USB4 is a Glorious Mess

[@7411y]

Once again reminded of the XKCD comic. Situation: There are 14 competing standards. "14?! This is ridiculous! We need to develop one universal standard that covers everyone's use cases." "Yeah!" *Situation: There are 15 competing standards.*

[@heavymetalnhardrock]

There really is an XKCD for everything

[@Elliandr]

Maybe USB wouldn't have any competition if it could actually be Universal and meet every use case. When it can't be bothered to come up with a simple naming standard because it can't be bothered to be Universal and let's manufacturers make every little piece of the standard optional of course it's not going to be universally applicable to anyone and therefore will have competition.

[@Zwerggoldhamster]

Link? :)

[@Elliandr]

@@Zwerggoldhamster KZbin's AI moderator won't allow me to share with you a link nor can I tell you how to find it.

[@ssokolow]

@@Elliandr Just share the comic number. Some search engines will even embed the comic when you search "xkcd" and a number. It's xkcd 927, by the way.

[@tste_jl]

USB-C is going into a dangerous situation, all the specs on the ports, transfer protocols and cables are all over the place. At this stage I would rather go (a little bit) back to the old days where if I pick up a cable I would definitely know if it would work depending on what the connector looks like.

[@HVDynamo]

Agreed. For most people it would be easier for them to just be able to match cable with plug and be certain it should work. Even for tech enthusiasts it's a pain in the ass to figure out what will work with what.

[@nullptrRL]

There are some very practical downsides to different plugs and connectors that are easy to forget about in the era of USB-C everything. So going back to the "good old days" here would be a bad thing in general IMO.

[@suppar8066]

Imagine cables with stripes that indicate the specs. Would help alot tbh just like you use to have on resistors you know :D

[@DannoHung]

Be nice if the ports and cables were just consistently friggin' marked in some way.

[@obic123]

It's been fucked for some times to be fair. They are doing everything that initially caused the creation of the USB plug .... Just call the fucking thing 1,2,3,4,5,6 Add a fucking P for power , T for transmission then end.

[@Vash.Baldeus]

The problem is that a lot of the features of USB4 are OPTIONAL, that's the biggest issue and you never know which of the features is disabled due to that.

[@TheGrejp]

That's why manufacturers *need* to label these things clearly, but alas they don't. Almost all of the confusion would be cleared up if they just produced full and detailed spec sheets.

[@laurencefraser]

I'd say the biggest issue is that USB C cables (and often ports) have zero labling what so ever. USB 4 doesn't actually make this meaningfully worse when a USB 3 C to C cable could be anything from USB 1 to USB 3 (best), plus the occasional 'power only' cable (though at least those were usually C to A, and the A plug was colour coded... except, oh wait, those were often wired incorrectly, to the point where some of them could brick your machine if you used them with the wrong device)

[@Catsrules1]

@@laurencefraser Yep cables are my biggest issue, at the very least with a device you can look on the model number and probably figure it out what is supported. But cables lol good luck with that. Most cables have absolutely zero identifiable information on them. At this point I am thinking of buying to color tape and try and color code all of my USB C cables. Assuming I know what my current cables are.

@@TheGrejp The manufacturers not labelling stuff is of course also the fault of the standard, or rather, the certification requirements (or lack thereof, as the case may be).

[@iankirby4160]

Even if they were optional on the port end, it would make things much easier if the cable itself is capable of all the above.

[@abdoufma]

It'd be really awesome if Labs made a compendium of (at least the most popular) devices and the USB4 features they implement. That would be a godsend for informing purchase decisions.

[@earthling_parth]

Yes, LTT labs please make this happen! Also give us some recommendations for the cables for all these specs :)

[@timadorno9986]

3rd. Please run tests same as for hdmi/display port.

[@JoelKreider]

4th. This is the kind of clarification I’m hopeful Labs can provide.

[@nnnik3595]

Or just have the EU force the manufacturers to write down which spec they implement.

[@Elliandr]

Or better yet, just make all the features mandatory. Not optional, and then just call it USB 4 and be done with it. If all the cables and all the hardware work the exact same way there would be no confusion for anyone. If your customers need a cheat sheet to understand your product chances are your product is too complicated for consumers to understand even with a cheat sheet.

[@AaronShenghao]

Love that you used the monitor Apple intended, you either spend a 1000 on a stand, or hire someone to hold the monitor for you.

[@Elliandr]

At that price why would anyone buy an Apple monitor to begin with? Or if they do buy it why would they buy the stand instead of hiring someone to hold it at minimum wage? You could probably get a good 100 hours of someone holding the monitor at the cost of the stand. Maybe 200 hours if you pay under the table. If it's cheaper to pay someone to hold a monitor for hundreds of hours than to buy the stand that means the stand is overpriced.

[@kitsura]

Still cheaper to have an intern hold it for you.

[@HyperVegitoDBZ]

@@Elliandr Opinion of others.

[@pkennethv]

I appreciate the joke, just a nerdy FYI for anyone who actually cares: those are Apple's 27" 5K displays in this video. The one with the $1,000 stand is the 32" 6K display.

[@trnguy6137]

It's a good thing apple didn't build cars. You will be required to pay 1000.00$ for each mile of road since the apple Car would require proprietary highway system

[@DanyaZChannel]

A small note, Intel developed the Thunderbolt with Apple, so they don’t need to label their port as USB4, it is officially Thunderbolt. Thanks for your content!

[@dstinnettmusic]

God….billion dollar corporations are so petty. I mean, it makes sense because Apple has directly challenged both Nvidia and Intel, and they have also divested themselves fully from each company…but still. It’s just a port on a computer. Can’t they put all their bs aside for the sake of stopping consumer confusion?

[@Ballssniffer600]

Comment needs heart bro

[@bryanespino6882]

Yet apple sticks with lightning

[@zxbc1]

​@@dstinnettmusic You realize that making things confusing and coercing consumers into "preferring" their proprietary "simple" solution is how they will turn this pro-consumer trend of standardizing cables back into the dark ages, where they can get a cut of profit on every cable sold on the market, right? Imagine believing that mega corporations have your interests in mind!

[@Gl-my8fw]

@@dstinnettmusic apple is a pos company that profits by keeping consumers ignorant

[@diogoalmeidavisuals]

Remember how USB-C was supposed to make everything simple and straight forward...

[@Dhaydon75]

It kinda makes it easy on a connector level BUT everything else is a clusterfck.

[@fynkozari9271]

Long live the king, USB C. RIP lightning cable EU 2024 ban.

[@briti1543]

As the "tech guy" among family and friends (as I'm sure many of you are) USB-C has caused a lot of frustration among less tech savvy people that I know and I get why it does. They look at their device, and they look at the cable/dongle they want to plug into it and they're the same. They fit together just fine, but sometimes things don't work on a pretty arbitrary basis. For example, relative A wanted to still use wired headphones with their new phone and they purchased a passive USB-C to 3.5mm adapter which worked great. Relative B sees that, buys their own adapter, then discovers that it doesn't work at all even though it's all exactly the same externally to relative A's setup. Relative B then comes to the tech guy who explains that analog audio out has to be supported by the hardware, but that not all phones support it and they get frustrated because all of that was so opaque to them. All I can really do is shrug, agree that it sucks, and offer to check compatibility on any future planned purchases.

[@mycelia_ow]

It did, the standards are the only problem.

