheera 4y ago
        So put power? You can run fiber right alongside 50 amp high voltage cables if you want without any signal corruption issues whatsoever. For practical purposes they'd need just {fiber, 19VDC, GND}, and none of the schengens that USB-C has. No shielding issues, no signal corruption issues, nothing. And you could run it for kilometers.
        • dTal 4y ago
          You need at least 5V DC for backwards compatibility with devices that expect that.
          • dheera 4y ago
            No, you don't. Get an adapter with a voltage converter, just like you would if you need to plug a 120V-only device in a 240V outlet. 120VAC outlets have not changed in 60 years and that's owing to the fact that they output just straight-up power, no negotiation BS.
            • cesarb 4y ago
              > 120VAC outlets have not changed in 60 years Where I live, 120VAC outlets last changed less than 20 years ago, with the adoption of the new NBR 14136 standard for plugs and sockets.
            • eternityforest 4y ago
              Voltage converters are big and not that reliable at the consumer level. Putting the power supply in something replacable is a good thing. Going from 19 to 5 would be an extra conversion step. Plus, 19v is too low. USB does 48v for the 240W mode. You could use more current, but then you are wasting copper and making connectors bigger and heavier. I used to not be a fan of negotiation but it seems that it's highly reliable these days, stuff isn't getting fried because of incorrect voltage selection.
  • joshstrange 4y ago
    I was SURE they had learned their lesson after the clusterfuck that was 3.1/3.2 but no, right back at the same shit again. It's hard to see this as anything but purpose-built to make it harder to tell what a cable is capable of (a huge boon to scammers, aka: 90% of cable sellers). If the USB-IF had half a brain between them all (clearly they don't) they would require the data/charging/etc specs to be printed on the cable. Instead they spend their time coming up with confusing standards that are indecipherable to the average person which lead to a shitty world where everyone needs a cable tester to know what a cable is capable of, or they have constant bad experiences with a cable that fits the port but underperforms if it works at all. I've heard some people say this is because it's all marketing-driven vs engineering-driven, if that's the case the fire the whole department because they suck at marketing. It's gotten to the point the only cables I can trust are from Anker and even those suffer from lack of labeling on them.
    • bravura 4y ago
      Can you recommend a reliable cable tester?
      • joshstrange 4y ago
        I wish, I've looked a little but part of the problem is the new specs. I doubt many testers can be "forward compatible" to be able to test new specs before they exist. I have an old USB-A tester I used but it's obviously useless for USB-C and all it's specs. Even then, the old tester I have just tells you the speed/wattage, not the max, it's more for monitoring than testing. At some point I'll just have to bite the bullet and get whatever is on the market and hope there aren't new specs right around the corner.
        • edude03 4y ago
          I believe Totalphase tests signal integrity instead of specifically what kind of cable it is - which solves the forward compatibility problem but their stuff is very expensive for the home user
      • 4y ago
  • RicoElectrico 4y ago
    ... & Knuckles (tm) But in all seriousness, this is one of the worst things marketer types make us suffer. Breaking consistency of naming and numbering. EACH and EVERY model series of ANYTHING successful just has to break the pattern at some time. Remember when Nokia phones had 4-digit model numbers, optionally with "i"? Then Nseries and Eseries arrived which all had Symbian, but confusingly enough they continued to make 4-digit models with Symbian in parallel. They also started "classic" and "slide" series which often reused other unrelated model numbers. Around 2010 they changed it all to a hot mess like X3-02, C3-01, then came 3-digit optionally with Asha in front. Thankfully they were not as creative with Lumia which had 3-digit or 4-digit models.
    • rcthompson 4y ago
      USB4.1 2x2 Gen 1 V2 & Knuckles requires you to plug the cable into a special active adapter that then plugs into the device.
  • chx 4y ago
    They did learn their lesson. The marketing name for USB4 cables are simply USB4® 20Gbps and USB4® 40Gbps https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb4_language_product_and_packaging_guidelines_final__0.pdf https://www.usb.org/sites/default/files/usb4_language_produc... These version numbers are internal. Products will be called USB4® 80Gbps.
