Motherboard manufacturer limit chipsets USB3.2 ports?

[Chiyawa]

Hi,

 

I'm just wondering why on Earth does the motherboard manufacturers limit the chipsets potential?

 

So, let me explain what I really meant:

 

X570 chipset from AMD has 8 USB 3.2 ports that has the capability of running at 10Gbps, yet why we only see a few (usually lower than 4) USB 3.2 gen 2 ports? Even if they convert those to USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, why they need to do so? I mean, what's the point of holding it back?

 

Regards,

Chiyawa

[Letgomyleghoe]

to make production costs cheaper, also if they had that many, it would put a lot of load on the chipset if they were all in use. and lets be real when you have you ever used more than 6 USB ports.

[Bombastinator]

11 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Hi,

 

I'm just wondering why on Earth does the motherboard manufacturers limit the chipsets potential?

 

So, let me explain what I really meant:

 

X570 chipset from AMD has 8 USB 3.2 ports that has the capability of running at 10Gbps, yet why we only see a few (usually lower than 4) USB 3.2 gen 2 ports? Even if they convert those to USB 3.2 gen 1 ports, why they need to do so? I mean, what's the point of holding it back?

 

Regards,

Chiyawa

The chipset block diagram may have something to say on that:

in the diagram it does allow up to 8 super speed ports, the problem is that it’s chipset side, meaning all of that data has to go through 1 Pcie 4.0x4 link.  There’s more though: every port on the board except 1 pcie4.0x16 and one m.2 slot has to go through that one link too along with all the SATA and all the slower USB and everything else.  There likely just isn’t enough bandwidth

Edited November 24, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Chiyawa]

1 hour ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

to make production costs cheaper, also if they had that many, it would put a lot of load on the chipset if they were all in use. and lets be real when you have you ever used more than 6 USB ports.

Well, strain in the chipset is understandable, but let's just say you want to use only one USB 3.2 gen 2 device. Why you can only plug into port A but not port B? Let's say if at one point, port A is faulty, and you still can use port B but the speed will be half of port A. So, yeah, I mean, well, in that situation, it will really causes that frustration.

 

Actually, I did. 1 USB keyboard, 1 USB mouse, 2 USB gamepads, 1 USB card reader, 1 USB external HDD, and 1 USB Adruino, so, yeah, I used 7 USB ports, although not all of them at once, and even so, only the card reader and external HDD uses USB 3.2 ports.

[Chiyawa]

1 hour ago, Caroline said:

so they can sell the same board but as "pro" with more -features- so it costs $100 more

why do you think they add wifi to every board and dare to sell them as gaming boards, it's useless but also a reason to inflate prices, same with m.2 nVME being sold as "gaming" tech when it's for workstations, etc.

Yeah. I agree. Still, I wish they would not limit those sweet sweet USB 3.2 gen 2 ports.

[Chiyawa]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

The chipset block diagram may have something to say on that:

in the diagram it does allow up to 8 super speed ports, the problem is that it’s chipset side, meaning all of that data has to go through 1 Pcie 4.0x4 link.  There’s more though: every port on the board except 1 pcie4.0x16 and one m.2 slot has to go through that one link too along with all the SATA and all the slower USB and everything else.  There likely just isn’t enough bandwidth

Yeah, I know that everything will be bottlenecking by the link between CPU and chipset. Still, there's no reason they can't just make all ports to gen 2. Let's say there are 2 ports, port A and port B, where port A is gen 2 and port B is gen 1, after some times, port A became faulty, and you need to use port B. It's kinda frustrating now that your gen 2 device won't go as fast using port B.

[Letgomyleghoe]

11 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

although not all of them at once

this is exactly what i mean, and you can get boards that have the full array of IO, but they are expensive asf, the best 1/2-1/2 between price-IO that i've found is the b550 auros pro, which has 11 USB ports, 5 of which 3.2 and an extra Type-c for a total of 12, along with a 2.5G Ethernet port.'

 

And you still completely ignored my mention on price, If you want more IO you have to pay for it.

[Bombastinator]

10 hours ago, Chiyawa said:

Yeah, I know that everything will be bottlenecking by the link between CPU and chipset. Still, there's no reason they can't just make all ports to gen 2. Let's say there are 2 ports, port A and port B, where port A is gen 2 and port B is gen 1, after some times, port A became faulty, and you need to use port B. It's kinda frustrating now that your gen 2 device won't go as fast using port B.

I understand that x570 had some very very expensive motherboards done using it.  Upwards of a thousand USD. Are these being looked at as well?

[Chiyawa]

8 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I understand that x570 had some very very expensive motherboards done using it.  Upwards of a thousand USD. Are these being looked at as well?

Yes, and as I said, there are 'a few only'.

 

Edit: Ah, it seems part of the draft is not saved. I do intend to say that only a few motherboard has more than 4 USB 3.2 gen 2 ports. And that, well, combines with the CPU USB 3.2 gen 2 ports, which only Ryzen 3000 series CPU and 5000 series CPU supports it.

[Chiyawa]

8 hours ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

this is exactly what i mean, and you can get boards that have the full array of IO, but they are expensive asf, the best 1/2-1/2 between price-IO that i've found is the b550 auros pro, which has 11 USB ports, 5 of which 3.2 and an extra Type-c for a total of 12, along with a 2.5G Ethernet port.'

 

And you still completely ignored my mention on price, If you want more IO you have to pay for it.

Indeed. the price is steep, but still, the Gen 1 and Gen 2 ports are the same, so no reason for them to charge 'extra'.

 

Anyway, B550 doesn't have a lot of USB 3.2 gen 2 to boot. If I recall correctly, B550 natively only has 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 support.