[@mycelia_ow]

@@Dhaydon75 So basically not a prob with usbc then.

[@Drinkyoghurt]

The people at the USB consortium really went: "Fuck, one person finally figured out how the naming scheme of USB 3 works, we need to come up with something more confusing ASAP!"

The naming scheme is purely technical. They specified what should be used for marketing and by end users. The problem is that nobody sticks to that. There's simply 5, 10, 20, 40 Gbps. They all have logo with the number. For speed that's all, you don't need anything else. There are different logos for different features like power delivery, DP alt mode and so on. You should just tell which features are supported over the standard connector and that's all. Using technical terms does not help with anything and using the standard name is just confusing as the standard describes how to do things, it does not mandate to do all of them. Like you may have safety standard saying how hot should heated steering wheel be in your car so that it does not burn your hands. You meet the standard if you don't have heated steering wheel too. If someone will now put a sticker to brag about this, it's just marketing bullshit. They did not want anyone to use technical names for marketing as those can be and are confusing to ordinary user. The worst part is that some manufacturers started using wrong names, consumers got used to them and now everyone has to use them, otherwise people will not buy their products. This one has 40Gbps USB but this one has USB 4! Let's take the newer one! That's how we end up with this mess.

[@PhysicsGamer]

​@ The issue people have is that response was utterly predictable and it's really on the USB forum that they didn't see it coming. When you have users saying "I need to do 40Gbps... 3.1 can't do those speeds? Thanks, that must be version 4, then," the idea of the "simple" marketing names falls apart entirely. Users care about what their products _do,_ at the end of the day, and right at the top of that list of functionality is _compatibility._ Consider the USB-2 to USB-3 (yes, yes, I know - but keeping it "simple" here...) transition and how the USB micro connector was handled. USB-2 cables had the same old USB micro connector as always, while USB-3 cables had an extra node on it. It was _so_ easy to explain to people "This is the bit that makes it work faster. If the port can fit this extra part of the connector then it supports faster speeds, otherwise you have to use slower cables. If you use a slower cable in a faster port, then it'll just work like it's a slower port." Nowadays it's a neverending cycle of figuring out if it's even possible for function X of device Y to work when connected to device Z. And if it is, which of the multiple poorly (or even un-) labeled USB-C form factor ports needs to be used to get that functionality. "Why does my monitor work when I plug it into this port but not this identical port on the back of my computer?" "Why does my laptop stop charging when I swap the ports my mouse and charger are using so that the cable is in a better spot?" "Why is this connection so slow? Both my devices say they support USB-3.1 speed..." "Why does plugging in an extra monitor to my dock cause my laptop to charge slowly?" "I bought the best cable I could find but it STILL won't charge my laptop... is my laptop broken or is it due to this 'fiber optic' thing?" These are all questions I've been asked which were only possible due to the mess USB has become lately. I feel like we've regressed back to the time when everything used its own proprietary charger, except now there's the added horror of all the chargers being identical.

[@davec8153]

@enrique amaya Even Jesus can't figure this shit out.

[@Naokarma]

@@davec8153 The only time a reply to a spam bot is warranted.

[@jackwong64]

4.1 gen A will be out soon

[@timseguine2]

USB never should have added optional components of the standard in any version. The entire point of USB originally, was "a USB port is a USB port". It is also extremely annoying for so many things like alt mode to exist which use USB connectors for things which aren't USB. Defacto now, it is impossible to know ahead of time if a specific device will work with a specific port without reading spec sheets, and even then it isn't clear (Thunderbolt products will often work with non certified implementations even if it isn't hinted at anywhere in the spec sheet)

I will argue with that. We don't need 2137 different connectors so that our monkey brain can match the shape. We just need the information what it is. What's lacking (and it's mostly manufacturers fault) is how things are marked. Primary USB use is USB. You have standard logos for 5, 10, 20 and 40 Gbps. You can also guess what will be the next number if it comes out. That's all. Everything else should me clearly marked. This port has DP? Put a DP logo near it. This port has Thunderbolt 4? Put the logo on it. Does it provide 100W charging? Put a logo on it. Let people know what this port supports. With different sockets I can have expensive HDMI cable and have no way of charging my phone or I can have expensive laptop charger but I have no cable to connect the monitor. With common standard we can reduce the number of cables we have. Of course you can still buy cheaper things that don't have all features but that's your call. Otherwise we end up with stuff like we have with USB 3. Yay, I have new USB 3 micro cable. Yay, it does not fit my USB 2 device. Yay, I have to carry USB 2 and USB 3 cables now because the cable for my fast external drive does not fit my old phone. That's silly. Do I really need separate display socket in my laptop just because my phone does not have display output and I want to use the same charger for both? Or do I need to have two different chargers? Why can't I use the same cable to charge my phone, charge laptop and have display from my laptop? USB provides exactly that. I know that if my cable is good for display and charging, then I can use it to charge my phone and connect monitor to my laptop. I don't need two cables anymore. And I know that if it my laptop supports charging and display output and my monitor provides power over the same connector, I can charge my laptop from monitor. What's wrong with that? Moreover, certification is always a problem. On the one hand certification ensures that things work. On the other hand, certification is costly. So if you are too restrictive with certifying things, you have a wide market of not certified devices that may work. Now you have a choice - go for expensive certified product or cheaper not certified. Now you complain that not certified things work even though they were not certified? What kind of logic is that? The fact that something without certificate works is a problem? No. The problem is that certification is too expensive or too restrictive. That's exactly why USB does not require all features. If USB 4 would require PCIe on each and every implementation, then stuff that has other features but no PCIe would not have USB 4 certification even though it's working with it as long as you don't try to use PCIe. That's the whole point of having optional features. You don't need 40Gbit data transfer and TB4 alt mode if you want want to connect external PCIe device. Does it mean that this socket should be banned? Does it mean that you should have completely different, proprietary cable and socket for this purpose? It would be stupid if you can have PCIe through USB-C but only if you support something that you don't need. Certification should be relaxed enough to mean something. If it's too restrictive, too many devices support things without certificate, then people stop using the certificate as guidance. You have certified cable for $20 and not certified for $5? You will try the cheaper one hoping it works and complain that there's no certification but you don't want to pay for the one that paid for certification. That's the problem we have. If someone can't get certified despite supporting something, then the certificate is meaningless. If you have to pay way too much to use it, it's meaningless. It's like "only use Apple chargers to charge Apple devices". Some people will do that, most people will figure out that any USB can charge it for much lower price. Or "only use Apple USB-C cable". Why? What's the difference besides the price and marketing? None. Certificates should not be used to feel that it's more exclusive product. They should mean something and should be clearly marked. Not in the spec sheet, it should be on most devices that have enough space to put a tiny logo on it. For those few too compact devices it could be written somewhere else or provided only in spec sheet but for most computers there's enough space to put the logo on the panel near the socket. Would it be a problem if thing like Macbook had a small diagram on the bottom with all logos assigned to each port? Not really. Now it's hidden so that people don't complain about the looks and it's still on device.

[@timseguine2]

@ That's why they called the standard "Universal Serial Bus", right? Because they didn't intend for it to be universal.

@@timseguine2 Are you suggesting that Thunderbolt, Displayport and other features are not a serial interface?

