Meh... It's just dumb people or retarded joke to do ~4x turn before it goes in. Good OEM, not stupid chinese copy, already made a USB symbol on the connector so you know which side it should face you. It's just like J and F bulge in qwerty keyboard.
Not quite so much. In a small area, I have 'flipped' a USB connector several times before finally getting it to 'go in' because I was oh-so-slightly off-center.
Uniformity. We could finally have one connector type across all devices. At least in some kind of utopia because in the real world we'll still have tons of usb 2.0 connectors in all shapes and sizes on most devices released in the next 4-6 years, or more. Oh well, one can dream...
I've pretty much phased out all my USB 2.0 devices, save for my laptop computer's XBox 360 controller receiver and my mouse. I got a new USB 3.0 USB 32GB flash drive to replace my USB 2.0 16GB flash drive and trashed the older drive after breaking it into so many pieces, data recovery was going to be impossible. Yes, I am a bit paranoid, especially since the drive in question had my passwords and usernames for websites as a backup on it.
Increased port density + reversible is pretty nice. I'd imagine you'd be able to get 10+ Type-C ports in the back panel space currently used by the 6 Type-A ports.
Or a case where some of the FP connectors are Type-C, so you can have more than 2 easily accessible.
Same reason why we need to ditch the full-size displayport port. There is no reason at all to have a separate smaller connector for notebooks/smart devices. It will be a while but hopefully we'll ditch even more legacy ports with the type C connector.
Full sized DP has a good locking connector. There are a few use-cases were this matters (AV rack installation etc.) so that they don't become lose over time due to vibration. I see this hanging around for awhile on monitors and professional AV equipment.
For consumers, I can see Mini-DP taking over entirely. Ideally with USB 3.1 Type-C alternate modes, even Mini-DP can be phased out.
I failed to mention my point. I mean that given type-C's very small and thin form factor, wouldn't it be better to keep the full-size, more robust type-A at the back of desktop computers? Some cables could be rather heavy and in the long run, C might wear out sooner.
Type-C on the front is a good idea though.
I'm kind of not comfortable with having only type-C on laptops too. Imagine a type-C flash drive or a data modem is connected. Put a bit too much force on it by accident and it might turn out ugly.
2 type-As plus a type-C would be a ok combination though.
This is all speculation of course. Have to wait and see if C can be as robust as A.
it's gonna be wider than micro usb so it should be good enough although clearly not as robust as A, but robustness isn't really the priority here I think, but rather sticking more than just one port on a laptop. People smash their smartphone screens all the time and that hasn't done anything to stop the trend either.
Type-C is more useful for mobile applications given its compactness and the significant speed upgrade over micro USB 2.0 dominant among smartphones and tablets today. Additionally it will allow for even thinner laptops and ultrabooks.
As for the desktop, its main advantage is its reversibility.
USB 3.1 speeds are actually ahead of the storage technology as HDDs weren't bottlenecked by USB 3.0 anyway and aren't increasing in speed for that to ever an issue. As for SSDs, they would see a speed increase from USB 3.1, assuming on both ends of the transfer there's fast enough SSDs to take advantage of it.
However, the reason I say USB 3.1 is ahead of storage technologies is that the price per terabyte for SSDs is still high. The speed benefit for SSDs at USB 3.1 over USB 3.0 will only translate into significant and worthwhile amounts of time saved when you're transferring several terabytes from one SSD to another. And multi-TB SSDs are still not that available and, if available, not even close to affordable.
Because when you can't see behind the computer, having a reversible connector is good.
Personally, I'd prefer to see *ALL* USB 3.1 implementations use *ONLY* the type-C connector. Get the old connector mess out of the way as quickly as possible. Just ship it with a couple C-to-A adapters or C-to-B cables.
"These cards look to be PCIe 2.0 x2 cards, giving the 10 Gbps needed to saturate a USB 3.1 port."
