Is it time for PC and Laptop makers to only include USB 3.0 ports?

[Lerianis]

The title pretty much says it. From what I have seen there is really no reason for USB 2.0 ports on laptops and desktops other than companies are trying to cheap out on the ports since any device that works with USB 2.0 or 1.0 will work in a USB 3.0 port.

So why do manufacturers still insist on putting in USB 2.0 ports instead of USB 3.0 ports? Just seems stupid to me though there is the chance that I am missing something here other than "USB 3.0/3.1 is expensive!" which I do not believe is true.

 

I understand why Thunderbolt 3 is not replacing USB 3.0 and USB-C: The chip to control Thunderbolt 3 is still relatively expensive..

[Cereal5]

Well for all of those still hanging on to what's left of windows 7, it doesn't natively support USB 3.0, so you kind of have to use a 2.0 port if you're installing from a flash drive (which you do, if you are currently alive). Other than that... /shrug

[GoldenLag]

Well, USB 2.0 ports are much cheaper than 3.0 ports and also require less chipset PCIe lanes

[Lerianis]

Seriously? Could Microsoft not send out a version of Windows 7 that natively supports USB 3.0? I cannot imagine it would be that hard to include a 'generic' driver that allows USB 3.0 to work in Windows 7 during installation.

[schwellmo92]

The chipset only has X amount of USB ports available. What's an example of a new laptop with USB 2.0 ports?

[Lerianis]

1 minute ago, GoldenLag said:

Well, USB 2.0 ports are much cheaper than 3.0 ports and also require less chipset PCIe lanes

Actually, no. I recently talked with a friend who works for Acer designing laptops and he stated that USB 2.0 ports are not much cheaper than 3.0 ports today hardware and material wise. They are pretty much comparable.

That is when I started thinking "Why don't they just drop USB 2.0?"

[Lerianis]

1 minute ago, schwellmo92 said:

The chipset only has X amount of USB ports available. What's an example of a new laptop with USB 2.0 ports?

https://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-i7-8550U-Processor-GeForce-Backlit/dp/B07661CYPD

 

Not only USB 2.0 ports (it has a type-C and a USB 3.0 on the other side of the laptop) but I was just imagining "Why not swap out those old USB 2.0 for USB 3.0?"

[Cereal5]

1 minute ago, Lerianis said:

Actually, no. I recently talked with a friend who works for Acer designing laptops and he stated that USB 2.0 ports are not much cheaper than 3.0 ports today hardware and material wise. They are pretty much comparable.

That is when I started thinking "Why don't they just drop USB 2.0?"

PCIe lanes are not physical, it's the electrical connection the port uses to communicate with the CPU. Actual dollar price isn't the only factor

[schwellmo92]

5 minutes ago, Lerianis said:

https://www.amazon.com/VivoBook-i7-8550U-Processor-GeForce-Backlit/dp/B07661CYPD

 

Not only USB 2.0 ports (it has a type-C and a USB 3.0 on the other side of the laptop) but I was just imagining "Why not swap out those old USB 2.0 for USB 3.0?"

Can't give you an answer for that one because the CPU supports 4-6 USB 3.0 ports.

 

Playing the devils advocate here, what do you need more than 1 USB 3.0 port for?

[Dujith]

It will happen by itself. Think about it, how many USB 1.0 ports do you see on laptops/pc's these days? None.

Simply because the chipsets do not have them anymore, so when they only ship with 3.0 you'll start to see 3.0 ports on devices only.

 

[GoldenLag]

7 minutes ago, Lerianis said:

Actually, no. I recently talked with a friend who works for Acer designing laptops and he stated that USB 2.0 ports are not much cheaper than 3.0 ports today hardware and material wise. They are pretty much comparable.

That is when I started thinking "Why don't they just drop USB 2.0?"

As far as i know the power delivery spec of 3.0 is higher. Also the PCIe lane reguirement still holds some merrit. 

 

It might be power related as they dont want to spend way to much to meet power requirements

[Lerianis]

2 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

Can't give you an answer for that one because the CPU supports 4-6 USB 3.0 ports.

 

Playing the devils advocate here, what do you need more than 1 USB 3.0 port for?

You would be surprised. I used to have to juggle 5 drives back when USB 3.0 drives that were relatively inexpensive were only 1TB in size. Now with 4TB drives it is getting a lot less necessary admittedly (even less now that I use a BlueTooth mouse) but more USB 3.0 or even USB-C ports would be awesome to have 'just in case' a relative or friend wants to use my laptop as a charging station for their devices.

[Bouzoo]

14 minutes ago, schwellmo92 said:

Playing the devils advocate here, what do you need more than 1 USB 3.0 port for?

Multiple storage devices. USB and external hard drives than can actually use the USB 3.0 speeds.

 

I figured pretty much everyone used only 3.0. My 3 year old laptop has only 3 x 3.0 (sadly no USB-C). 

[schwellmo92]

32 minutes ago, Lerianis said:

You would be surprised. I used to have to juggle 5 drives back when USB 3.0 drives that were relatively inexpensive were only 1TB in size. Now with 4TB drives it is getting a lot less necessary admittedly (even less now that I use a BlueTooth mouse) but more USB 3.0 or even USB-C ports would be awesome to have 'just in case' a relative or friend wants to use my laptop as a charging station for their devices.

If you have multiple drives you need to plug in to a laptop I guess that makes sense. As for charging, 2.0/3.0 makes no difference.

[Mira Yurizaki]

If we're asking hardware manufacturers to get rid of USB 2.0, then have them get rid of VGA first.