[@timseguine2]

@ No I am suggesting they aren't universal. Exactly what I said in my original post: "it is impossible to know ahead of time if a specific device will work with a specific port without reading spec sheets"

@@timseguine2 So if my phone does not support 100W charging, we should not have that in standard? After all, it has the same port as 100W chargers but can't do that. Do we have to invent different charger shape because of this? If my cheap tablet does not have video output connected to USB, then it should also be forbidden to use USB for video output because some devices don't support that? I guess we have different definition of universal. For me univeral bus means that it may support various things in the same form. Not that every device with universal port supports every possible function you can imagine. What next? Should we create 10 types of video cables to be sure that you can't connect 120Hz 4K screen to video output that can only support 60Hz? I guess you were also the supporter for having separate CD, DVD and BD bays. Why would anyone allow making optical drives that support more of those? They look the same! How would anyone know if this bay is CD or DVD? That's insane and should be forbidden! DVD should be square and BD should be triangles to make it obvious which one goes where!

[@huddie71]

You can absolutely guarantee that not one device or computer manufacturer will label or even document their ports to state which USB / thunderbolt standard they meet. Nor will selllers on store product listings.

[@nickwallette6201]

And you can bet that when non-techie users go into a store and get "advice" from the ChatGPT instances in pants, they're going to get a randomized answer that does not cross-reference with any spec, or reality. This is a technical marvel, and a complete failure of a product.

[@louisroche9574]

Framework does document that!

[@foogod4237]

The true irony is that USB was originally developed back when every device had its own connector and even things which could theoretically all be supported by the same computer wouldn't actually work together because the connectors were wrong, etc. USB was _supposed_ to unify all of the different communication standards and connectors together, so that any USB device could work with any USB port. Now, we've reached exactly the opposite state, where even through everything is now using the same connector, you can't know whether any given device will work with any given port because they're all doing different things over the same connector and there's absolutely no standardization of feature sets or functionality. In a way, the USB-IF have become the evil they sought to destroy...

[@juniperburton7693]

That sounds poetic. :P

[@slackreal]

i ain readin allat

[@daygeckoarthawaii1360]

Yep, and that is what happens when engineers are in charge of design!

[@mrdali67]

Very true. The idea of every thing using the same connector is poetic and grand if you can specify everything down to the last detail, but sadly thats not the case and why USB have become an abomination of what it was supposed to solve in the first place.

[@mexmer3223]

it works, if only thing you want is charge at 5V, 0.5A, or transfer data at speed of 10Mbps 😁

[@MaddieBwah]

I fail to see how the organization that made 5 usb 3s didn't think to make a USB 4.0M for mobile devices instead of making the biggest features into optionals.

[@stealthraider22]

That was my immediate thought too, why not just make a usb 4 full which has all the optionals and a usb 4 that is slimmed down. That would allow them to implement it now even though products are currently released as the ones that support everything get renamed to usb 4 full and just usb 4 cables MAY support optionals but it's not guaranteed

[@Jakensik]

Nobody forbids implementing usb4 in phones, it's just unnecessary

[@oliveprocessor3068]

Given these circumstances, I have no choice but to believe the USB-IF is a corrupt entity knowingly creating misleading standards so that manufacturers can do whatever they like to maximize profitability and still use once-trustworthy labels to pull customers.

[@jonathanodude6660]

@@oliveprocessor3068 the manufacturers are the USB-IF

[@JivanPal]

@@jonathanodude6660 lol, what? No, they're not, they're the standards body. Manufacturers get their products _certified_ by the IF, the IF doesn't _make_ them.

[@teardowndan5364]

The only thing universal with USB now is confusion about what cables, devices, ports, etc. supports what parts and combinations of the optional specs. Good job!

[@CabbageLux]

They solved the issue of of a universal connector and left everything else for the consumer to figure out.

[@Tostky]

Almost no one in the grand scheme will run into issues is part of the problem.

[@MrGatlin98]

If a big part of the issue is because of smartphone USB C implementation, then there should be two standards. USB 4 and USB 4m (mobile). Standard USB 4 should support everything as standard. USB 4m could have the optional parts (or remove them all together). This would simplify everything.

[@OsnofAhcor]

At that point is almost just better to have a different port to different things... like some other person said in a comment, is better if you know it works just by looking at the shape of it

[@Perseagatuna]

@@OsnofAhcor What USB-IF should do is either go full in with making it Universal or make it only do what it already did but faster and done. Either stop trying to implement PCIe Tunneling, Thunderbolt and DisplayPort into USB and leave those to use their own ports or go full in and make it the true Universal connector by not making these optional. Or at the very least do actual decent naming and branding and make it mandatory too, not just having consumers left to guess wtf your USB-C port actually is and what can it do.

[@Distress.]

@@OsnofAhcor No because then you'd need multiple cables. This is simple matter of labeling and documentation.

[@KingOfTheKindle]

There’s an XKCD for this: Situation: there are 14 competing standards “We should make on unifying standard that everyone uses!” Situation: there are 15 competing standards

[@gebs123]

@@OsnofAhcor Agreed, I would rather search for the right thing and knowing it works before it's plugged in. Versus plugging something in to check if it will work because.

[@miss_inputs]

Linus being surprised at fancy new tech actually working how it's supposed to work for once is a big mood

[@r47345e]

He needs to flip it like a total noob

[@RefrigeratedTP]

I was pleasantly surprised honestly. From worrying about chipsets and PCIe lanes to having to worry about HDMI and DP standards just to hook up my monitors, I'm SUPER glad I don't need to worry about another stupid USB standard.

[@EnochGitongaKimathi]

USB-IF made the same mistake with USB4 that Intel did with Thunderbolt 3, by making certain features optional. The unfortunate part is what makes USB4 unique from previous standards are what were left out as options. Thunderbolt is also implemented differently by Intel across it’s CPUs. Some mobile SOCs have it integrated directly into the monolithic design of their CPUs, some are on-die but on different I/O chiplet, while others are in an external PCH on the motherboard. The performance varies with the best performance with the integrated designs. USB4 v2, DisplayPort 2.1 and Thunderbolt Next all seem to offer the same maximum features but again only Thunderbolt offers the full features specifications as default while the rest leave the best bits as options. Rumour has it the next iPhone Pro Max will feature Thunderbolt with its USB-C. I can’t wait for Thunderbolt Next

[@estebanod]

TB4 has no optional features

[@rossjennings4755]

Making features optional would be OK if they limited the number of ways vendors could combine optional features and gave the combinations different, clear names. The real problem here is that devices with different capabilities all have the same "USB4" name. Presumably they did this because of pressure from vendors who want to call their product "USB4" so that it doesn't look outdated, even though they don't need, and don't want to pay to implement, all the new features.

[@EnochGitongaKimathi]

@@rossjennings4755 multiple configurations is exactly the problem we are trying to get away from. The things that are optional for the HOST in USB4 are around 5 so even now the number of ways one could combine optional features is truly limited but it is still causing a problem. So if we were to give them different names we would have USB4 Option 1 Which doesn’t include any of the optional features then USB4 Option 2, USB4 Option 3, USB4 Option 4, USB4 Option 5 and final USB4 Option 6. What if a particular implementation is including 2 optional features out of the 5? It would mean each combination of two gets a different name. What if they combine 3 or 4? Finally the last configuration would be USB Option All for host devices that include all the options. It would be a mess and even without the naming because this is the reality, we already have such fragmentation it is already a mess. Imagine buying a laptop and having to decide between 20 different USB 4 specs. We should just have all HOST and HUB devices feature USB4 with all the options enabled. This is the only advantage Thunderbolt 4 has over USB4. I walk into a store and all I ask about a USB-C port is does it support Thunderbolt 4 and I know my new computer will be able to work with anything USB-C.

