Windows 11 now supports USB4 at 80Gbps, also known as USB 4 2.0 | Faster USB4 devices could start appearing in 2024::undefined

  • Jonathan@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    139
    ·
    7 months ago

    “USB 4 2.0”… someone should really do something about the incredibly goofy naming scheme.

    • herrcaptain@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      69
      ·
      7 months ago

      With a version number like that they should have throttled the throughput to 69 Gbps.

    • Otter@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      14
      ·
      7 months ago

      I never bothered to check, but are there multiple organizations making different names? Or just one that has no consistency whatsoever

      • bloopernova@programming.dev
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        32
        ·
        7 months ago

        They name by committee. So every corporation that is in the USB standards group will argue for whatever benefits them, with no consideration for consumers.

        I fucking hate it. Buy a USB C cable and it’s a crapshoot whether it’s USB 2 with no power delivery, or poor quality with power delivery. Just trying to find a good quality USB 3 cable is difficult, with 3.1 or 3.2, x2 or not, shitty control chips, etc etc.

        • Jonathan@lemmy.world
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          21
          ·
          7 months ago

          It is absolutely infuriating. It blows my mind that you can have a USB 3.2 Gen2 cable that does everything you need it to, except for the fact that it doesn’t support Power Delivery and a lot of the time you won’t even know, so if you’re sending high wattage through it there’s a real possibility you’re gonna burn some to kind up.

          • Socsa@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            In theory, compliant devices can detect the voltage drop over shitty cables and request a lower charging rate.

          • BorgDrone@lemmy.one
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            7 months ago

            if you’re sending high wattage through it there’s a real possibility you’re gonna burn some to kind up.

            Anything over 3A or 60W requires the cable to have an e-marker. A little chip inside one of the connectors that indicates what the cable is capable of. No USB certified device should try to pull 60W or more through a cable without e-marker or anything above what the cable can handle if it does have a marker.

      • Jonathan@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        11
        ·
        7 months ago

        I know, it is a never ending source of minor comedy that “Universal” is right there in the name.

  • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    92
    arrow-down
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    7 months ago

    These are all equivalent, which is dumb as fuck:

    • 3.0 / 3.1 Gen 1 / 3.2 Gen 1
    • 3.1 Gen 2 / 3.2 Gen 2 / 3.2 Gen 2x1

    I suspect the corporations that influence USB did this specifically to confuse consumers (increase sales) when they could have told them exactly what they were getting e.g:

    • USB3 5Gb
    • USB3 10Gb
    • USB4 500Mb/100w
    • USB4 20Gb/100w
    • USB4 40Gb/20w
    • USB4 80Gb/240w

    The jump from 3 to 4 could’ve indicated the change to USB-C ports, which should be the greatest breaking change for USB (otherwise it’s no longer USB). The “/Xw” could’ve been used to indicate PD max watts.

    This can also continue indefinitely, like “USB4 10Tb/500w”, “USB5 5Pb/2kw”, etc.

    What I’d really like to see are regulations that require manufacturers to specify the actual speeds the specific component(s) model/batch have achieved under real world testing — both best case scenario and averages — as the theoretical limit is completely irrelevant; with wild variation between cables of the same specs.

    • snowfalldreamland@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      41
      ·
      edit-2
      7 months ago

      Actually the naming scheme you propose e.g. USB4 80Gb is the real naming scheme! It’s officially what the specification demands manufacturers label their products. “USB4 version 2” and so on are explicitly only the names of the internal standards that only concern people writing drivers or designing chips.

      I have no idea what tech journalist are smoking. This has been a problems for so many years but they keep using the internal names. I mean nobody is complaining about having to always say “IEEE 802.11bn” instead of WI-FI 8

      • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        15
        ·
        7 months ago

        Lol. Can’t say I’m surprised. But why do you blame tech journalists instead of the manufacturers and marketers who promote their products using internal spec names?

        I just looked at the last 5 USB enclosures and cables I bought. All of the boxes and marketing display the internal spec name prominently. 3/5 boxes only mention the speed once, as a bullet point in the features section…

    • itsmect@monero.town
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 months ago

      Undoubtedly the best naming scheme. The x2 suffix should not be dropped tho, because it shows that USB and the alt-DP mode can be used at the same time.

    • trafficnab@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      22
      ·
      7 months ago

      No, we’re going from “a different cable for every device” to “a different cable for every device but you need a label maker because they all look the same”, and you’re going to like it

  • CosmoNova@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    29
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    If I learned anything then it‘s to trust manufacturers to sleep on this for the coming years until Microsoft stops supporting old USB completely or something.

    • lud@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      7 months ago

      Microsoft is kinda obsessed with backwards compatibility so no, that won’t happen.

      Floppy disks will probably get dropped before USB.

  • Wanderer@lemm.ee
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    28
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    7 months ago

    Can we please have some form of colour system or something

      • jkrtn@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        7 months ago

        The single phase line is the same thing as the first phase of a three phase line. In either case, you know it is carrying one of at least one phase of the current.

    • lud@lemm.ee
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      12
      ·
      7 months ago

      They were this close to fixing the whole USB 3.X mess.

      • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        3
        arrow-down
        4
        ·
        edit-2
        7 months ago

        They cannot, capitalist greed. The companies want to sell absolutely garbage cables and call it a higher number to fool absolute idiots so we have this naming mess.

        It will absolutely never get better for ANY consortium that listens to the will of capitalists. Because that shit hurts profits and the utopian notion of growth is sacred more than any holy book to them.

        • lud@lemm.ee
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          10
          ·
          7 months ago

          A higher number makes sense and is useful.

          USB 3.2 Gen 2x1 isn’t useful.

          • AMDIsOurLord@lemmy.ml
            link
            fedilink
            English
            arrow-up
            5
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            edit-2
            7 months ago

            Aren’t these internal names?

            Also, you can call a shitty device USB 3. You can call a super juiced up device USB 3 as well. The consumer had to go dig in the manual to find out what generation and speed it actually is.

            See the point?

            A lot of USB flash drives advertise themselves as USB 3 with wildly varying speeds

  • xePBMg9@lemmynsfw.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    4
    arrow-down
    3
    ·
    7 months ago

    If I were Mr Monk, I would be distressed with their choice of writing 80 Gbps, when they could have written 10 GBps. Just a nice round 10.