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USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

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Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#111

Post by p1esk »

StreamBright wrote: post #97
p1esk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it fast enough for 4K120 or 8k displays?

Do we need 8K displays at all? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvz3iN8pp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNBiAV4UnM

I haven't actually seen an 8k monitor yet, but a couple weeks ago I was at an Apple store and checked out 5k monitor. PDF text was noticeably sharper and at the same time smoother than on my 4k monitor at home. Both are relatively recent 27" IPS panels made by LG.

So I don't know if I will be able to tell the difference between 5k and 8k in 27" size, but I know that 4k is not enough.

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#112

Post by dwringer »

StreamBright wrote: post #97
p1esk wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it fast enough for 4K120 or 8k displays?

Do we need 8K displays at all? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ehvz3iN8pp4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VxNBiAV4UnM

I probably can't see even 320x240, but that doesn't mean I don't like having the extra pixels since I don't stare at one spot the whole time. Upgrading to 4k felt extremely liberating compared with 1080, IMO - productivity is so subjective I'm not sure it can be said scientifically that more screen real estate is necessarily pointless. Plus, imagine a screen the size of a whole wall - if you want to project a life size image of a desktop computer onto it, you can only ever render some small subset of your pixels as its screen, so if you want to render it with a 1080 display you'll need a lot more than 4k. The number of pixels one needs is highly dependent on what one is doing with those pixels.

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#114

Post by derefr »

gambiting wrote: post #100
izacus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like hand-wringing around that is a bit overexaggerated - at the end of the day the differences really matter for only really tiny subset of devices that need those 10GBit+ transfers and in that case you can guide yourself by the "SuperSpeed 10Gbit" "Superspeed 20Gbit" logos on the actual box. For everything else the protocols are forward and backward compatible, so you just plug in the cable and it works.

So remind me, why can you walk into any apple store, pick up a new MacBook and a 5K LG monitor, and when you plug in the monitor using the USB-C cable that was bundled with the MacBook it just won't work at all? My point is - the standards might be back and forward compatible. But the cables and ports definitely aren't - and your average consumer has absolutely no way of knowing. They look absolutely identical on the…

No wiring issues necessary; the MacBook just isn't powerful enough to drive a 5K display.

(I think the question you meant to ask is why the MacBook can't drive an external 4K Thunderbolt display using its included cable, which is more interesting—IIRC, it can do so through an HDMI adapter plugged into the USB-C port, but it cannot do so over a USB-C cable. This still isn't about the cable, though; you can take the MacBook's cable and use it to connect an MBP to a Thunderbolt display just fine. Instead, it's about the MacBook's combined Thunderbolt/USB-C controller not supporting the recent-enough version of Thunderbolt to have the bandwidth over the wire required to feed a 4K@60Hz display. When an HDMI dongle is plugged into the USB-C port, you're taking a direct GPU->controller->HDMI path, which avoids the anemic old-Thunderbolt bottleneck path.)

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#115

Post by rtkwe »

gambiting wrote: post #100
izacus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like hand-wringing around that is a bit overexaggerated - at the end of the day the differences really matter for only really tiny subset of devices that need those 10GBit+ transfers and in that case you can guide yourself by the "SuperSpeed 10Gbit" "Superspeed 20Gbit" logos on the actual box. For everything else the protocols are forward and backward compatible, so you just plug in the cable and it works.

So remind me, why can you walk into any apple store, pick up a new MacBook and a 5K LG monitor, and when you plug in the monitor using the USB-C cable that was bundled with the MacBook it just won't work at all? My point is - the standards might be back and forward compatible. But the cables and ports definitely aren't - and your average consumer has absolutely no way of knowing. They look absolutely identical on the…

The cable problem with USB-C I think might be the largest annoyance when it comes to the promise of USB-C. For the highest speed stuff you can only really count on the cable that came with the device because for the extreme speeds you need a good cable with the right length.

(The monitor should have a compatible cable bundled with it though. There's some major cable length limits and shielding when it comes to the highest speed stuff like monitors and eGPUs with USB-C.)

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#116

Post by acomjean »

mac01021 wrote: post #39
nintendo1889 wrote: post #34

I am starting to see computers with USB C on the host side. The future of one single connector to rule them all will be here soon. Wait a minute, we already had that, it was usb 2.0?!?!

I never saw anyone hooking up a monitor via USB 2.0

I used the usb2.0 to dvi adapter a while back on a an old polycarbonate mac for which I wanted to drive a second monitor.

It actually worked really well for that use case (coding/ web browsing). It probably wouldn't work at all for anything stressful. Getting the driver set up was a little challenging compared to the usual no effort required.

