USB4 is a Glorious Mess

[mynameGeoff]

Thanks to ORIGIN PC for sponsoring this video! Check out the VOYAGER – ORIGIN Edition at https://bit.ly/3PNcvfr

 

USB has never been easy to understand, and USB4 is no exception. How compatible is it with Thunderbolt 3? What about Thunderbolt 4? What cables can and can’t be used? Is a USB4 cable interchangeable with a Thunderbolt 4 cable?

 

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Buy Infinite Cables USB4 240W Cable: https://geni.us/SHl39Ky

[Senzelian]

It continues to be a giant mess.

 

[Ultraforce]

Definitely a video I'm watching, I know my motherboard should support most of my stuff since the USB 4 that ASUS has with the ProArt x670E is an intel controller for Thunderbolt 4 but I still have some questions about USB 4 and USB 4 compatible stuff which helped lead me to not bother buying a hub yet even though I will eventually need one for where my desktop will be long term.

[venomtail]

Oh no, I now NEED more of pedandic Riley

[AndreiArgeanu]

The thing that always baffles me is the USB IF always receives criticisms for the way they've handled standards since like USB3.1 yet they never seem to change. It's not like they even need to do that much. Remove all gen YxZ GEN O bs and revise all USB standards such that a USB 3 will be 5GB, 3.1 10GB, 3.2 20GB, and 4 40GB with all the appropriate features for the standard supported. Do they even have an incentive to make up all these BS standards and minimum requirements?

 

also lol

 

 

[MrCaspan]

As an IT guy that has now used 2 different External GPU cases with my OG 1080 GTX gaming card... (I used it for Twitch encoding) This update can not come fast enough. I have finally decided to kick my eGPU case to the curb becuase of its unreliability. I wanted a solution that would allow me to have one cable and have a USB hub for all my peripherals and charging. I have a web cam, a USB condenser mic and a Sound bar for below my monitor. Both the Razor and Sonnet had video issues with displaying my camera that is a Logitech 1080P camera and it would fliker and stutter and I was told this is a limitation of TB3 and that it cannot give other devices priority it has to give the GPU priority. My machine would randomly lock up with no warning and sometimes in big meetings where I was presenting to the entire Org for team meetings. These eGPU boxes are junk and don't waste your money. The time and effort i spent trying to figure out what was wrong with my system was endless. I ended up going with a 5K dock and have not had an issue yet. I know its not a dedicated GPU but at least it is stable!!

[ImAlsoRan]

"Integrated Elgato Steam Deck" Lol... who proofed this?

[Ein0r]

I tuned out after the first half. And I'll maybe bother getting more information about it if need it. Maybe this mess has settled and they are at 'usb 5 part 6 gen3² with little sprinkles' when it comes to that, which will be a lot easier to understand. Hahahaha...

[Sho2048]

I recently got a ROG Flow X13 (the 2022 generation with Ryzen 6000 CPUs) and the beta bios supporting USB 4 just came out but I have nothing to test it with. Really want a GPU without the XG mobile tax but getting one right now is an expensive bet :( 

[Quackers101]

Really sucks if you dont know which is what, PCIe access/tunneling or not.

[CerealExperimentsLain]

23 hours ago, Caroline said:

Remember firewire? well, this is gonna be firewire 2.

Ahem, i.LINK 2 if it's on a Sony product.

[DarkSwordsman]

I just wish that the specifications actually had proper types. If they were going to append anything, they should have the options as letters or have the options as versions. The top spec of USB 4 could be "USB 4.5" or even just "USB 4 - ABE", "USB 4 - ABCDE" to denote its features. IDK, anything but this.

 

I have an Oculus Rift CV1 which only needs "USB 3.0". However, despite having 6 extra "USB 3.0" connectors on my motherboard, it only works with my 2x USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 due to the power and data requirements for the headset and the sensors.

 

We need legislation passed that requires clear specifications on what features exist and how the USB controllers are laid out by the manufacturer. It's too confusing and too much of a gamble to deal with these issues when it can waste precious resources and time. Besides, wouldn't you want to advertise these features to power users/enthusiasts that are trying to take advantage of them properly?

[tkitch]

On 11/30/2022 at 2:06 PM, Caroline said:

Remember firewire? well, this is gonna be firewire 2.

Firewire lost to USB due to licensing costs.  So USB is still safe in that regard.

[Chiyawa]

4 hours ago, tkitch said:

Firewire lost to USB due to licensing costs.  So USB is still safe in that regard.

Also security issues as well. Any node can become the host and control the connection, at least to an extent.

[Marrond]

My burning question is whether any of existing AM5 desktop motherboards supports full feature set of USB4 and PCIe tunnelling specifically. Asus ProArt X670E Creator WiFi theoretically uses the same Intel chip that's otherwise used for Thunderbolt 4 so in theory it should support that feature... but are there necessary paths enabled on the motherboard design? I REALLY need that functionality and I find it bizarre that it's nearly impossible to find out detailed information about USB features on the premium product. You would think they would boast about it since it clearly is a power-user feature aimed at professionals yet they're vaguely ambiguous... also Asus call center is absolutely useless to get any useful information out of >.>

[tikker]

On 12/2/2022 at 4:47 AM, DarkSwordsman said:

We need legislation passed that requires clear specifications on what features exist and how the USB controllers are laid out by the manufacturer. It's too confusing and too much of a gamble to deal with these issues when it can waste precious resources and time. Besides, wouldn't you want to advertise these features to power users/enthusiasts that are trying to take advantage of them properly?

I'm with you on the legislation/enforcement part. That needs to improve and here you hit the nail on the head. The core problem is misuse of nomenclature or lack thereof. The Gen YxZ naming is not for marketing (they're internal names for transfer modes). USB-IF states so in their material towards manufacturers and marketers, but falls short in regulating this better than they do now. Just like with HDMI, manufacturers should simply say "supports X, Y, Z, W" on their packaging or spec list. One would think that it's simple, but still they opt for confusing the consumer by throwing in the transfer modes in their marketing material.

 

On 11/30/2022 at 8:59 PM, AndreiArgeanu said:

The thing that always baffles me is the USB IF always receives criticisms for the way they've handled standards since like USB3.1 yet they never seem to change. It's not like they even need to do that much. Remove all gen YxZ GEN O bs and revise all USB standards such that a USB 3 will be 5GB, 3.1 10GB, 3.2 20GB, and 4 40GB with all the appropriate features for the standard supported. Do they even have an incentive to make up all these BS standards and minimum requirements?

 

also lol

 

 

Because it's not all on USB-IF. As has come up in many other threads, the Gen YxZ what people call "BS" was never intended for and should not be used by manufacturers or people, in terms of marketing, in the first place. They are technical namaes for the various transfer modes that USB offers and that's it. USB-IF has defined names for those same things that manufacturers should use: "SuperSpeed USB <nothing>/10/20 Gbps" for USB 3 and "USB4 20/40 Gbps" for USB4. In my opinion the real question is why is it so hard for the industry to use those? Because by not doing so we end up in the vicious cycle of "those names suck, I'm not using them" -> "these technical names are such complicated BS, why doesn't USB give us sensible names?!" -> "those names suck, I'm not using them" -> rinse, lather, repeat. It's not great, I wish it was clearer as well, but the blame isn't solely on USB-IF.

 

The reason why it's not 3.0 being 5 Gbps, 3.1 being 10 Gbps etc. is because that is not what those version numbers were chosen to refer to. People hear "USB 3.1" and think "oh that implies a device running at X Gbps with functions Y and Z" while in reality it refers to the specification itself: "How to buid a USB device, Version 3.1".