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USB-C head-to-head comparison

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Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#41

Post by stinos »

XIVMagnus wrote: post #4

Insane difference between thunderbolt vs competitors. Clearly we are paying for quality here, the question is LTV how quickly does the thunderbolt break

Insane difference between thunderbolt vs competitors.

Well, yes, because the competitors are functionally a completely different cable. One of them is just for charging, that is obviously going to be very different. So kinda hard to tell what you are really paying for. As another comment says: would be rather interesting to see differences in cables which claim to do the same.

Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#44

Post by avianlyric »

Tempest1981 wrote: post #32

I'm curious about the 9-layer PCBA -- is it an amplifier or signal conditioner, to achieve 40 Gb/s? Or does it implement some protocol? Or for power delivery? I see what might be resistors or capacitors. Not sure what else.

It’s most likely 9-layers because that what you need to correctly route the traces from one set of 12 pins, to the other set of 12 pins (to make up the 24 total in USB-C), which is needed to make the connector fully reversible. There will also be a e-mark chip in there that tells any connected device what the cable is capable of doing, so you don’t accidentally send 240w down a cable only capable of carrying 100w.

9 layers might sounds like a lot. But reversible connectors are a bit of a logistical nightmare from a PCB routing perspective. Made even more complicated by the very tight signalling requirements needed to hit Thunderbolt 4 transfer speeds. The end result is what looks like a significant over-engineering, but is really just an expression of how difficult it is to transport high data rate signals around PCBs and cables.

Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#45

Post by Isthatablackgsd »

izacus wrote: post #16
londons_explore wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want my computer to have a built in cable tester. Just plug both ends of the same cable into two different ports of a computer, and it has a little popup saying "This cable can support charging at this rate and data at that rate, and is fully functional". Or "This cable has 1 bad pin, and that may affect video/audio/charging/whatever functionality" Ideally, the computer would test every pin in the cable, and…

It's really strange that even getting a separate testing device is really hard. There are some that test pins and some that can read the emarker, but none affordable that can do both.

I'm assuming it would involves more ICs which it can bump the cost of the testing kit exponentially to test all of the pins.

Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#47

Post by bee_rider »

floatrock wrote: post #12
gregmac wrote: post #2

> This manufacturer claims the cable transmits data at up to 10 Gbps – a speed that corresponds to USB 3.1 Gen 2 – but it only has enough pins and wires to support USB 2.0 at up to 480 Mbps. In any case, this cable accumulated 29 one-star reviews on Amazon and was discontinued the day after we bought it. Pretty much sums up the experience of buying cables in the past couple years.

> accumulated 29 one-star reviews on Amazon and was discontinued the day after we bought it. They forgot to say how it re-appeared the next day under some other manufacturer name that's a random assortment of words and letters slightly different than "NiceTQ"

It is annoying that these sellers do this, but it is a pretty obvious thing to do, it is economically incentivized, and so it is totally unsurprising.

The weird thing, IMO, is that Amazon doesn’t see this as a big problem that they need to solve.

I mean if I was to give somebody advice as to which cables they should buy on Amazon, it would have to be: use a brand you know and make sure you buy it directly from their account, and if there’s no such brand, don’t buy a cable from Amazon… but then I guess nobody asks.

Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#48

Post by mensetmanusman »

“ Another curiosity hidden in the circuit board is this wiggle on one of the traces. It contains a tiny detour to make sure it’s the same length as its paired trace, which is especially important when dealing with extra-high-speed data transmission.”

A wiggle that small is adding picosecond delays. I’m surprised that’s necessary. Cool!

Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#49

Post by avianlyric »

brightball wrote: post #15

This stuff is what worries me about the whole EU standards body issue. I'd rather Apple be able to innovate and create a better connector than locking them into this mismatched and inconsistent reality.

Better is relative. The EU goals is standardisation to reduce e-waste. Unless Apple are going to innovate a way make every phone manufacturer adopt their fancy new connector, it’s never going to “better” than USB-C. If you’re evaluating connectors from the perspective of reducing e-waste.

Re: USB-C head-to-head comparison

#50

Post by somedude895 »

brightball wrote: post #15

This stuff is what worries me about the whole EU standards body issue. I'd rather Apple be able to innovate and create a better connector than locking them into this mismatched and inconsistent reality.

As shown in TFA, Apple can still design beautiful technology even with the constraints of a standard. You hate inconsistency, you can buy Apple. But now you have the choice to also charge it at your Android-using friends house.
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