No, not again.
Are you telling me that there's now a second version of USB 4, which already carried over
the super confusing naming scheme from USB 3?
Well, I guess here's another Techquickie where we explain why it's not just called USB 5,
or at least USB 4.1 or something.
So what do you need to know? Unsurprisingly, it's fast, like really fast.
USB 4 version 2.0 tops out at a whopping 80 gigabits per second,
twice as fast as the existing USB 4 Gen 3 by 2.
And yes, I'm getting a headache just saying that.
That works out to just under 10 gigabytes per second.
So it's actually faster than that PCI Express 4.0 X4 connection,
the nice SSD inside your computer's probably using. And that's wild.
Because the USB implementers form hasn't yet published the full specification,
there aren't many details at this time as to how they pulled off this speed increase,
other than a vague statement about a new physical layer architecture.
But we did find out from our friends over at CalDigit that the main way they did this
was by switching over to a signaling scheme called PAM.
No, not the cooking spray. PAM basically means that instead
of two possible digital signaling levels to represent a zero or a one,
there are four signaling levels that can represent 00, 01, 10, or 11.
So you're moving twice as much data at the same time.
There still will be dedicated active 80 gigabit rated cables,
which USB IF confirmed are aimed at folks who need to have longer cable runs.
But to reiterate, you do not need a new cable
to get the higher speed over shorter distances. Pretty good.
This is great news for folks that need to move lots of data around quickly.
Although this might make you think of people that shoot lots of high res video,
the use cases potentially include everything from multifunction docks to external GPU enclosures
to high performance displays. It's no coincidence that USB four, version two,
has the same maximum bandwidth as the latest version of DisplayPort.
80 gigabits per second is enough to drive three 4K screens at 90 frames per second
with HDR support. So as displays that offer high resolutions
and HDR become more common, along with content and games
that can take advantage of them, this latest USB revision could get us closer
to a one cable for everything future
instead of having to use separate HDMI and DisplayPort connectors.
And even more impressive is that instead of running USB four,
V2 in the default mode,
which provides 80 gigabits upstream and 80 downstream,
you can instead run 120 down and 40 up,
which could allow even higher resolutions and refresh rates.
But this isn't yet an official part of the spec. So it remains to be seen how widespread support
for it will actually be. And not only does USB four, version two,
carry DisplayPort 2.0 signals, it also continues to support PCI Express and Thunderbolt.
That's how it can support an external GPU. But how soon will it actually be available?
It's not exactly a big secret that the theoretical maximums of USB
and other high speed interconnects have so far outpaced
how the vast majority of people use them. Keyboards and mice require very little bandwidth.
Flash drives often aren't used for much more than a few photos and documents.
And most of us these days only use the USB ports on phones for charging.
Given this, it shouldn't be surprising that the USB promoter group has come out and said
that the update is being released mostly for the benefit of developers at the moment.
Even if it does seem useful to run several high bandwidth devices off a single port,
it's hard to find mainstream laptops that even have any USB four version one ports,
as you mostly have to look at the higher end of the laptop market if you wanna be on the bleeding edge.
So USB four V2 won't exactly be consumer ready
for the holiday season. And there isn't yet a timetable for when you'll be able to fork over a ton of money
for a computer and or a display that actually supports it.
Think of this more as a small step towards a more simple future
without a boatload of connectors. Though there are absolutely no signs
that the USB IF is interested in a future where the names of our USB connectors are equally simple.
God, come on! You know what is simple though?
Me thanking you for watching this video. Hey, like the video if you liked it,
dislike it if you disliked it, check out our other videos, comment below with video suggestions,
and don't forget to subscribe and follow the Techquickie.
It's simple, you should be able to do it.