 

In here, what I meant is 3.2 gen 2 USB port, the USB 3.0 port with SS+ rated that can go up to 10gbps. The B550 Aorus Pro only has 3 USB 3.2 gen 2, 1 from the CPU, 2 from the chipset.

[Bombastinator]

1 minute ago, Chiyawa said:

Indeed. the price is steep, but still, the Gen 1 and Gen 2 ports are the same, so no reason for them to charge 'extra'.

 

Anyway, B550 doesn't have a lot of USB 3.2 gen 2 to boot. If I recall correctly, B550 natively only has 2 USB 3.2 Gen 2 support.

 

In here, what I meant is 3.2 gen 2 USB port, the USB 3.0 port with SS+ rated that can go up to 10gbps. The B550 Aorus Pro only has 3 USB 3.2 gen 2, 1 from the CPU, 2 from the chipset.

There is more than the port involved though.  There is the controller and the traces.  If a more expensive controller involved that would raise the price, and if the traces have heavier requirements that means more and more expensive motherboard materials with more manufacturing so the price goes up again.

[Chiyawa]

9 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

There is more than the port involved though.  There is the controller and the traces.  If a more expensive controller involved that would raise the price, and if the traces have heavier requirements that means more and more expensive motherboard materials with more manufacturing so the price goes up again.

Traces are just a matter of lithography steps, and it can be broaden or narrowing the traces by just a simple edit. In fact, many motherboard uses the same width traces for gen 1 and gen 2 ports.

 

As for the controller, unless you are adding additional USB ports (or convert the connection to USB-C), you might not need one as the chipset has a controller already.

[Bombastinator]

13 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Traces are just a matter of lithography steps, and it can be broaden or narrowing the traces by just a simple edit. In fact, many motherboard uses the same width traces for gen 1 and gen 2 ports.

 

As for the controller, unless you are adding additional USB ports (or convert the connection to USB-C), you might not need one as the chipset has a controller already.

You’re talking about direction and size.  I was thinking more about electrical conductivity and insulation needed.  Motherboard thickness and construction.  As for might or might not this whole thing is that way.   Your question seems to be how could this possibly happen?  Since it apparently does there must be a reason.  I am merely making suppositions as to what that reason might be.   “But it might not be that way” is not an argument.  Of course it might not be that way. 

[Chiyawa]

31 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

You’re talking about direction and size.  I was thinking more about electrical conductivity and insulation needed.  Motherboard thickness and construction.  As for might or might not this whole thing is that way.   Your question seems to be how could this possibly happen?  Since it apparently does there must be a reason.  I am merely making suppositions as to what that reason might be.   “But it might not be that way” is not an argument.  Of course it might not be that way. 

I see. Well, I didn't mean to provoke anyone, not my intention. My original question is why manufacturer impose this limit (so yeah, you are right). Of course it is mostly for marketing and profit, but still, isn't this consider as extortion?

 

Anyway, I know the production cost (at least for PCB side, since almost every board including the high end one uses 6 layers for ATX board) are technically the same (so as the PCB design cost), but they technically just limit the port just because 'they can sell you cheap'. I think this is neither a good reason nor good market practise, but well, every big company only cares for the dollar signs. It's like Tesla locking its car's potential up, and you have to pay them extra to unlock your car's true potential.

 

Hmm... do you think if @linusgsebastian care to explain this?

[Bombastinator]

9 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

I see. Well, I didn't mean to provoke anyone, not my intention. My original question is why manufacturer impose this limit (so yeah, you are right). Of course it is mostly for marketing and profit, but still, isn't this consider as extortion?

 

Anyway, I know the production cost (at least for PCB side, since almost every board including the high end one uses 6 layers for ATX board) are technically the same (so as the PCB design cost), but they technically just limit the port just because 'they can sell you cheap'. I think this is neither a good reason nor good market practise, but well, every big company only cares for the dollar signs. It's like Tesla locking its car's potential up, and you have to pay them extra to unlock your car's true potential.

 

Hmm... do you think if @LinusGSebastian care to explain this?

So it’s trust profiteering?  Seems unlikely.  Too many competitors.  

[Letgomyleghoe]

11 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Hmm... do you think if @linusgsebastian care to explain this?

you just tagged someone who hasn't been on the forums since 2016, even if it was linus i doubt he would respond, but adding USB ports adds to the cost of manufacturing, each port they add is another step in the making of the board, each step costs more money. 

[Chiyawa]

1 minute ago, Bombastinator said:

So it’s trust profiteering?  Seems unlikely.  Too many competitors.  

Hmm... Well, maybe an organization overlook at components pricing? I mean, many people says you get what you pay for, so there's this organization that dictate the price?

[Bombastinator]

8 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Hmm... Well, maybe an organization overlook at components pricing? I mean, many people says you get what you pay for, so there's this organization that dictate the price?

A computer component deep state?  Even more unlikely and it was already pretty unlikely.  I vaguely recall a GN video when x570 came out where the presenter (Steve, techJesus, however he is referred to) 

 did a deep dive into why some motherboards cost so much more than others.  It was sort of an issue at the time because board prices varied between under $150USD and over $1000USD

Edited November 25, 2020 by Bombastinator

[Chiyawa]

8 minutes ago, Letgomyleghoe said:

you just tagged someone who hasn't been on the forums since 2016, even if it was linus i doubt he would respond, but adding USB ports adds to the cost of manufacturing, each port they add is another step in the making of the board, each step costs more money. 

I'm not talking adding USB ports. I'm questioning why board manufacturer limit the ports to gen 1 instead of gen 2, since they already give you 1 or 2 ports with gen 2 capability.