[@olbaze]

If the reason for the optional features is mobile devices, couldn't they just... have made USB4 with the full feature set, and then USB4-Mobile that has the reduced feature set?

[@EnochGitongaKimathi]

@@olbaze they didn’t have to create any new spec for mobile. They just needed to keep using USB-C with USB 3.2.

[@microcolonel]

Maybe the right way to do the logo/branding licensing deal is: in order to display a full size USB4 compatibility symbol on its own, it *must* implement the optional modes; and if it doesn't, it has to list the limitations alongside the compatibility symbol.

[@JivanPal]

I like this idea of listing the _limitations_ rather than the _features._ I was originally of the opinion that they should say e.g. "USB4 + PCI + Daisy ...", but consumers generally want to know / pay attention to when they're told something _won't_ work, so I'm a fan of your suggestion.

[@microcolonel]

@@JivanPal for that common phone use case, you could call it "lite" or something

@@JivanPal It's not a good idea. Listing not supported features means that you have to know what the supported ones are. Now imagine that USB will add a new feature. Now you have to know which features were supported by the version implemented by the device and subtract the list of not supported features to know what it can actually do. That's exactly why we had a mess before. You can't expect consumer to know each and every revision and capabilities to know exactly what should be there. Can you tell from top of your head what's the max resolution/refresh rate of DP 1.2a? I guess most people can't unless someone they check which version can do what. So having the version does not really say anything. I bet a lot of people would later buy something that does not say it does not support something only to find out later that something was not in standard yet and it was not even mentioned. Besides that you can't really force people to put logo on a product. You can prevent them from doing so. So you can tell people that to use your 'XYZ compatible" logo they have to meet certain criteria but it's very hard to force each and every manufacturer to put "XYZ not compatible" on any device that does not support something.

[@JivanPal]

@ 'Tis a fair point!

[@iurigrang]

I would love to see this in a future steam deck 2. It would be pretty cool to have a beefed up CPU, a GPU whose target is the smaller and lower resolution display of the deck, but a way to easily transition to a docking station with an external GPU. That way, the dream of steam deck as your only computer dream that we’ve been talking about isn’t only available for more budget oriented folk, but rather can offer a comparable experience to an actual moderately expensive desktop.

[@Lupo2punto0]

GPD, Onexplayer and AYANEO handheld pcs already have USB4.

[@anivicuno9473]

@@Lupo2punto0 Except they cost an arm and a leg, and don't have good repair options. For the price of one of those, you might as well just get a desktop replacement.

[@DigitalJedi]

If they do that I'd like to see a port with 4 lanes for the GPU. Right now thunderbolt is x2 to my knowledge.

[@goncaloduarte4683]

@@anivicuno9473 the GPD Win 4 costs "only" 800$ for 16gb + 512gb SSD. That's not much more expensive then the equivalent Steam Deck SKU (650$). And if you are the type of person to buy GPU docks, then 150$ for a significantly more performant device is not an issue.

[@Marco_Onyxheart]

And put it in the bottom, so you can dock it like a Switch, but then the external GPU plugged into the dock. Just plug the Steam Deck 2 in and you've got everything.

[@samsawesomeminecraft]

I really liked someone's comment of standard resistor-style colored stripes on the USB connector that indicate the supported features. Could embed a current rating, data rate, and signal quality with just 3 colored stripes.

[@derAtze]

But what about displayport? Daisychaining? Pci-e passthrough? Power delivery? Thats the problem. There aren't only "current rating and signal quality" (whatever the heck thats supposed to be in a digital protocol), there is sooo, so much more.

[@tomikun8057]

​​​​​​​​​​​@@derAtzeThat's on device implementation, not cable. Cable only transfers data and power. It doesn't need anything special for those features except the correct data transfer speeds, which the striped colors idea covers. For per-device implemented features, you could add symbols/colors/colored symbols on the port. Also PD is already covered by the current rating. Voltage doesn't matter here because..physics..so only current (Amps) are needed. This can be simplified to Watts for the end user too. USB has specified 5V for a long while now for standard PD so you can assume that for the Watt calculation.

[@tomikun8057]

Idea seems good on paper but in the real world, text works best. Many USB wires already have their specs literally just printed on the rubber part of the cable. Just making that simply required for certification is IMO, good enough. Just imagine all the people thinking its just "wow cool colors" then buy a totally crap cable.

[@JehuMcSpooran]

Linus: "Watch how easily I can break things." Everyone: "We watch you do that on a daily basis, Linus."

[@ukaszwanczura9969]

"are you sure you want to uninstall gnome?" Linus: "yes"

[@ThePolaris87]

Thanks so much for covering this! It's frustrating how unclear USB4 has been. I would love for you to cover why Ryzen 6000 systems have USB4 by default while Ryzen 7000 systems do not.

[@trashpanda502]

My guess is that because it is mobile and thus less upgradeable they included it but on 7000 series you could probably just add it via a pci-e slot.

[@Yuzuki1337]

Might be that the PCIe lanes are allocated differently in the two generations but I'm not 100% sure on this

[@estebanod]

USB4 is everything but unclear, everything is labeled

[@DiacriticalOne]

This is all part of the reason I have been bugging Amazon to require full specs on USB devices and cables. You can get a beautiful looking USB-C cable that cannot handle much power (5v, 1A anyone?) and sports USB-2 speeds. There needs to be a requirement for clarity on supported specs and recourse when they aren't met.

[@___DRIP___]

Amazon is so trash these days. It’s nothing but Chinese manufacturers selling stuff made of Chinesium and plastic.

[@rotac1249]

amazon is basically aliexpress at this point

[@poisonouslead85]

Ya I just about choked on my drink when Linus said "240 watt charging" and "You can use your old cables". Yeah no. Shoving 240W through a gas station USB-C is going to cause a fire. I would not want to live in an apartment building in the future.

[@JivanPal]

@@poisonouslead85 The standards will prevent that from happening anyway, though, so it's still safe; you'll just get 5W rather than 240W because there's no voltage negotiation happening.

[@dkvsoi]

Ahh yes, I love the Elgato Steam Deck 4:15

[@BareFinn1986]

12:26 The ant joke really made me smile. I love how you guys at LTT are so professional and you still feel like normal people.

[@TheSanpletext]

LMG staff has understood, that being professional doesn't mean you need to be uptight and that you can't be funny.

[@outlaw1846]

Someone absolutely needs a raise

[@bradnoyes7955]

an ant once bit my sister

[@BareFinn1986]

@@bradnoyes7955 Useful information.

[@psychorabbitt]

If they were professional they would have reshot that part. But god forbid Linus do something other than drop things and get his employees to fix his house.

[@SchioAlves]

All USB-IF needed to do was break the spec between something like USB4 Go for phones and USB4 for laptops, etc, something in those lines, instead of making a mess between required and optional. Plus, interoperability should be required (and that I'm talking not only about USB-IF, but also Intel), it's outrageous that a damn thunderbolt display is not compatible with DisplayPort, since the inner display protocol in thunderbolt IS DisplayPort, but they "cheap out" on the controller on a multi thousand dollar monitor

[@mr.kenway4554]

That requires someone at the USB IF to grow a brain, and unfortunately none have one. All they can do is maliciously make the USB spec as confusing as possible.