    • okanat 4y ago
      The USB3 names were also internal (Proper marketing terms were Superspeed 5/10/20 Gbps). However motheboard manufacturers loved technobable as marketting.
  • noisy_boy 4y ago
    If you make things compatible, how will you sell more things?
• deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
• bastawhiz 4y ago
  Is there a reason (other than design by committee) that USB is so complicated? You need to have the right kinds of connectors, cables, and device support. The speeds you get vary for any number of reasons. Why didn't someone just say "all the cables are fast and charge good and if you want slow or bad, use old USB"? It seems we've found the worst possible situation, where consumers don't understand what they need or can use or why, and instead of making it easier, we get the second version of the fourth version which has multiple versions that all do different things under different circumstances.
  • chrisseaton 4y ago
    > all the cables are fast Wouldn't that be massively expensive? I don't need my charging able to cost that much.
    • bastawhiz 4y ago
      Sure, then have a charging flavor and a data flavor. Put a special little logo on the connectors. Why do we need such a complicated spectrum of things that plug into each other but don't work well for data or power?
      • chrisseaton 4y ago
        > Sure, then have a charging flavor and a data flavor. Well that's what they do - and then an X flavour and a Y flavour, etc, and that's how we ended up where we are.
        • joshstrange 4y ago
          > Put a special little logo on the connectors. We absolutely don't do this. All my USB-C connector cables look identical, it's utter madness.
          • chrisseaton 4y ago
            Yeah we didn't do the icon part. But the original comment said make them all the same, then we figured out why that's not practical.
• rektide 4y ago
  Does anything else use PAM3? PAM4 is all over the place (PCIe 6.0 from this winter, 25/100/200 Gbe, GDDR6X, I forget who else but more), but PAM3... apparently once was used for 100BASE-T4[1]. That's 100 mbit, not Gbit, not 1000Mbit, 100 mbit. Just so excellent that the USB4 nee-Thunderbolt tunneled/packet-switched architecture means that, if we do get a speed bump, that boost is a win for displays, storage, egpus connected via displayport, thunderbolt, what-have-you. (Not necessarily for those devices, but the % of throughput they consume diminishes respectively). The leap to USB4 is a huge shift, but tunneling/packet-switching has so many downstream benefits. I'm sure to be downvoted, but- grasping the third rail here: does anyone else tire of every time USB being mentioned, the thread turning into a mudslinging festival? I find repetitive, almost never constructive, usually incredibly poorly defined (my dock didn't work-- ok, how? at all? doubtful) complaints repeated ad-nauseam, and there's such limited energy to refute the waves of negativity from the sore & aggrieved. I want there to be room for these voices, but the mere mention of USB is a magnet for misery. I can & apparently should write some blog posts on why things are they way they are, how incremental evolution happens, and how progress isn't always smooth. But to the larger phenomenon of muck raking being the popular activity at every mention: it's definitely not just USB, in online communities this vocal persistent complaint about topics is a social condition that, so far, has no remedy, no redress. Systemd had to deal with this, Kubernetes, react, rails; so many have had their time on the planet of being targetted subjects. It just happens again and again and again, and the world doesn't deserve to have only the negative so amplified. It'd be so nice to redirect these energies to more focused gathering places, and to let the actual news & events be discussed in peace. To add a usb naming joke, and to build constructively & consistently on the past, this would obviously be USB4 2x12. Two channels of of 60 Gbps (5Gbps * 12). The previous USB4 2.0 would be 2x8. There, I fixed it for you. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-amplitude_modulation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulse-amplitude_modulation
  • pclmulqdq 4y ago
    The Base-T Ethernet standards get very creative about their modulation levels. 1GBase-T (IIRC) uses PAM-5. Using non-standard PAM levels is a very weird thing to do, and it appears to only be useful for optimizing speeds on old (or cheap) cables. However, PAM-4 did originally have problems with transitions between the extreme levels (00 to 11 and vice versa). There was academic discussion of line codes that could eliminate these, but it appears that this kind of technology has fallen by the wayside in favor of PAM-3 for USB.
