[ad_1]
The organizations behind the widely used USB standard have released new information about the latest version of the interface, which is good news for consumers. This will be faster and will provide improved compatibility, without the need to pay much attention to the cable or port you are using. And pedants take note: there is more space after "USB" and the number.
USB4, in its current version (compared to USB 4), was announced in March with some promise regarding features, but the technical specifications have been communicated to anyone wishing to inspect them. This is another step in the process of achieving a major standard of the idea.
There are three main improvements in USB4 on USB 3 (or 3.2, or 3.1 gen2v2 … the naming system is a mess):
Better speed. The USB4 exceeds 40 gigabits per second, twice as fast as the latest version of USB 3 and eight times faster than the original USB 3 standard, which was of course much faster than it replaced . It will also support the maximum speed of previous cables and interfaces.
Thunderbolt Universal Compatibility 3. Thunderbolt 3 is Intel's proprietary implementation of the USB 3 standard, which you will find on Intel cards and those of any company that has licensed this technology. But Intel came to understand that it was counterproductive to separate things in this way. They provide the Thunderbolt 3 specification for free. Anyone who makes a USB4 device or cable can make it compatible with the Intel standard; it is possible, but unlikely, that some choose not to do so. There is no reason for that, but who knows?
Improved display / splitting of data. The USB 3 has introduced the possibility of using a single cable to send energy, data and a video signal (just more, but specialized data) via a single cable. Awesome! But sometimes, depending on your configuration, he could only send one or the other, or the speeds were considerably reduced. USB4 does it a lot better, so if you have a monitor that uses 8 Gbps for its video bandwidth, all 32 Gbps will be available for other purposes. It's just one of those behind-the-scenes changes that will make things better and easier for everyone.
The other good news about USB4 is that it does not use a new connector. We are still in the transition period between the large rectangular port, the small trapezoidal, the large trapezoidal, etc., up to the elegant USB-C plugs that you can not go wrong, even if you try. Changing this would be disastrous – the connector will be the same.
Two bad news, though: she will not be here for a while and she may be a bit more expensive. These ports are complicated and the ability to send more data, power, etc., makes the task a little more difficult. And despite the release of today's specifications, it will take almost at least a year before products using this product are commercialized.
Finally is the name. The hardware industry is notoriously misnamed and USB 3 is no exception. He was always annoying trying to figure out which version of the USB was supported, what that meant, and so on. So, from now on, USB4 is the name until they offer USB5.
Sending to Tom's Hardware, Brad Saunders, CEO of the USB Promoter Group, said he simply wants to simplify things and avoid the proliferation of products with version number badges that could confuse consumers.
"We do not intend to follow an iterative route of type 4.0, 4.1, 4.2," he explained. "We want it to be as simple as possible. When and if it goes faster, we will simply have the faster version of the certification and the brand. "
[ad_2]
Source link