[@contemplatingrain2380]

The editors notes on any farts had me laughing a great deal. Great job guys!

[@WeAreInfinite8]

EN: "Ants are directly farting in his mic sorry" EN: "I can't get them off." EN: "You guys ever smelled Ant farts" EN: "Me neither." lol

[@NoNameAtAll2]

farts? wtf

[@WeAreInfinite8]

@@NoNameAtAll2 Starts at 12:08

[@jdnims]

i luved that... makes videos funnier and just more enjoyable

[@akariaTXreaper]

reminds me of the subtitles on the Swedish Chef Popcorn video... I'm all for it!

[@mfaizsyahmi]

If the optional parts of USB4 were to allow mobile devices to benefit over some aspects of TB3 then it should've been specific designation for the subset vs the whole TB3 spec e.g. USB4M for mobile, USB4⚡ for full TB3

[@jomeyqmalone]

I originally thought the point of USB type C connectors was that we wouldn't need so many different types of ports and cables, just one that you could use for anything. Instead we now have even MORE different types of cables and connectors, but they all LOOK EXACTLY THE SAME. In short, things have just gotten worse. The only way to guarantee that a type C cable you get will work with any host and device combination is to get a passive thunderbolt 4 cable of 1 meter or less. That's all I buy, even just for phone charging, because otherwise you will have no idea which cables are capable of what when they start moving around and getting mixed up.

[@dustojnikhummer]

1M is just too short for laptop or even phone charging.

[@bastienx8]

With the "best" usb4/thunderbolt cable you can do anything from charging to connecting an external gpu. The problem are the different use cases. For charging you need only 4 wires (2 for dc power and 2 for the base usb signal, like usb 2.0), but for the full 40gbps capacity you need the 20 wires of the usb C connector. And you may have noticed that thunderbolt cables are really stiff and heavy, because of these 20 wires inside it. Someone who just want to charge it's smartphone/laptop will prefer a cheaper and lighter usb C cable with only the 4 wires needed for this use case.

[@bubkabu]

I agree but then there are devices that won't work with higher duty cables. My vape pen will only charge with lower duty cables. Not even the MacBook cable works

[@hellterminator]

@@bubkabu The manufacturer probably fucked up the resistor network in the vape. A dumb charger will ignore it. A cheap cable will not allow a smart charger to test it. But a PD charger with an e-mark cable will refuse to work. Early units of Raspberry Pi 4 had the same issue where they were identifying as headphones to smart chargers.

[@ohnoes9608]

That's blatantly false. In the past you'd need a shitty proprietary charging cable for your phone and a shitty proprietary non-upgradeable dock and a laptop with that one specific proprietary interface to connect it. Now you need a USB-C charge cable and a Thunderbolt cable. Sure, USB-C isn't perfect by any means, but pretending that it's worse than what we had before because you can't use a generic 10-year-old $2 USB-C cable to charge your electric car is ridiculous. The absolute worst thing that USB-C can do to you is buying the wrong cable if you're allergic to google searches. If that's you then you can just exclusively use your device with the cable that it came with and that's it, you're in the exact same place as you were before USB-C. GOOD IS NOT THE OPPOSITE OF PERFECT.

[@fattomandeibu]

Daisy chaining makes me think of the "good old days" when a basic desktop PC(and I mean basic, not even a hard drive or colour video output in a lot of cases) cost as much as a small car and home users all had microcomputers(computer and keyboard in one unit) that just connected to a regular TV via composite. If you're unfamiliar, look up the C64, Tandy 1000EX/HX, Amstrad CPC, ZX Spectrum, and Amiga 500. Mine was an Amiga 1200(still works, even the hard disk) and I had an external SCSI connector hooked up via the expansion slot on the side. It was a nightmarish sprawl of cables and crap all over my desk with devices just daisy chained taking over half my bedroom. A CD ROM, 56k modem and extra floppy drive come to mind, but I had others that I can't remember, 'cause damnit it's been almost 30 years. This old man's brain barely goes back a week. So yeah, maybe it's for the best we can't daisy chain too much.

[@oldveryveryoldmanfromthe1900s]

@NewZaard gmaingngd

[@fattomandeibu]

@NewZaard C64 with Datasette was the first machine I had when I was a small kid, the A1200 mentioned here was what I upgraded to in the early '90s. Still have it and well over 100 games on tape. No idea if they still work, as the power supplies are apparently risky to turn on after over 30 years of not being used.

[@zachb1706]

The solution to this is to have multiple tiers (such as A, B and C) with different standards. And for this tier to be clearly labeled next to the port and on the cable

[@Drakoman07]

USB4 type C tier C gen 2x2

[@grn1]

@@Drakoman07 Probably best not use A, B, and C. Maybe Ultra (every feature), HB (High Bandwidth), Display, PCI, Mobile (High Bandwidth and Display).

[@dmitripogosian5084]

@@grn1 Historically, manufacturers tend to shift the boundaries of Ultra to suit competitive needs. Look what happen to LTE (which is not G4) and G4

[@killerb255]

@@dmitripogosian5084You mean 4G?

[@dmitripogosian5084]

@@killerb255 Yep, a bit of finger discoordination on my part

[@Ravage64]

Honestly, USB-IF has outlived their usefulness. USB was created because there were too many incompatible/competing standards (parallel, serial, din, ps/2, ext). Now, almost 30 years later, they've decided it would be a good idea to create incompatible/competing standards. Someone else needs to step up and make a new SINGLE universal connector/cable for *all* devices....and write the standards/requirements in stone.

[@laurencefraser]

xkcd had something to say about that plan and it's usualy results, if I remember rightly.

[@popenieafantome9527]

“Lets create a NEW standard” type of thinking is kind of what brings these issues in the first place unless all people actually switch to it. More often than not, it becomes just another standard to choose from.

[@blinded6502]

@@popenieafantome9527 No, it's not the problem. It's them not being widely adopted or enforced is what the problem is.

[@GintokiSama]

@@laurencefraser xkcd 927 iirc

[@marcelocardoso1979]

This brings me flashes from JavaScript and its enormous amount of libraries and frameworks that solve the same thing. Everyone that faces a single setback on a library decides to create its own instead of contributing to the community. What USB needs is to enforce those not needing USB4 features to use USB3 or even USB2. This would solve a lot of problems to the standard and still keep the compatibility. There's absolutely no sense on saying a device that does not support USB4 features is a USB4 ready device.

[@malmazoar]

It's no surprise the Optical USB-C cable didn't work - i suspect the external GPU needed a small kick of power from the cable to get it started, even with an external power source, and optical can only send data. USB is by far the hardest thing to explain and get right, as not even computer manufacturers can tell us sometimes what their laptop has. And cord manufacturers are no different. I knw I find it hard, and every person I've talked to in the local tech industry feels the same.

[@bosstowndynamics5488]

I'm pretty sure they've used that exact same cable on an eGPU successfully before though, with a TB3 certified device on the other end.

[@laurencefraser]

I mean, if they were Doing USB right it would be a piece of cake: It's a standard connector that has all the connectors wired up in compliance with the standard on all cables and devices, so it would never be a matter of 'can this component do X?' when it comes to USB features, but only 'does this peripheral Need X?'. Sure, maybe the device wouldn't be able to support a particular peripheral for other reasons, but it should Never be because the Connection Standard isn't Standardized.