[Jerped]

Some desktop case don't have usb 2.0 anymore. Just bought a cooler master cosmos c700P and it has 4xUSB3.0 and 1xtypeC. My motherboard (asus z270-e)  only has one USB 3.0 internal port  

 

On a side note, anyone noticed how much less USB intel boards have compared to AMD???

[Syntaxvgm]

 

3 hours ago, Cereal5 said:

Well for all of those still hanging on to what's left of windows 7, it doesn't natively support USB 3.0, so you kind of have to use a 2.0 port if you're installing from a flash drive (which you do, if you are currently alive). Other than that... /shrug

IIRC there's ways around it, but if there's something you truly need a legacy option of 2.0, if the laptop has a mini pcie wifi card you can pop that out and either use a 2.0 version of this 

 

or a desktop x1 adapter with a normal usb card attached to get things set up. 

 

[Arenero14]

1 hour ago, M.Yurizaki said:

If we're asking hardware manufacturers to get rid of USB 2.0, then have them get rid of VGA first.

Sadly, a lot of monitors and proyectors in my university still use VGA. I guess thats why we havent rid ourselfs from VGA ports in laptops

[Ashleyyyy]

3 hours ago, schwellmo92 said:

Playing the devils advocate here, what do you need more than 1 USB 3.0 port for?

external SSD, usb gigabit lan, hdd dock...

 

that's just a few things if i had to use a modern laptop as replacement for my desktop (assuming said laptop doesn't have a gigabit lan port)

[Misanthrope]

3 hours ago, Dujith said:

It will happen by itself. Think about it, how many USB 1.0 ports do you see on laptops/pc's these days? None.

Simply because the chipsets do not have them anymore, so when they only ship with 3.0 you'll start to see 3.0 ports on devices only.

 

 

3 hours ago, Cereal5 said:

Well for all of those still hanging on to what's left of windows 7, it doesn't natively support USB 3.0, so you kind of have to use a 2.0 port if you're installing from a flash drive (which you do, if you are currently alive). Other than that... /shrug

 

This 2 posts encapsulate in a nutshell everything you need to know: companies are wise not to immediately drop legacy technologies and the respective ports because despite Microsoft wishes, adoption rates to the new OS were not instantaneous so it's better to eventually phase them out once their usefulness is basically next to NULL

 

Of course this also means that they have to wait for a new generation of hardware so next time laptop members commission a batch of new motherboards to support new technologies and have the option for the legacy ports they might instruct the mobo manufacturers "Nah we can omit support for those ports on the mainboard even our enterprise clients are no longer requesting USB 2.0 support"

[asus killer]

how many things do you connect to usb that use 3.0 bandwidth? Do you really need them for every single thing?

[SpaceGhostC2C]

3 hours ago, Lerianis said:

So why do manufacturers still insist on putting in USB 2.0 ports instead of USB 3.0 ports?

I wish that was true, but many motherboards are coming with no 2.0 ports, only headers.

Why I want USB 2.0? Because they somehow managed to break backward compatibility with 3.0. There are USB peripherals that won't work properly if plugged to a USB3 port.

I know for a fact that the Logitech G13 is one such device. And no, I shouldn't be purchasing a newer version because someone decides to make it artificially obsolete, and there is no newer version anyway.

 

In fact, the question is the opposite: why would you not have USB2 ports, given they broke backward compatibility with USB3? Those who need them would lose, and those who don't wouldn't really gain much. For instance, since you complain about the persistence of USB2, let me ask you: how exactly does the presence of USB2 ports hinder you, as long as you have enough USB3 ports for your storage devices (there's really no other reason to go with USB3 to begin with)?

[wanderingfool2]

4 hours ago, Lerianis said:

Actually, no. I recently talked with a friend who works for Acer designing laptops and he stated that USB 2.0 ports are not much cheaper than 3.0 ports today hardware and material wise. They are pretty much comparable.

That is when I started thinking "Why don't they just drop USB 2.0?"

Hardware wise, if they are "not much cheaper" it does not mean they are pretty much comparable.  There is profit margin to think of...aside from that though, that only factors in hardware and material, I could be wrong but I believe the licensing costs for USB 3.0 ports are more than USB 2.0.  (Actually again, I could be wrong but I think in one of the old PAX video with the Corsair guy he mentions something similar to that)

[Sniperfox47]

TL;DR: the USB data may use the same part of the CPU as the PCIe data and trying to run it too fast may cause problems.

 

IO from Intel laptop Chipsets are handled via something called HSIO. These are lanes that handle all of the data out by combining data from multiple sources over a single lane. They then need to be demuxed to separate the data.

 

Most of the USB lanes over HSIO are shared with PCIe lanes. These may be used for things like Wifi, SSDs, and other high speed and high performance parts. If the board supports Thunderbolt 3 that also uses those PCIe lanes.

 

Not all of the USB lanes are free for ports either. Often USB is used for certain internal components like the webcam. With higher resolution or higher refresh rate cams, or cameras with other things like biometrics it's important that these have dedicated lanes for performance stability.

 

This means that in machines with multiple ports that you're often sharing them with PCIe lanes that expect certain performance garuntees. Because of this it may not be realistic to allow those ports to run at full USB 3.0 bandwidth to ensure you don't cause issues on the PCIe data. The mux chips that can handle USB 3.0 data are more expensive too since they need to be faster.

[Mira Yurizaki]

7 hours ago, firelighter487 said:

external SSD, usb gigabit lan, hdd dock...

 

that's just a few things if i had to use a modern laptop as replacement for my desktop (assuming said laptop doesn't have a gigabit lan port)

Then get a USB hub.