Unfortunately, it's nothing more than the oversubscribed back end we typically see with discrete controllers. The physical layer gross bitrate for USB 3.1 is 9.697 Gbit/s (10 Gbit/s with 128b/132b encoding), whereas a PCIe 2.0 x2 link is only 8 Gbit/s (2x 5 Gbit/s with 8b/10b encoding). So before you even get to protocol overhead, a single USB 3.1 port is more than capable of saturating a PCIe 2.0 x2 back end.
We'll probably have to wait for Cannonlake to see what USB 3.1 is truly capable of.
It may be an x4 card physically, but I'm pretty sure that Asmedia controller is only x2, and there only appears to be a single controller unless there's another one on the other side of the card. Is physical / mechanical PCIe x2 even a thing?
For external/portable SSD? Dunno my sticks hover at 200MB/s tops and my external backup drive is still mechanical. I'm all for progress and anything that starts moving us towards Type C everywhere tho.
Exactly! I have San-disk extreme 480 Gb as an external storage and usb 3.1 would give good boost to it! The 3.0 is not too bad, but the SSD could be even faster with 3.1.
You really think those ~100 MB/s more will make a huge difference when you already have around 400 MB/s? Doesnt pretty much every mainboard nowadays have eSATA anyway? Even my 5 year old one has one, so does my 2 year and 3 year old one and also my 1 year old one. I want god damn sticks that run 400 MB/s, hell, even real 350 MB/s would be awesome.
eSATA is less common, likely due to USB 3.0 coming out. Plus, biggest drawback to eSATA is - no power provided for your peripheral. Not just no charging, no power period, must use external power supply to even use a drive connected to eSATA.
I'm all for the new type C connectors...but having the cards powered through a molex/floppy connector is kind of funny to me. when will a new power standard be created? the 24pin mb cable is the worst of them all
I agree, but it's a chicken/egg problem with that. The standard (20+4) is so entrenched that putting out a new spec would require motherboard manufacturers to make motherboards with the 'new' connector, along with the PSU manufacturers. BUT, then you have two different standards coexisting side by side due to the relatively long (3+ years) upgrade cycle between MOBOs and/or PSUs.
This creates confusion, forces upgrades to people who don't want them etc. It could all be relatively solved by modular setups (ie: a type 1 (20+4) or a type 2 (whatever new standard) MOBO cable for power delivery).
I'm curious though what you would suggest. I can envision a relatively heavy duty 6 wire setup (12v+/-, 3.3v+/-, 5v+/-) made of something in the 10-12 gauge range which would provide sufficient power for most setups (10 gauge is rated for roughly 50ish amps * 12v = ~600 watts, 3v = 165w) while still being flexible enough to route (~3mm core).
It would certainly be better for most peoples usage cases and much simpler as they only have sub-200watts.
Modular cabling is only found in some high end PSUs. I don't think it's a reasonable option to retire the 24 pin connector.
My idea is to stage past the chicken/egg problem similar to how the -5v (used for ISA cards) pin was made optional in v1.2 and deleted from the 1.3 spec.
In it's simplest form, the first round of this would be to make the -12v, 3/4 3.3v, 4/5 +5v and 5/8 ground wires in the 12pin cable optional. That would reduce the cable from 23 to 10 wires making it much easier to route. Then a few years later, just define a new 10pin main connector to replace the mostly empty 24pin one to reclaim mobo space. At this point back compatibility with systems from a few years ago could be maintained with a simple 10-24pin adapter.
Depending on how ambitious you think the ATX people are, you could tweak it several ways:
1) Drop 3.3v completely. With legacy PCI going away, I think the only thing in a modern system using 3.3v is the TPM. For as little power as that needs, it could be generated on board easily enough.
2) Add a +20V wire for the high power USB charging spec. I have somewhat mixed feeling here though. Aside from thinking the USB forum's one cable to plug them all dreams are a bad idea, most OEM desktop systems aren't going to have a PSU with enough extra capacity to provide 100W to charge a laptop while still being stable under heavy use. Unless we start seeing fast charge phone/tablets taking 0.5-1A of 20V power instead of 5/12V I lean against adding 20V to the standard connector.