[@Mallchad]

It is pretty bad. The USB specs are very dense to read. Also. And people don't write the specs for their products properly... Optical USB/thunderbolt definatly died because of the power requirements. Half of the point of USB is its simple and supplies power *and* data. Hence why now we have 200W USB charging...

[@poisonouslead85]

The first generation of Windows Mixed Reality had serious problems because most PC and motherboard manufacturers were not producing boards with USB 3.0 ports that were truly USB 3.0 compliant. The headsets were USB powered, and those "USB 3" weren't capable of pushing the power they were supposed to be able to push.

[@estanho]

Optical USB cables will still generally use copper wires for power. You should be able to for example charge a phone with them. They use fiber just for the data part, which is the part most affected by cable length since long cables deteriorate high frequency signals.

[@swirrllfolfsky9803]

Would be really awesome if Labs did cable testing for thunderbolt/usb4 compatibility

[@estebanod]

...they do, USB-IF certification The problem is people not bothering to look up things online And all Thunderbolt4 compenents are tested and certified by Intel, that's LITERALLY the point of Thunderbolt

[@cargeh]

Linus: "You just don't expect tech to work that well out of the gate" Engineers who had sleepless nights fixing integration bugs: "Are we a joke to you?"

[@TerexJ]

Actually they are. Everytime I update everything seems to break more often.

[@Al.Mo.]

Expectation -> all cables have same connectors, all devices use same cable Reality -> No one can tells which cable works with which device and which feature

[@juschu85]

Okay, that last point with phones makes sense. So don't require PCI-E tunneling and daisy chaining. But what they should require is that all manufacturers transparently communicate what their device supports and what not. And please don't bury it under 15 clicks and one PDF download on your website.

[@CalculatedRiskAK]

Elgato Steam Deck, eh? I don't think Valve co-developed that with Corsair. :p Also, if having USB4 support on phones was such a necessity without the need for other features, they should have just made a USB4 Light or similar standard and required USB4 devices support all features while USB4 Light doesn't. This was so easily solvable, but they didn't care.

[@L0S7N01S3Deus]

@@zuroxtv2199 he's referring to 4:17

[@prich0382]

He meant Stream Deck...

[@vincentkuhlmann]

Was thinking the same, call it "USB4 Mobile" or something, just like we do with CPU's en GPU's. It would look perfectly fine for small devices, like phones, and would be a red flag when you see it in the specs of a laptop or desktop, pushing manufacturers to go for the full USB4.

[@agsup]

@@prich0382 r/woooosh...

[@ninjadev64]

@@prich0382 r/woooosh

[@AMR2442]

I really appreciate these kind of videos. Helps keep you aware before the problem becomes systemic.

[@cherico94]

11:32 This is why I love this channel. I always want to know how far you can push tech before it starts showing!

[@PhilipWorthington]

My takeaway from this: only buy USB 4 if you have unlimited hardware choices and unlimited time (or a team of staffers) so you can try every single configuration until you get one that works - then never change anything or it might break. TLDR: USB 4 is only for Linus

[@laurencefraser]

well, at least until someone starts legally mandating that manufacturers actually Label Their Damn Cables! and such.

[@Micromation]

There's entire new niche of reviews that could focus solely on discovering what features your ambiguously named ports support... fucking 2022...

[@nesyboi9421]

TLDR: Just get thunderbolt cables if you are unsure

[@PhilipWorthington]

@@nesyboi9421 even if you go fully Thunderbolt for your cables it will still be a guessing game as to which device works with which port on your PC. Then, you still can't be confident how well it works (i.e it's detected, but only gives you a fraction of the full transfer speed), until you spend the time to fully test it. So, yes, Thunderbolt cables are a start, but sadly don't solve most of the problem.

[@nesyboi9421]

@@PhilipWorthington yes the problem is that our standard here isn't really a standard

[@Windiguana]

You know the apple pro display stand is overpriced when it's cheaper to pay an employee to stand there and hold the display for you. (also props to Tanner dudes steadier than a stand!)

[@kevinoneill2170]

5 seconds in... Riley in the background in a fedora reading a book... I already know I'm going to enjoy this video!

[@festro1000]

I absolutely hate inconsistent standards, I like cross compatibility, but when I hear a standard I expect to have an idea how it preforms, especially when said standards are selling points.

The standard is quite consistent. It states what and how should be done. This way if something supports PCIe over USB-C, it meets the standard and is compatible with anything else that has PCIe over USB-C. That's the way we should be thinking now. It's not just a USB feature. It's a feature that can run over USB connector. The standard should not be used by marketing and that's what USB-IF was fighting with for quite some time. People are just stubborn and will not stop marketing stuff as USBX. Stop doing that! If it has 20Gbps, that's what you put on it! There's a logo for that, use it!

[@haves_]

subtle conversation while in a conversation, nice, i like that subtlety

[@Bugattiboy912]

If the USB-IF wants to undermine the very thing that brought USB prominence then we should just embrace Thunderbolt 4 which seems to be open just like USB4 except with all the nice optional features built in.

[@JivanPal]

They can't use the name "Thunderbolt", that's still a trademark of Intel. All that's open is the standards, which they have re-implemented under the name USB4. The only stupid thing is making features optional whilst not providing any clear, enforced way of stating which features implementing products actually have, which is supposed to be the whole point of version numbers.

[@kennyc1375]

Linus: "Watch how easily I can break things." Us: Yep, we know.

[@NeonVisual]

My grandparents never could get to grips with modern technology, and I remember a time my granny asked me if I thought there would come a time when technology became too complex for me to understand. Obviously I said no and put it down to living in a different time. USB naming conventions have me worried for my future in which I can't figure out if the charger in my hand is USB GEN 3 PD 6.0.3 third edition GaN backwards compatible 240v AC 4K Pro is the one for my electric toothbrush, or the other one over there which looks the same but might blow my house up.

[@asishreddy7729]

Dealing with USB specifications has made me fully understand how my parents/grandparents feel when they have to deal with tech. UTTER CONFUSION

[@DBMN]

imagine being that guy at 5:53 in the background being forever immortalised with a "Fuck they are filming face".

[@jmd1743]

You would think that the USB committee would be trying to do a fresh start with the USB 4.0 standard after the whole USB 3.0 mess.

[@dirkbester9050]

Same committee people doing the same thing and you expect different results. Are you insane! Damn, so am I.

[@LRM12o8]

That's wishful thinking! Clearly these guys lack common sense (ie take a lot of bribes) and don't know what the job of a standards committee actually is!

[@fynkozari9271]

Thats what no pussy did to them. Their brains all screwed up with the naming schemes.

[@GentleWruzzPuppet]

They should all be either restructured or entirely fired and replaced with people who can actually do anything that makes sense.

[@dustojnikhummer]

So did I, but instead of USB 4.0 we got USB4

[@Szergej33]

I love a 17 minute explainer on how USB works :D

[@LocaLGh0sT]

we needed this

[@hunterhancock474]

It seams like the easy solution for USB's nonsense naming scheme is to just separate them into 2 tiers. "USB 4" for the required set of capabilities, and something like "USB+" or "Ultra USB" for the set of required AND optional capabilities. That way there's no confusion as to how any of this works for the consumer, and there's only two naming schemes you have to know.

