USB4 Isn't Cut And Dry - And That's A Bummer
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Date: 2023-05-19
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Comments and reviews: 14
Xaytana
I think USB4 is pretty cut and dry, what isn't is the market around it skirting the specific spec with slightly altered namings. The way to prevent this is for USB-IF to trademark the alternate names for the sole purpose of disallowing them in marketing. Furthermore, USB-If needs to find some legal language that says companies that use these alternate namings, or anything lesser than the actual USB4 spec, face some kind of repercussion for walking the line of false advertising. I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it, but USB5 needs to come fast, and it needs to fix every open-ended issue USB4 currently has, where USB5 needs to be _the_ spec and _the only_ spec with no room for interpretations or bodged implementations for compatibility's sake; USB5 needs to be absolutely cut and dry across the board and across the industry. Which also means that USB5 needs to clean up any other PD issues that still exist, and needs to clean up various tunneling and alt mode nuances and just make an outright unified standard for it. Another thing that needs cleaned up is the braindead naming schemes and implementations, again USB5 needs to be a singular spec, no more generations, no more single or dual lane, no more symmetric or asymmetric with different nominal speeds, there needs to be one speed full stop, with major increases being a new spec; for example, the gen 2 single lane to gen 3 single lane jump being a doubling, the gen 3 single lane to gen 4 jump being a quadrupling on sym or a hextupling on asym, I know the spec is moving fast but USB4 Gen 4 should've been USB5, and USB5 should've been asym for purposes of simplicity.
I also wish a future PD spec could allow for daisy-chained one-cable setups, where there's power overhead for downstream devices, for example if I have a laptop, a display, and downstream peripherals, I want want them daisy chained to a singular wall wart, but as it currently stands I am limited to what individual ports can put out and overheads are so limited to where that setup requires at least two if not three wall warts. At the same time, I also want this implementation to carry data as intended, say I add some external drives, an eGPU, etc., into the mix, I still want a daisy-chained solution where there's virtually only one wire from one endpoint to the other. Essentially, I want a future USB spec to not only be the universal serial bus, but also the universal power bus, and not that but also the universal power and data backbone for setups, where a virtual one-wire implementation is possible, where a secondary branch wire is only needed in the event of a temporary device being added to the ecosystem. I say 'virtual one-wire' due to the fact that there are multiple wires, but a device is the common end point for two cables and thus ties those two loose ends into one extension; at least this is until we get a spec that allows for a singular true wire with multiple plugs, like a hub but rather than a block with multiple wires it's literally just a wire that meets multiple devices at the device with no additional cables needed, and honestly this might be the solution for the idea of a single-cable backbone as this could at least provide a discrete power rail, though flexibility takes a hit. Honestly I just want the spaghetti of wires to go away, especially as wireless isn't catching up in some areas (such as displays) and wireless still needs a temporary cable for power needs; for example I currently have six individual wires in my setup, two power and four peripherals, with one additional wireless peripheral with its own charging cable, yet this could easily be consolidated into a singular wire if USB and PD allowed for it, albeit that additional wireless peripheral would be a case of where a branch is needed for the sake of simplicity, and this issue gets exacerbated when I add a pre-USB4 Type C hub into the mix as it requires its own power source if your host doesn't have 15w output or you're adapting to a Type A port. I just want things to be clean without the need for ample cable management, because even with the best cable management you'll run into issues if anything ever needs to be changed.
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I think USB4 is pretty cut and dry, what isn't is the market around it skirting the specific spec with slightly altered namings. The way to prevent this is for USB-IF to trademark the alternate names for the sole purpose of disallowing them in marketing. Furthermore, USB-If needs to find some legal language that says companies that use these alternate namings, or anything lesser than the actual USB4 spec, face some kind of repercussion for walking the line of false advertising. I've said it before, and I'll continue saying it, but USB5 needs to come fast, and it needs to fix every open-ended issue USB4 currently has, where USB5 needs to be _the_ spec and _the only_ spec with no room for interpretations or bodged implementations for compatibility's sake; USB5 needs to be absolutely cut and dry across the board and across the industry. Which also means that USB5 needs to clean up any other PD issues that still exist, and needs to clean up various tunneling and alt mode nuances and just make an outright unified standard for it. Another thing that needs cleaned up is the braindead naming schemes and implementations, again USB5 needs to be a singular spec, no more generations, no more single or dual lane, no more symmetric or asymmetric with different nominal speeds, there needs to be one speed full stop, with major increases being a new spec; for example, the gen 2 single lane to gen 3 single lane jump being a doubling, the gen 3 single lane to gen 4 jump being a quadrupling on sym or a hextupling on asym, I know the spec is moving fast but USB4 Gen 4 should've been USB5, and USB5 should've been asym for purposes of simplicity.
