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USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

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Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#31

Post by Dylan16807 »

nindalf wrote: post #14

This is pretty good for the people who have such laptops, but I’m just struggling to understand the use case for a laptop. A laptop that consumes that much power can’t possibly have much battery life. At that point, are you getting much portability out of your laptop? Why not just use a desktop?

What's "that much power"? More than 100 watts?

I can find a laptop with a recent ryzen CPU and an RTX 2060 that gets 10 hours of battery life. At the same time, those parts could be pushed to 150 watts if you had enough cooling. And you'd need even more power to charge while using it flat-out.

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#32

Post by chippiewill »

jl6 wrote: post #30
cletus wrote: post #11

I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent despite their identical appearance. But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.

Is there a possible outcome where cable components become cheap enough that every USB-C cable is a universal cable that does everything?

No because vendors will keep putting custom things into their cables to support magic XYZ feature.

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#33

Post by elzbardico »

nindalf wrote: post #14

This is pretty good for the people who have such laptops, but I’m just struggling to understand the use case for a laptop. A laptop that consumes that much power can’t possibly have much battery life. At that point, are you getting much portability out of your laptop? Why not just use a desktop?

I think such kind of devices are primarily portable and occasionally mobile. It is a subtle but important difference. Most gaming PC notebooks over 13" are too bulky anyway to be considered mobile devices. The only beefier notebook that still reasonably can be used as a mobile device even at 16" screen sizes are, in my experience, macbooks pro. but YMMV

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#34

Post by sokoloff »

jl6 wrote: post #30
cletus wrote: post #11

I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent despite their identical appearance. But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.

Is there a possible outcome where cable components become cheap enough that every USB-C cable is a universal cable that does everything?

As long as there’s a penny to be made by shaving component costs, probably not.

I have USB micro cables that “work” to charge phones or for data but will give voltage throttling errors if used to power an RPi3 or later. This is presumably from using wires internally of too small gauge. I can’t see things like that stopping.

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#35

Post by pastrami_panda »

perryizgr8 wrote: post #18
nindalf wrote: post #14

This is pretty good for the people who have such laptops, but I’m just struggling to understand the use case for a laptop. A laptop that consumes that much power can’t possibly have much battery life. At that point, are you getting much portability out of your laptop? Why not just use a desktop?

> Why not just use a desktop? Gaming laptops that contain high-end GPUs can consume this much power while charging the battery and running games. And such laptops are still way more portable than a desktop. You can lift the laptop and keep it in your car, drive off and have a gaming PC ready-to-use where ever you end up. Same cannot be done with any desktop.

Typically they're throttled by poor thermals. I'd be interested to know if anyone has recommendations for rtx grade laptops with nice CPUs in 15-17 inch form factor that doesn't throttle but are still somewhat portable. I have not found any but I think I've been testing too thin ones (XPS and Blade).

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#36

Post by selfhoster11 »

burundi_coffee wrote: post #4
banger180 wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

USB-c Power Delivery does not require an intel CPU, so I don't see a problem.

I think he was referring to the absurd amount of power some Intel CPUs require.

Then other power-hungry device categories will become the beneficiaries of this. External GPUs with a high power draw, for instance.

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#37

Post by [deleted] »

cletus wrote: post #11

I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent despite their identical appearance. But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.

[deleted]

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#38

Post by Dylan16807 »

jl6 wrote: post #30
cletus wrote: post #11

I look forward to USB 4.1a Type C.2 Phase iii.b Gen 3E and the 482646282 different cable capability combinations that all plug in and have no distinction of those capabilities whatsoever. I also look forward to all the necessary and helpful posts telling me how the identical ports on my laptop are in fact diffferent despite their identical appearance. But at least everything uses the same plug, so that’s nice.

Is there a possible outcome where cable components become cheap enough that every USB-C cable is a universal cable that does everything?

Not if you want cables that are longer than two feet. There's a tradeoff between speed and distance.

And that's after you solve the problem of people trying to cut out a couple pennies of copper. And the people that want thinner cables just for charging.

Re: USB-C is about to go from 100W to 240W, enough to power beefier laptops

#40

Post by salawat »

nindalf wrote: post #14

This is pretty good for the people who have such laptops, but I’m just struggling to understand the use case for a laptop. A laptop that consumes that much power can’t possibly have much battery life. At that point, are you getting much portability out of your laptop? Why not just use a desktop?

Because most desktops don't have integral screens and keyboards. Nor do they stay on and compute in an albeit degraded state in transit.

Not everyone is just using laptops as a word processor/browser. Sometimes you just need oomph.

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