[@VividFlash]

USB 4 Pro would be an appropriate name. Ultra lol

[@laurencefraser]

well, except that the +/Ultra one would need to then include the actual information regarding what it does and does not do. Arguably it would make more sense to have have some system of indicators (preferably just words written on the dratted thing, if they could be made to not wear off) marking which features the thing did and did not have. Starting with the fact that it's Actually a USB 4 cable, because unlike A and B (and by extention the mini and micro plugs, because they always had an A on the other end), C plugs Don't even indicate which USB standard they comply with, nevermind any variants and the like. USB 3 C to C cables already have this problem (or would if anyone made C to C cables for anything but the last version of the USB 3 standard).

[@li_tsz_fung]

Or 2 badge of high-speed and PD separately. So that if you see USB [hs4] [pd4], stop using usb 4.0 for consumers. Then if you want to use your ssd, check if you got that USB HS4 badge. If you want to charge your laptop, look for the PD4 badge. If you want to use your 5k oled 1000 nits monitor, make sure your port has both HS4 & PD4. This is also good for future versions. Say for example the lowest tier USB 6 already requires 100Gbps, but still doesn't make sense to require your laptop's USB6 port to output 200W. Instead of telling people all USB6 are faster than USB4 Pro, but don't necessarily have the same charging power. You just tell them, it's HS6 PD3, so you look at your power hungry 4k monitor, sees HS5 PD4, you know you need something better

[@peterbelanger4094]

I don't think you can come up with a naming scheme that will please everyone. No matter how hard you try, someone will get confused. Anyway, they WANT people confused, so we waste more money on the wrong items. Then replace them all with USB 5.d(c)

[@josir1994]

And then we can complain about how USB 4 has too much tiers and it's confusing to not have just one standard. Nice plan

[@iammasoodalam]

Hey Linus, did you told him to hold it you're fired. 8:00 😂

[@andrewadkins8440]

Gave me some joy seeing the MagStor drive again. I used to work for them. Good times, cool to see it get some screen time again.

[@TrynaBeCray]

Should have colour codes like resistors to help with this. Remember when black was slow and blue was fast on USB A?.

[@Micromation]

Linus this should be a perfect segway into a video where you test DESKTOP AM5 MOTHERBOARDS that claim to come with USB4. Which features they support, which they don't? Is there a desktop motherboard supporting PCIe tunneling? This has huge implications for workstation use-case and choosing AMD over Intel platform that comes with certified Thunderbolt 4.

[@nathanp2007]

If features are most likely optional for USB4 because of mobile, they should have just made USB4-standard and USB4-mobile with the mobile version not having any of the optional features that mobile devices can't utilize. That then keeps things easy and simple for the consumer, as they know if they are buying USB4-standard it's got all the optional features and of course works with mobile devices as well. But if they just need a USB4 cable for their phone they can buy the slightly cheaper "USB4-mobile" cable.

[@PhysicsGamer]

This exact problem was already solved, albeit unintentionally, by the USB Micro standard. Amazing how we've managed to take a step back in some ways...

[@dmitripogosian5084]

@@PhysicsGamer But it was crap mechanically

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@dmitripogosian5084 Hm? How so? I for one never had any problems with it, even on a phone, and I'm not aware of anyone who did. If anything the larger connector meant more surface area to hold onto the connector with, and worst case scenario you could fall back to using a Micro-2 connector instead.

[@Vplis]

6:38 you said the site compares the diffirence between thunderbolt 3 and thunderbolt 4, where it should be thunderbolt 4 to usb 4, soo

[@kaas3530]

13:14 "watch how easily I can break things" We know Linus, we know

[@SeraphimKnight]

Had to do a bit of tech support for my mom earlier this year cause her second screen wouldn't work. Turns out she'd plugged it into the thunderbolt port instead of normal usb-c and it worked instantly once switched. Lots of head-on-desk moments preceded this discovery. I couldn't even explain to her why it didn't work in the thunderbolt port, just that it was that way.

[@sidewalkere]

16:27 for the same reason USB3.0 became 3.1 and then 3.2 : because companies want to slap the bigger number in their boxes, even if the thing doesn't do what you expect of the higher number. And since the USB-IF was founded and is run by said companies...

[@benhemmings1290]

I feel like the U of USB is starting to get a bit misleading since its slowly becoming less universal as some USB 4 devices will not work through some USB 4 ports... When as far as I'm aware the original point of USB is that anything with a USB port could connect to anything else with a USB port.

[@flintfrommother3gaming]

I didn't even thought about this... Mostly Universal Serial Bus? MUSB

[@laurencefraser]

Ayup, any 'slave' device with a given gen/speed USB connection is Supposed to function perfectly if connected to a 'master' device with At Least that gen/speed port via a cable of At Least that gen/speed. The moment that is no longer true the body governing the USB standard has Failed and the Universal part is a lie. (note: The 'slave' device not functioning due to some Other compatibility issue with the 'master' device is another matter, we're just talking about the connection between the two here.)

[@jokroast6912]

12:25 No but I have smelled ants or places where there were ants. I can detect the acid by smell for whatever reason.

[@Chipsaru]

Need more of pedantic Riley. Also happy to confirm that USB4 in my Thinkpad Z16 (AMD 6850H) works fine with thunderbolt 3 docking station, but complains about low power delivery (65W provided by dock)

[@ebsolas]

With all those "optional" standards basically, USB4 is USB 2 with the dice roll of a chance of being possibly better in some way that may or may not be relevant to you

[@AhmadQ.81]

Wait for USB 5 Gen 1x 2 Pro Version 2.1 which can optionally support dual 8k monitors. Great as Always. 👍😄

[@Nostalgia_Realm]

Explaining how USB devices are still not interoperable despite sharing the same connector these days to my customers sounds like great fun 😍💀

[@Xbooster35]

For laptops this might a great solution if you want to upgrade your graphics card or something, but most of those features are not used a lot by "normal" PC users, and as far I can see it's also very expensive. I guess I would have the opportunity to add a PCIe card with USB4, but I can't use my second PCIe slot anymore because my graphics card is so huge that it stands in its way, and my graphics card is way more important for me than USB4 slots

[@gabrielenitti3243]

right now the same USB C port is shared amongst so many different types of connection. Problem is most manufacturers will go for the basic implementation and finding out what you actually get is gonna be hard, especially before you buy. Cables are already and will be an even bigger mess in the future too. How am I supposed to remember if a port supports somehing or not? What about cables? Most USB C cables around are just USB 2.0 with new connectors... I understand implementing a very flexible port like USB C would be very hard to do in a neat and tidy way, but this is just gone nuts. A "do it all" connector will just end up in "do nothing at all". Stop giving so much choice to manufacturers, and a different implementation REQUIRES a different name at least and a differently colored port. Every USB C should at least reach 10Gbps and you call it USB 4.0 with black port coloring. Does it supports display? Call it 4.1 and give it a green color. Does it support pcie aswell? 4.2 and another color. Let's not even talk about the different tunneled and alternate modes. This is utter crap.

[@theblindspot985]

Riley is so good at that character hahaha

[@valdir7426]

what I love the most about thunderbolt is that it allows me to use my 15 years old firewire sound interface. ah the wonder of technology.