3) More 12V. Within reason this could be a good thing; but trying to replace the 8 pin 12V connector by just moving the pins back to the big one would result in another obnoxiously huge cable again. If a single 12V/ground pair would be enough to let low power miniITX systems stop needing a 4pin 12V connector it seems like a reasonable tradeoff and a 12 wire cable still wouldn't be too unwieldy.
4) +12/20V standby wire? This'd let you charge a high voltage USB device while the computer is on standby and otherwise shut down. On one hand, if done like +5VSB, it'd add another stand alone (low efficiency) PSU into the system. On the other hand, 80+ titanium requires 90% efficiency at 10% load; so mainstream size PSUs efficient enough to run standby modes on the main generation circuit might be within reach.
5) Keeping the pinout the same but requiring thicker wires to deliver more current. My main worry here is about over current failure modes. If part of the system is rated to deliver 10A but another part was designed around never seeing more than 5A magic smoke (or even an actual fire) seem to be worryingly possible.
Modular cabling is available in sub-$100 PSUs from all kinds of generic brands. It's actually getting to be difficult to find non-modular PSUs on Amazon these days (which is a very nice thing to see).
PS, voltage drop is linear; meaning it's a much bigger issue for low voltage DC. To get 40A of 12V across a 2 foot long cable with only a 3% drop, you need an 8 gauge wire.
If you review this, please test the number of concurrent USB devices that can be connected. The two ports are almost certainly supported by a single controller. Most USB3 controllers theoretically support 31 concurrent devices, but that burns up fast considering each USB3 hub consumes two device slots (one for USB2) and any USB3 hub over 4-ports is actually multiple 4-port hubs daisy chained together, consuming two slots each. There's also undocumented endpoint limits that prevent you from even reaching the 31 device max.
Am I the only one who wishes Molex power connectors would just go away now? Even with a modular power supply, it generally means having several Molex connectors lying around just to plug in one or possibly two special devices (like these USB 3.1 cards)
You can buy adapters to power a device using 4pin molex connector from a 15pin sata one. What I really wish I had at times were a few single plug modular cables to make cable management easier when I only need to power one item in a particular location.
The only reason I would want USB 3.1 right now is for the 15W charging. I don't need the full 100W charging in a desktop form factor yet. If you could get up to 60W on the desktop that would likely take care of most of my future needs.
The enhanced power capabilities opens up a whole new range of devices.
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eddman - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I still don't see how having type-C connectors at the back of the computer could be of any practical use.Can anyone come up with a plausible scenario?
Harry Lloyd - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Some people like smaller holes.r3loaded - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Reversible connector means less fumbling at the back of your computer as compared to type-A connectors.Pissedoffyouth - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Approx. 3x less turning!WorldWithoutMadness - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Meh... It's just dumb people or retarded joke to do ~4x turn before it goes in.Good OEM, not stupid chinese copy, already made a USB symbol on the connector so you know which side it should face you. It's just like J and F bulge in qwerty keyboard.
Christopher1 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Not quite so much. In a small area, I have 'flipped' a USB connector several times before finally getting it to 'go in' because I was oh-so-slightly off-center.Mikemk - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
And the small size means more fumbling while you try to find the connectorBarilla - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Uniformity. We could finally have one connector type across all devices. At least in some kind of utopia because in the real world we'll still have tons of usb 2.0 connectors in all shapes and sizes on most devices released in the next 4-6 years, or more.Oh well, one can dream...
edzieba - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Type-C can also carry USB2.0, so replaced A, B and Mini & Micro B, for all USB versions.Christopher1 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Only with an adapter cable, which I bet is going to be expensive.Christopher1 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I've pretty much phased out all my USB 2.0 devices, save for my laptop computer's XBox 360 controller receiver and my mouse. I got a new USB 3.0 USB 32GB flash drive to replace my USB 2.0 16GB flash drive and trashed the older drive after breaking it into so many pieces, data recovery was going to be impossible.Yes, I am a bit paranoid, especially since the drive in question had my passwords and usernames for websites as a backup on it.