• awoimbee 4y ago
  Would asymmetric PCIe tunneling be possible ? For external GPUs it would be perfect !
  • nickflood 4y ago
    Yep, finally my TB3 eGPU starts being at least in theory outdated. The fact that there was no improvement in TB speed for the last 5 years is ridiculous. Edit: but probably PCIe lanes to the controller chip would be somehow a bottleneck as this is meant for display transport first
• NonNefarious 4y ago
  How does this relate to Thunderbolt, if it does? Is it daisy-chainable? What a PITA this has become. Does USB still impose excessive processor overhead? Then there's the unavailability of any USB hub that doesn't suck donkey balls.
• rrgok 4y ago
  Dumb question: what is stopping us from creating TCP/IP over USB4v2 so that I can create a home network (LAN) of 120Gbps?
  • NegativeLatency 4y ago
    USB is a tree so IDK seems hard to generally map that to a packet switched network If 100G NICs were avalible you could do: computer -> usb4 -> 100GB NIC -> optical -> 100GB NIC -> usb4 -> computer
    • prvit 4y ago
      We already have things like thunderbolt-net
      • jeffbee 4y ago
        And we already have link aggregation, so you can have 120gbps "networking" over very short distances today, if you want it. All you need is four short, expensive cables. The problem is you will rapidly run into system-level limitations, given that 120gbps would consume more or less all of the I/O resources on many common desktop-class CPUs.
  • DannyBee 4y ago
    The max cable Length at that speed is pretty darn short.
    • amelius 4y ago
      What's stopping us from adding a repeater every couple of feet? Transistors aren't expensive and integrating it into the cable shouldn't be too difficult.
      • ChrisLomont 4y ago
        120Gbps repeaters will be expensive. Making circuits that fast is incredibly tricky, with power, heat, rf (and more) issues. If you think it's cheap make one and get rich. But it's most certainly not cheap or easy or low cost.
• shmerl 4y ago
  USB4 v2, really? How hard was it to call it USB 5?
• mysterydip 4y ago
  Can consumer devices even transfer data that fast? Or is this future-proofing?
  • AaronFriel 4y ago
    High end displays can. 8k60Hz at full (8-bit) color depth and chroma (4:4:4) is around 64Gbps. The article notes that with some features of the spec to reduce bandwidth, this enables "8K144 HDR with Display Stream Compression and no chroma subsampling" with room to spare. It's a common complaint of even current generation displays & docks that dual display 4k 60Hz docks are few and far between, and good luck getting even one display at 4k 120Hz on docks. My experience there is mostly miss, rarely hit.
    • threeseed 4y ago
      You can bet Apple is dying to release a 6K 120Hz (Promotion) Pro Display XDR. Be interesting if this USB4 v2 ends up in the upcoming MacBook Pro M2.
    • NavinF 4y ago
      Yep I’ve been itching to upgrade my monitor, but 4k 120Hz is still as good as it gets without compression. This is a DisplayPort limitation which should improve over the next year or two as new GPUs are released
  • NegativeK 4y ago
    I mentioned in a previous version of this discussion that PCIE5 NVME is specced to > 14GB/s, and I'd really like to have external drives capable of that.
• bitwize 4y ago
  And the only reasonable implementation will be in Apple hardware.
• syngrog66 4y ago
  I've lost track of how many different USB standards exist now
  • dopa42365 4y ago
    https://fabiensanglard.net/usbcheat/index.html https://fabiensanglard.net/usbcheat/index.html
    • dataflow 4y ago
      That's even worse than I thought. So SuperSpeed USB 10Gbps is known not only was "USB 3.1", but also "USB 3.2"? And SuperSpeed USB 5Gbps and 20Gbps are also both known as "USB 3.2"? So when someone says "USB 3.2" what are they referring to?!
      • garaetjjte 4y ago
        You can't tell without that Gen suffix, because it got retroactively renamed so that manufacturers could stick "USB 3.2" label on their old USB 3.0 devices.
    • userbinator 4y ago
      I have a feeling that things went off the rails starting with USB 3.0. They should've just gone with USB 3, 4, 5, 6, ...
• npunt 4y ago
  If there's one thing that the EU should be regulating its this USB naming madness.