[@benjamintrathen6119]

I remember the first time I experienced transferring a huge file over thunderbolt 3 (40gbps). Copying from my Zephyrus M to my skull canyon NUC I was so blown away with the speeds, even with gen 3 NVMe SSD's. Crazy fast.

[@j1nchuika]

Guy holding the monitor at 8:10 seems like a region exclusive version of Linus. Like, Galarian-Linus or something like that

[@dinglebop9998]

I don't know how to feel about this entire release of the new spec. USB4 sounds like it COYLD be a major upgrade to the way things run and work, but as mentioned, by having optional configurations could be way too confusing for any regular user. I can already imagine, "why isn't this working? It's plugged into the right hole" Not to mention that the USB world hasn't even caught up - everything I own, including brand new stuff, is still USB-A. I don't own a single USB-C device, let alone a thunderbolt one. My brand new motherboard doesn't even have the I/O slots to support anything USB-C. The whole industry is a shit show

[@pali1H]

USB group: what do we call our new standard? Also USB group: yes

[@DrewGlenzer]

With that much stuff "optional" it's really not a standard is it?

[@edgarkondrakov9834]

Isn't it more frustrating? If previously we could see that "they have different plugs, so they won't work together" but now they have same plugs and messed up names "now we can only connect everything together, and hope that we didn't forgot to turn switch on" and only then it might or might not work.

[@zakofrx]

And some combinations can break hardware..

[@edgarkondrakov9834]

@@zakofrx rarely, but yeah, i agree.

[@RMD_RMD_]

I dont understand any of this, Im just here to support your channel like the Old Grandma I am.

[@matthewhilty4209]

Please do more coverage on this. I don't know if I am more confused or less confused. The more I learn about this the more I realize how much I don't know.

[@llllllllllllllIIlIllIIllIIIIll]

Riley is a star give him raise now ❤

[@bubbathedm]

I hate the usb "standard", they should have just made a list of required features and then required that ALL cables have ALL of those features

[@btarg1]

Just because of how optional the standard features are I don't think it will see adoption for a very long time in place of USB2 and USB3

[@benjamintrathen6119]

I have a 1m active 100w TB3 cable from cable matters and it works with ASUS external GPU which shipped with a 0.3m passive TB3 cable, the latency was slightly worse with the active cable. Disabling the iGPU can help with eGPU latency. This is especially true with the Skull Canyon NUC as the 6770hq has 128mb on-package level 4 cache split 64mb/64mb iGPU and CPU. When iGPU is disabled, this large L4 cache gets reallocated entirely to the CPU. The larger the Cache, the better for latency when it comes to eGPU's.

[@interflashz]

7:46 - lol, I love the cheaper monitor stand option. seems to have a lot more range of motion!

[@TheBritishPatriot]

Pedantic Riley is hilarious! We need more of him!!

[@kikihun9726]

You should test these things with lower spec modells. Like thin laptops or even tablets. They are more likely used with an external gpu than these beefy production laptops.

[@reezlaw]

True. Those laptops already have serious GPUs in them, which you have paid for, so you're not gonna plug in an external one, at least not for years

[@Ivy_Panda]

USB 4 is too new to be on anything but the highest spec stuff atm.

[@kikihun9726]

@@Ivy_Panda the new xps 13" has one. And i think i saw a thinkpad too. And a few zenbook too.

[@disadadi8958]

@@kikihun9726 yup, I've got those on my Thinkpad with Ryzen 6850U

[@xy7582]

Could you please make a video about Thunderbolt add-on cards? I've been looking to build a system with one, but it's really frustrating to look up compatibility. For example: Is AsRock's card compatible with Gigabyte motherboards? What about MSI? Also they're nearly all super expensive: How do I get the best deal?

[@hg-ir8tb]

I would love to connect a high-quality display on my Pixel phone... IF GOOGLE WOULD LET ME! Memes aside, there are probably significant challenges for phone manufacturers to implement features of USB4 that would actually benefit their devices. For example, despite having experimental support for desktop environments, Google's own Pixel phones have had their DisplayPort Alt Modes disabled since the Pixel 4 and the fact that the main form of data transfer for Android phones still utilize the somewhat slow MTP and the fact that there are still new Android devices coming out with only USB 2.x support.

[@shyguy4617]

Samsung Dex is def a moment

[@PhysicsGamer]

Meanwhile, my Samsung Galaxy S5 supports USB 3.0 speeds despite being over eight years old... and it's obvious that it does just looking at it. This is thanks to it using a connector which physically accommodates a larger high-speed USB Micro-B Superspeed cable. Amazing how USB-C has taken a step down from USB Micro-B in some ways.

[@ydid687]

@@PhysicsGamer eyy nice to see a fellow S5 rocker in the wild, love the fact it has a removable battery and everything and i thoroughly miss the home button days of yore

[@PhysicsGamer]

@@ydid687 Definitely! I was so excited when I learned that Samsung made an "S5 Neo" phone with more RAM and storage... but it was missing those key features, sadly.

[@thatvideogamesshow]

This feels like something for the Lab!

[@benjamintrathen6119]

Something to note is that the PCIe lanes from intel's OG TB3 chips were connected through the chipset, to my knowledge that has changed since Intel finally changed their architecture from Skylake.

[@connorpink9226]

I will never get bored with Linus' use of "other more different". Such a unique phrase lol.

[@laurencefraser]

well, until it catches on more widely and stops being unique, anyway.

[@stevens1041]

I liked the miniDP connector/Thunderbolt 2. As an interface, not the specs (its quite dated at this point). It was great for small devices.

[@dmitripogosian5084]

MiniDP was great, though did not slide into slot too smoothly, needed a bit precision. But (though I am from Linux) what I regret disappearing is MagSafe power connector from Apple. That was best engineered power connector for my taste (who trips on power cords frequently).

[@PureRushXevus]

_me still using a bunch of micro-usb stuff still_ "this still works, screw all that confusion until it's more standardised"

[@andresvaldevit3692]

The optional features might be because most people are going to plug in USB thumb drives at most, either if it’s a USB4, USB2 or Thunderbolt

[@dmitripogosian5084]

Well, most people nowadays plug power as well :)

[@maxstr]

At 08:33, does this mean that it's running each screen on a different video card? So if you are gaming do you have to do it on only one of the displays?

[@BonJoviBeatlesLedZep]

So glad I went with the much more bang-for-buck ROG Zephyrus G14 2021 edition than splurging for the new one with USB4. It'll be a few years before more things are compatible with Thunderbolt and easy to get working it seems.

[@DarknessLPs]

Thank you for keeping us up to date on this stuff!

[@Neoxon619]

And this is all including Thunderbolt 5, which can go up to 120 Gbps one way. Imagine how confusing this will be going into the Switch 2 or the iPhone 15. So USB4 Version 3 may have to be a thing soon.

[@nintendu64]

We need to start color code standards for usb cables if they’re making 40 different types of usb-c

[@AzariusR]

That guy that thinks "Life is Pain" is quite relatable.

[@CaptainANess]

External gpus are gonna be wild. To be able to buy a base laptop and able to dock it into a desktop with any kind of gpu would be so next level. And ik they have it now, but once it's out and more easily to get/produce and more compatibility it's gonna be crazy

[@jonathanodude6660]

What do you mean? It’s old tech. The very first thunderbolt was designed to be able to do this, and they’ve already announced the 5th. What are you waiting for exactly?

[@smorrow]

@@jonathanodude6660 You could do it before with ExpressCard