SleepyFE - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Unification. No need for type A or B. Type C covers usage scenario.A5 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Increased port density + reversible is pretty nice. I'd imagine you'd be able to get 10+ Type-C ports in the back panel space currently used by the 6 Type-A ports.Or a case where some of the FP connectors are Type-C, so you can have more than 2 easily accessible.
Flunk - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Same reason why we need to ditch the full-size displayport port. There is no reason at all to have a separate smaller connector for notebooks/smart devices. It will be a while but hopefully we'll ditch even more legacy ports with the type C connector.Kevin G - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Full sized DP has a good locking connector. There are a few use-cases were this matters (AV rack installation etc.) so that they don't become lose over time due to vibration. I see this hanging around for awhile on monitors and professional AV equipment.For consumers, I can see Mini-DP taking over entirely. Ideally with USB 3.1 Type-C alternate modes, even Mini-DP can be phased out.
eddman - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I failed to mention my point. I mean that given type-C's very small and thin form factor, wouldn't it be better to keep the full-size, more robust type-A at the back of desktop computers? Some cables could be rather heavy and in the long run, C might wear out sooner.Type-C on the front is a good idea though.
I'm kind of not comfortable with having only type-C on laptops too. Imagine a type-C flash drive or a data modem is connected. Put a bit too much force on it by accident and it might turn out ugly.
2 type-As plus a type-C would be a ok combination though.
This is all speculation of course. Have to wait and see if C can be as robust as A.
Murloc - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
it's gonna be wider than micro usb so it should be good enough although clearly not as robust as A, but robustness isn't really the priority here I think, but rather sticking more than just one port on a laptop.People smash their smartphone screens all the time and that hasn't done anything to stop the trend either.
alkarnur - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Type-C is more useful for mobile applications given its compactness and the significant speed upgrade over micro USB 2.0 dominant among smartphones and tablets today. Additionally it will allow for even thinner laptops and ultrabooks.As for the desktop, its main advantage is its reversibility.
USB 3.1 speeds are actually ahead of the storage technology as HDDs weren't bottlenecked by USB 3.0 anyway and aren't increasing in speed for that to ever an issue.
As for SSDs, they would see a speed increase from USB 3.1, assuming on both ends of the transfer there's fast enough SSDs to take advantage of it.
However, the reason I say USB 3.1 is ahead of storage technologies is that the price per terabyte for SSDs is still high. The speed benefit for SSDs at USB 3.1 over USB 3.0 will only translate into significant and worthwhile amounts of time saved when you're transferring several terabytes from one SSD to another. And multi-TB SSDs are still not that available and, if available, not even close to affordable.
tyger11 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
The back of the case is THE best scenario to justify a Type-C connector - when you can't see the orientation of it.CharonPDX - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Because it's the new standard.Because when you can't see behind the computer, having a reversible connector is good.
Personally, I'd prefer to see *ALL* USB 3.1 implementations use *ONLY* the type-C connector. Get the old connector mess out of the way as quickly as possible. Just ship it with a couple C-to-A adapters or C-to-B cables.
R3MF - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
more spare PCIe (3.0), for USB 3.1/TypeC and M.2/NVME was the main reason why i went X99/5820k rather than X97x4790k.junky77 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
lol, the graphics on this thing is like a blast from the pastA5 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
The blatant taking of a Boeing 787 graphic is pretty funny.Grizzlebee - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Also, the blatant misuse of the word "faster" by marketing, as always.repoman27 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
"These cards look to be PCIe 2.0 x2 cards, giving the 10 Gbps needed to saturate a USB 3.1 port."Unfortunately, it's nothing more than the oversubscribed back end we typically see with discrete controllers. The physical layer gross bitrate for USB 3.1 is 9.697 Gbit/s (10 Gbit/s with 128b/132b encoding), whereas a PCIe 2.0 x2 link is only 8 Gbit/s (2x 5 Gbit/s with 8b/10b encoding). So before you even get to protocol overhead, a single USB 3.1 port is more than capable of saturating a PCIe 2.0 x2 back end.