  • eru 4y ago
    I hope you ain't serious?
    • Filligree 4y ago
      Well, they can't possibly make it worse.
    • capableweb 4y ago
      Why not? Regulations should help protect consumers make informed choices when purchasing things. Currently, USB + manufacturers are purposefully making it confusing to purchase cables because they want more cash, in exchange for making the experience worse for consumers. Sound like exactly the right place for some new regulation.
      • eru 4y ago
        > Regulations should help protect consumers make informed choices when purchasing things. Why? And at what cost? Have you heard of cost/benefit analysis?
  • jeroenhd 4y ago
    This isn't the name of the USB spec, it's the name that someone noticed a random manufacturer used. The new name will follow the common pattern, or "USB4 120Gbps".
• zac23or 4y ago
  USB: Universal Serius Bulshit. HDMI is crazy too. A lot of governmental regulamentations are generated by these craziness.
  • zzo38computer 4y ago
    USB is no good, and HDMI is no good. UEFI is also no good, and Unicode also is no good. I should quote Steven J. Searle: > The sad fact of the matter is that people play politics with standards to gain commercial advantage, and the result is that end users suffer the consequences. This is the case with character encoding for computer systems, and it is even more the case with HDTV.
    • eternityforest 4y ago
      Without the politics, would we even have standardization to this degree? Before USB-PD we had barrel jacks with not even polarity fully standardized. I'm sure the standards could be done better, but it sure beats no standards.
• blackoil 4y ago
  IIUC USB 4 has two variables power and bandwidth and few feature flags like display port. Why isn't it a requirement to lost the value of these explicitly on packaging/listings? That would solve most of the practical problems, yeah we may have to stop buying cheap/unbranded cables but branded ones would be easy to choose. Thunderbolt provides easy but costly branding for high end.
• sylware 4y ago
  Seriously, what is the speed limiting element for 1 lane? The controller manufacturing process (2nm/5nm/etc?), or some eletronic components?
  • gaudat 4y ago
    Signal integrity first, then maybe cost or power usage. Commercial state of the art is around 100Gbit/s per pair using a gearbox chip, as seen in 100G single lambda transceivers. For ASIC/FPGA i think 58GHz PAM4 is available giving 116Gbps per pair. Actual data rate will be a few percent lower due to line coding and forward error correction. Normal circuit boards start interacting with the signal from about a few gigahertz. At really fast rates you need some black magic like Teflon or ceramic substrates for the signal to even get through.
    • sylware 4y ago
      Well, the EM environment would be a CPU die on a motherboard full of gigahertz chips, it means this EM environment has been so much "improved" they can double the speed?? I am really curious at how they choose to limit the speed of USB lanes, that said I really don't like that as this smells "don't go too fast or we won't be able to sell USB controllers with really faster lanes". I would understand if one of the major limiting elements is the controller silicium process (2nm/5nm/etc).
• BuckRogers 4y ago
  My latest desktop has Thunderbolt 4. While I'm glad I have it, as it's a mITX system, I really only use it to connect to a docking station. It's also great for monitors or 10Gbit ethernet if needed. The external SSD that I use is limited to 1GB/sec, and I rarely hit that with my use case, closer to 500MB/sec. To take advantage of 5GB/sec the external drive would have to be pretty well-built (expensive). My drive is the Samsung T7 Shield 2TB, which is the best price/performance for sustained performance that I could find on the market today. I do think external IO should try to keep pace with internal IO speeds, but it comes at a significant cost on the peripheral side of things. You also run into cable length issues. There's a reason why internal IO gets to faster speeds so much sooner, path traces don't have to deal with real-world external cable lengths. The link alludes to this, but I'd love to know how long of a cable you can use with 15GBps external devices considering the length on my passive Thunderbolt 3 dock cable is 2.3ft. USB 4.0 "v2" at 120Gbps will support a 2inch passive cable.
• imwillofficial 4y ago
  A bright spot is, god damn this technology is evolving fast. Sure the naming sucks, but isn’t it such a great time to be alive?