The website for the product... well frankly not good. https://www.newertech.com/products/viddu2dvia.php

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#117

Post by mjevans »

gambiting wrote: post #100
izacus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like hand-wringing around that is a bit overexaggerated - at the end of the day the differences really matter for only really tiny subset of devices that need those 10GBit+ transfers and in that case you can guide yourself by the "SuperSpeed 10Gbit" "Superspeed 20Gbit" logos on the actual box. For everything else the protocols are forward and backward compatible, so you just plug in the cable and it works.

So remind me, why can you walk into any apple store, pick up a new MacBook and a 5K LG monitor, and when you plug in the monitor using the USB-C cable that was bundled with the MacBook it just won't work at all? My point is - the standards might be back and forward compatible. But the cables and ports definitely aren't - and your average consumer has absolutely no way of knowing. They look absolutely identical on the…

This absolutely does need to be way more clear. There should be distinct and visibly obvious branding from the standards group.

I should be able to tell by looking at a connector:

  * If it's claiming to be a certified cable/device or not.
  * The USB standard it conforms to (version)
  * The speed of data transfer it supports
  * The maximum wattage it supports
  * The maximum voltage it supports
  * (the connector type, but this is obvious based on shape)

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#118

Post by gumby »

cm2187 wrote: post #101
gumby wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Copper thunderbolt limit is 3 m. Optical thunderbolt can go much farther (naturally) but I've never seen it in the wild -- it might even have been abandoned by now.

But you can't charge a laptop with an optical cable. As for copper, I understand you don't get 40gbps with a 3m cable (though not a specialist).

> But you can't charge a laptop with an optical cable.

I don't think that matters. If you care about full PCIe through a cable you presumably are charging through a different port.

> As for copper, I understand you don't get 40gbps with a 3m cable

Actually you do with TB: that's the spec and you can find independent verification via a web search.

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#119

Post by bryanlarsen »

gambiting wrote: post #100
izacus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like hand-wringing around that is a bit overexaggerated - at the end of the day the differences really matter for only really tiny subset of devices that need those 10GBit+ transfers and in that case you can guide yourself by the "SuperSpeed 10Gbit" "Superspeed 20Gbit" logos on the actual box. For everything else the protocols are forward and backward compatible, so you just plug in the cable and it works.

So remind me, why can you walk into any apple store, pick up a new MacBook and a 5K LG monitor, and when you plug in the monitor using the USB-C cable that was bundled with the MacBook it just won't work at all? My point is - the standards might be back and forward compatible. But the cables and ports definitely aren't - and your average consumer has absolutely no way of knowing. They look absolutely identical on the…

There are two problems:

1. the same connector is used for a wide variety of capabilities, and it can get confusing knowing what you can use together.

2. the names of these connectors is confusing.

You're complaining about the first, and that's a very hard problem. There are huge advantages to using the same connector and cables that can support 100W of power, 5K displays and also support peripherals that retail for less than $1 and be backwards compatible with peripherals over 20 years old. The disadvantage is the confusion you mention.

The complaint in the article is about the second, the stupid naming. There's no good excuse for that. It really exacerbates the confusion from the first issue.

But now it's on us and journalists just to not use the stupid naming. They've provide "marketing" names that aren't silly, so everybody should just use them, even if it's awkward. IOW "Superspeed USB 10Gbps", not "USB 3.2 gen 2".

Re: USB4 Specification Announced: Adopting Thunderbolt 3 Protocol for 40 Gbps USB

#120

Post by sandworm101 »

benj111 wrote: post #106
izacus wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like hand-wringing around that is a bit overexaggerated - at the end of the day the differences really matter for only really tiny subset of devices that need those 10GBit+ transfers and in that case you can guide yourself by the "SuperSpeed 10Gbit" "Superspeed 20Gbit" logos on the actual box. For everything else the protocols are forward and backward compatible, so you just plug in the cable and it works.

That sounds like '10Gbit ought to be more than enough for anybody' to me. Plus the good thing about USB is it just works, you don't have to worry about any tiny subset (well that's the theory anyway). I've had enough of my monitor, mouse, keyboard and printer all using different connectors thank you very much. Edit: Making make sense.

>>> I've had enough of my monitor, mouse, keyboard and printer all using different connectors thank you very much.

Personally, I've had enough with my 1yo laptop, my 3yo desktop, my 5yo peripheral and that funny dongle I need for work all having different USB cables. USB was meant to save us from having multiple connectors but has done the opposite: every year there is a new USB cable/hole design.

I cannot be the only one here who has to inspect every online purchase for high-rez pictures of the USB ports. I really don't care that my laptop has 10+Gb/w potential. I just need to know that my current equipment is physically compatible.

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