We'll probably have to wait for Cannonlake to see what USB 3.1 is truly capable of.
repoman27 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Net not gross.brookheather - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Looks more like a PCIe x4 card similar to a high end storage card.R3MF - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
agreed, looks like a 4x card to me.repoman27 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
It may be an x4 card physically, but I'm pretty sure that Asmedia controller is only x2, and there only appears to be a single controller unless there's another one on the other side of the card. Is physical / mechanical PCIe x2 even a thing?DigitalFreak - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
You are correct. It's an PCIE x2 controller with USB 3.1 2 ports.Beaver M. - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Who the hell needs faster USB 3? Im still trying to find a USB stick that uses the whole bandwidth.I only want the new connectors.
Impulses - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
For external/portable SSD? Dunno my sticks hover at 200MB/s tops and my external backup drive is still mechanical. I'm all for progress and anything that starts moving us towards Type C everywhere tho.haukionkannel - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Exactly! I have San-disk extreme 480 Gb as an external storage and usb 3.1 would give good boost to it! The 3.0 is not too bad, but the SSD could be even faster with 3.1.Beaver M. - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
You really think those ~100 MB/s more will make a huge difference when you already have around 400 MB/s? Doesnt pretty much every mainboard nowadays have eSATA anyway? Even my 5 year old one has one, so does my 2 year and 3 year old one and also my 1 year old one. I want god damn sticks that run 400 MB/s, hell, even real 350 MB/s would be awesome.Gigaplex - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
eSATA is less common than it used to be.Denithor - Monday, February 23, 2015 - link
eSATA is less common, likely due to USB 3.0 coming out. Plus, biggest drawback to eSATA is - no power provided for your peripheral. Not just no charging, no power period, must use external power supply to even use a drive connected to eSATA.jpak725 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I'm all for the new type C connectors...but having the cards powered through a molex/floppy connector is kind of funny to me. when will a new power standard be created? the 24pin mb cable is the worst of them allbill.rookard - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
I agree, but it's a chicken/egg problem with that. The standard (20+4) is so entrenched that putting out a new spec would require motherboard manufacturers to make motherboards with the 'new' connector, along with the PSU manufacturers. BUT, then you have two different standards coexisting side by side due to the relatively long (3+ years) upgrade cycle between MOBOs and/or PSUs.This creates confusion, forces upgrades to people who don't want them etc. It could all be relatively solved by modular setups (ie: a type 1 (20+4) or a type 2 (whatever new standard) MOBO cable for power delivery).
I'm curious though what you would suggest. I can envision a relatively heavy duty 6 wire setup (12v+/-, 3.3v+/-, 5v+/-) made of something in the 10-12 gauge range which would provide sufficient power for most setups (10 gauge is rated for roughly 50ish amps * 12v = ~600 watts, 3v = 165w) while still being flexible enough to route (~3mm core).
It would certainly be better for most peoples usage cases and much simpler as they only have sub-200watts.
DanNeely - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Modular cabling is only found in some high end PSUs. I don't think it's a reasonable option to retire the 24 pin connector.My idea is to stage past the chicken/egg problem similar to how the -5v (used for ISA cards) pin was made optional in v1.2 and deleted from the 1.3 spec.
In it's simplest form, the first round of this would be to make the -12v, 3/4 3.3v, 4/5 +5v and 5/8 ground wires in the 12pin cable optional. That would reduce the cable from 23 to 10 wires making it much easier to route. Then a few years later, just define a new 10pin main connector to replace the mostly empty 24pin one to reclaim mobo space. At this point back compatibility with systems from a few years ago could be maintained with a simple 10-24pin adapter.