I also wish a future PD spec could allow for daisy-chained one-cable setups, where there's power overhead for downstream devices, for example if I have a laptop, a display, and downstream peripherals, I want want them daisy chained to a singular wall wart, but as it currently stands I am limited to what individual ports can put out and overheads are so limited to where that setup requires at least two if not three wall warts. At the same time, I also want this implementation to carry data as intended, say I add some external drives, an eGPU, etc., into the mix, I still want a daisy-chained solution where there's virtually only one wire from one endpoint to the other. Essentially, I want a future USB spec to not only be the universal serial bus, but also the universal power bus, and not that but also the universal power and data backbone for setups, where a virtual one-wire implementation is possible, where a secondary branch wire is only needed in the event of a temporary device being added to the ecosystem. I say 'virtual one-wire' due to the fact that there are multiple wires, but a device is the common end point for two cables and thus ties those two loose ends into one extension; at least this is until we get a spec that allows for a singular true wire with multiple plugs, like a hub but rather than a block with multiple wires it's literally just a wire that meets multiple devices at the device with no additional cables needed, and honestly this might be the solution for the idea of a single-cable backbone as this could at least provide a discrete power rail, though flexibility takes a hit. Honestly I just want the spaghetti of wires to go away, especially as wireless isn't catching up in some areas (such as displays) and wireless still needs a temporary cable for power needs; for example I currently have six individual wires in my setup, two power and four peripherals, with one additional wireless peripheral with its own charging cable, yet this could easily be consolidated into a singular wire if USB and PD allowed for it, albeit that additional wireless peripheral would be a case of where a branch is needed for the sake of simplicity, and this issue gets exacerbated when I add a pre-USB4 Type C hub into the mix as it requires its own power source if your host doesn't have 15w output or you're adapting to a Type A port. I just want things to be clean without the need for ample cable management, because even with the best cable management you'll run into issues if anything ever needs to be changed.
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iar1980
Not only that, but you got ASUS who have not delivered on there promise of introducing USB4 via a Bios Update on the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED equipped with a Ryzen 7 6800U which Gordon reviewed almost a year ago. Gordon was given a Bios Update directly from ASUS (not yet released to the general public) with USB4 enabled, but still nothing to this day. The Laptop has been fantastic, just this one minor omission that is frustrating...
Don't know if Gordon or the Team have any further information in relation to this, if so would be of help. Thanks
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Not only that, but you got ASUS who have not delivered on there promise of introducing USB4 via a Bios Update on the Asus Zenbook S 13 OLED equipped with a Ryzen 7 6800U which Gordon reviewed almost a year ago. Gordon was given a Bios Update directly from ASUS (not yet released to the general public) with USB4 enabled, but still nothing to this day. The Laptop has been fantastic, just this one minor omission that is frustrating...
Don't know if Gordon or the Team have any further information in relation to this, if so would be of help. Thanks
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Pancake
I'm sorry, I feel like there's so much to unpack here, and that's probably because I haven't used an external drive in 10 years. Who are Orico and Acasis? Are they supposed to be respected brands? And these two companies use shady USB4.0 instead of official USB4 labels to dupe consumers, right? So why is Gordon saying that we could wait for these types of companies to make products that are somehow more trustworthy than the crowdfunded company that makes an actually-USB4 product?
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I'm sorry, I feel like there's so much to unpack here, and that's probably because I haven't used an external drive in 10 years. Who are Orico and Acasis? Are they supposed to be respected brands? And these two companies use shady USB4.0 instead of official USB4 labels to dupe consumers, right? So why is Gordon saying that we could wait for these types of companies to make products that are somehow more trustworthy than the crowdfunded company that makes an actually-USB4 product?
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j340
2.8 GB/sec over a wire is still pretty darn good. You tested with Intel laptops and an AMD motherboard, what about an Intel motherboard with Maple Ridge + z690/z790? Also, what about on a Macintosh? Apple claims to have USB4 ports, but how fast are they when connected to a drive enclosure with the new AsMedia usb4 chip?