• technerder 4y ago
  Are there any reputables places where I can buy a USB type C cable that supports everything? It probably wouldn't be cheap but I'd love to just stop having to check to see if my cable is the issue.
  • CharlesW 4y ago
    One option is to buy Thunderbolt 4 cables. https://www.cablematters.com/pc-1283-132-40gbps-thunderbolt-4-usb-c-cable-with-100w-charging.aspx https://www.cablematters.com/pc-1283-132-40gbps-thunderbolt-... https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Thunderbolt-Supports-Transfer-Certified/dp/B095KSL2B9 https://www.amazon.com/Anker-Thunderbolt-Supports-Transfer-C...
• pyuser583 4y ago
  In 100 years we won’t have massive underssea cables. Just a single Anker USB9 going from New York to London.
  • vinay_ys 4y ago
    In 100 years, there won't be need for any sea cables because we would have had 9th generation laser links 100 kilometers above our heads, in the sky.
    • 411111111111111 4y ago
      Unlikely, lasers are impacted by weather... unless they're shielded midway, but then you've got a fiber cable again.
      • zwirbl 4y ago
        There isn't much weather in the mesosphere and above
        • 411111111111111 4y ago
          True, i somehow omitted the 100km while reading their comment. It's still unlikely to succeed, as the required precision for multiple simultaneous data streams is quiet significant. Nonetheless, it's theoretically possible. Just not economically useful, as cables are inherently cheaper for the same amount of data transmitted. I'm not saying that these won't exist, they already do to some degree with Starlink after all... I'm just saying that this tech is highly unlikely to replace the backbone infrastructure, which seacables are.
          • buran77 4y ago
            > It's still unlikely to succeed We can't possibly imagine now what can succeed in 100 years because we can't even conceive what kind of tech or societal developments will happen over that period.
• antman 4y ago
  USB v4.1574787547zXQ 120gb mode will be enabled if you buy a rare cable captured from Hades by Hercules himself and your laptop has a chipset certified by Intel, Huawei and WWF. Side question: Does anyone know where I xan find a USB display cable for under 30$? (Don’t remember the version)
• Scootwilli90 4y ago
  [flagged]
• userbinator 4y ago
  IMHO they should've just used a similar convention to what IEEE did with Ethernet, given that the speeds are now roughly comparable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_physical_layer#Naming_conventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_physical_layer#Naming...
• Traubenfuchs 4y ago
  Is there any reason why the first generation of USB4 was not 120 Gbps? Magical protocol and compression changes beyond the mortal mind? New discoveries in material and electrical engineering sciences?
• mjan22640 4y ago
  It will actually be USB 4.2.1c.1
• alliao 4y ago
  more variants than covid
• ungamedplayer 4y ago
  I just realised that USB is a recursive acronym for USB's such bullshit.
• rrgok 4y ago
  I keep dreaming the day when every peripheral (Display, Speakers, Keyboards..) and component (RAM, SSD, HD, GPU, CPU) will come with a just single connector ( like RJ45 or Fiber optics) and they all will be connected to a switch (yes like a layer 2 switch or layer 3 switch). They will comunicate with each other through packets like regular TCP/IP connections. You have computer A and B with a single display C. In the morning you use your computer A and in the evening you want to switch to computer B? Easy: go to web interface of display C and set the IP address of computer B. That's it. Same for every other peripheral and component. The GPU wants more RAM? Easy: just comunicate directly with the RAM through the switch. I know, it will be security nightmare. I know, fiber optics (I guess this is the fastest network cable today?) cannot reach RAM speed. In the end we are just sending bits over the wire (or wireless) and we have a gazillions type/revisions of cables and sockets. There will come a time where Network speed will reach RAM speed (I guess this is, after CPU registers and caches, the fastest component?) or close to it. I don't understand it. Maybe because I'm missing something at a fundamental electrical level.
• adverbly 4y ago
  Cable noob here: can someone explain how this is possible? It's faster than a max speed cpu, so is this done by multiplexing things in parallel over like 10+ wires or something at a low enough voltage where there is minimal induction between them?
• jaimehrubiks 4y ago
  Will USB replace Ethernet at some point?