Depending on how ambitious you think the ATX people are, you could tweak it several ways:
1) Drop 3.3v completely. With legacy PCI going away, I think the only thing in a modern system using 3.3v is the TPM. For as little power as that needs, it could be generated on board easily enough.
2) Add a +20V wire for the high power USB charging spec. I have somewhat mixed feeling here though. Aside from thinking the USB forum's one cable to plug them all dreams are a bad idea, most OEM desktop systems aren't going to have a PSU with enough extra capacity to provide 100W to charge a laptop while still being stable under heavy use. Unless we start seeing fast charge phone/tablets taking 0.5-1A of 20V power instead of 5/12V I lean against adding 20V to the standard connector.
3) More 12V. Within reason this could be a good thing; but trying to replace the 8 pin 12V connector by just moving the pins back to the big one would result in another obnoxiously huge cable again. If a single 12V/ground pair would be enough to let low power miniITX systems stop needing a 4pin 12V connector it seems like a reasonable tradeoff and a 12 wire cable still wouldn't be too unwieldy.
4) +12/20V standby wire? This'd let you charge a high voltage USB device while the computer is on standby and otherwise shut down. On one hand, if done like +5VSB, it'd add another stand alone (low efficiency) PSU into the system. On the other hand, 80+ titanium requires 90% efficiency at 10% load; so mainstream size PSUs efficient enough to run standby modes on the main generation circuit might be within reach.
5) Keeping the pinout the same but requiring thicker wires to deliver more current. My main worry here is about over current failure modes. If part of the system is rated to deliver 10A but another part was designed around never seeing more than 5A magic smoke (or even an actual fire) seem to be worryingly possible.
phoenix_rizzen - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Modular cabling is available in sub-$100 PSUs from all kinds of generic brands. It's actually getting to be difficult to find non-modular PSUs on Amazon these days (which is a very nice thing to see).DanNeely - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
PS, voltage drop is linear; meaning it's a much bigger issue for low voltage DC. To get 40A of 12V across a 2 foot long cable with only a 3% drop, you need an 8 gauge wire.http://www.southwire.com/support/voltage-drop-calc...
voicequal - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
If you review this, please test the number of concurrent USB devices that can be connected. The two ports are almost certainly supported by a single controller. Most USB3 controllers theoretically support 31 concurrent devices, but that burns up fast considering each USB3 hub consumes two device slots (one for USB2) and any USB3 hub over 4-ports is actually multiple 4-port hubs daisy chained together, consuming two slots each. There's also undocumented endpoint limits that prevent you from even reaching the 31 device max.Devo2007 - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
Am I the only one who wishes Molex power connectors would just go away now? Even with a modular power supply, it generally means having several Molex connectors lying around just to plug in one or possibly two special devices (like these USB 3.1 cards)DanNeely - Monday, February 16, 2015 - link
You can buy adapters to power a device using 4pin molex connector from a 15pin sata one. What I really wish I had at times were a few single plug modular cables to make cable management easier when I only need to power one item in a particular location.http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
I want the power connectors and USB cables to all have handy attached caps, lest something short out, but when will that ever happen.darkfalz - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
I'm not sure who really wants 100w throwing through their USB cable.darkfalz - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
Flowing, even.FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Powered boom boxes - or their gaming station running off the puter usb.eanazag - Tuesday, February 17, 2015 - link
The only reason I would want USB 3.1 right now is for the 15W charging. I don't need the full 100W charging in a desktop form factor yet. If you could get up to 60W on the desktop that would likely take care of most of my future needs.The enhanced power capabilities opens up a whole new range of devices.
FlushedBubblyJock - Thursday, March 26, 2015 - link
Ummm... like ?leedreamer189 - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
Combining to Type-C ports nice! Which cases support this?leedreamer189 - Tuesday, February 24, 2015 - link
making it all type c nice! which cases to go with it?Guy Childress - Thursday, November 24, 2016 - link
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