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2.8 GB/sec over a wire is still pretty darn good. You tested with Intel laptops and an AMD motherboard, what about an Intel motherboard with Maple Ridge + z690/z790? Also, what about on a Macintosh? Apple claims to have USB4 ports, but how fast are they when connected to a drive enclosure with the new AsMedia usb4 chip?
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Jordan
So questionable controllers abound, on top of naming snafu.
I feel the uptake of USB4 to be oddly slow too. Wondering if some of these controllers were made before final ratification of the spec (outside of the blatant thunderbolt 3 controllers being paraded as 4 taking advantage of the idiotic naming conventions)
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So questionable controllers abound, on top of naming snafu.
I feel the uptake of USB4 to be oddly slow too. Wondering if some of these controllers were made before final ratification of the spec (outside of the blatant thunderbolt 3 controllers being paraded as 4 taking advantage of the idiotic naming conventions)
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Christopher-Titus
Ah, motherboard manufacturers trying to cut corners like I've _never_ seen that before! Sadly, it ain't quite as easy as it once was to fix though. At least, not unless you can get full PCIE expansion cards running the full spec bandwidth.
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Ah, motherboard manufacturers trying to cut corners like I've _never_ seen that before! Sadly, it ain't quite as easy as it once was to fix though. At least, not unless you can get full PCIE expansion cards running the full spec bandwidth.
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Dragonheng
USB naming in general is an absolute nightmare.
You don't really look through what you get for your money.
USB with its Gen 1 to Gen 3 and their underscore 1, 2 also gives 3?
The drop in naming will also be determined for USB 4 ford law.
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USB naming in general is an absolute nightmare.
You don't really look through what you get for your money.
USB with its Gen 1 to Gen 3 and their underscore 1, 2 also gives 3?
The drop in naming will also be determined for USB 4 ford law.
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MarcasswellbMD
Not trying to be slick or smart but do PPL really care that much.. I barely have any Type C use cases.. I only have Type A 3.0 Thumb drives myself.. I guess there are PPL out their that need it.. IDK..
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Not trying to be slick or smart but do PPL really care that much.. I barely have any Type C use cases.. I only have Type A 3.0 Thumb drives myself.. I guess there are PPL out their that need it.. IDK..
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Enoch
USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 are already outdated. We need more bandwidth especially for eGPU docks with NVMe storage, memory card readers, dual 10G AVB NICs and other extra ports. We really need PCIe 5.0 x4.
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USB4 and Thunderbolt 4 are already outdated. We need more bandwidth especially for eGPU docks with NVMe storage, memory card readers, dual 10G AVB NICs and other extra ports. We really need PCIe 5.0 x4.
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Marco
It's cool to see that decades later and multiple retroactive renames the only thing you can expect to work reliably is USB 3.0 and 2.0, and that Asmedia are still the only decent USB drive controllers
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It's cool to see that decades later and multiple retroactive renames the only thing you can expect to work reliably is USB 3.0 and 2.0, and that Asmedia are still the only decent USB drive controllers
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Sinister
Shame how USB was such a nice straightforward thing initially and slowly morphed into confusion. Either way; this will be amazing for small form factor systems needing extra storage!
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Shame how USB was such a nice straightforward thing initially and slowly morphed into confusion. Either way; this will be amazing for small form factor systems needing extra storage!
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shep
wait for usb5 - it is on the way along with wifi7 - sure they are bound to screw it up a bit but respins and bios updates should eventually unlock the full potential of nvme
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wait for usb5 - it is on the way along with wifi7 - sure they are bound to screw it up a bit but respins and bios updates should eventually unlock the full potential of nvme
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Fantasy
omg!! he said the magic word!! ''hopefully one day'' !! may be the frown-hopper usb institute will make a patch! till then! haven't heard about anything cooking yet!
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omg!! he said the magic word!! ''hopefully one day'' !! may be the frown-hopper usb institute will make a patch! till then! haven't heard about anything cooking yet!
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Frank
All these so call new technologies pcie 5 usb 4 m.2 has it even made a 2 seconds difference? oh yeah it's add more heat to your system that's about it.
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All these so call new technologies pcie 5 usb 4 m.2 has it even made a 2 seconds difference? oh yeah it's add more heat to your system that's about it.
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