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The presence (or absence) of a USB-C port is increasingly becoming a consideration when buying a PC. If you buy an ultrathin laptop, it will almost certainly have at least one USB-C port, which will catapult you into the ecosystem automatically. If you're more of a lover of desktops, you're certain to find the ports there, too, with at least one on the motherboard-side I/O panel and likely more on high-end and gaming desktops. Some desktops and aftermarket PC cases are putting one on the front panel, too. (Desktop DIY types should know, though, that a USB-C port on a PC case's front or top will require a specific USB-C header connector at the motherboard end, and only late-model motherboards will have these.)
I've appeared on CBS News, in USA Today, and at many other outlets to offer analysis on breaking technology news. Both USB-A and USB-C ports can support USB 2.0 to 3.2, which makes the whole thing a bit confusing since a USB port has both a connector type (USB-C vs. USB-A, or rounded vs. rectangular) and a USB specification which reveals how capable it is. USB-C is electrically compatible with older USB 3.0 ports. But because of the shape of the newer port, adapters or cables with appropriate plugs are indeed required if you want to connect anything that doesn't have the USB-C oval shape. Even though Thunderbolt offered better performance, it didn’t see a lot of traction because of its high price.
The different USB 3.x version numbers exist purely because the number has been iterated with each speed advancement. In 2008, the USB 3.0 standard launched, bringing USB up to 5 Gbps, a huge leap from the 480 Mbps speed of USB 2.0, and for many years that was as fast as USB could go. In fact, even today, the vast majority of USB ports and products don't go beyond 5 Gbps nor do you need them to. Many peripherals don't even need to go beyond USB 2.0. DisplayPort --- as the name might suggest --- is specifically designed to transmit video signals between your computer and a display of some kind, like a monitor, TV, or projector. Typically, that requires both a DisplayPort port, and a DisplayPort cable, but USB-C changes that.
Before I joined the tech-journalism ranks, I wrote on topics as diverse as Borneo's rain forests, Middle Eastern airlines, and Big Data's role in presidential elections. A graduate of Middlebury College, I also have a master's degree in journalism and French Studies from New York University. Physically, the cable is a flat design with a rubbery outer sheath. The strain relief where the cable connects to the housing is minimal, as well, which makes us question its durability over time. USB-C includes support for DisplayPort Alt Mode, which allows USB-C cables to transmit video signals directly between your computer and display via the DisplayPort standard. That means your ultra-thin laptop doesn't need a chunky DisplayPort port, manufacturers can opt for a small USB-C port instead. If you're using a USB hub, you'll want at least a 5 Gbps connection, because all of the peripherals connected to that hub will be sharing that bandwidth. So, if you have a mouse, a keyboard and a webcam all plugged into the same hub, they will definitely need at least the 5 Gbps that USB 3.2 Gen 1 / USB 3.1 Gen 1 provides. You’d think you could tell whether a cable is USB-C 2.0 cable by looking at the wires in the connector but that’s not the case. Some cables use connectors with pins that aren’t hooked up to anything.This awkward collection of differently shaped connectors for different-size devices is finally coming to a close. USB Type-C offers a new connector standard that's very small. It's about a third the size of an old USB Type-A plug. This is a single connector standard that every device should be able to use. You'll just need a single cable, whether you're connecting an external hard drive to your laptop or charging your smartphone from a USB charger. That one tiny connector is small enough to fit into a super-thin mobile device, but also powerful enough to connect all the peripherals you want to your laptop. The cable itself has USB Type-C connectors at both ends---it's all one connector. Technically speaking, neither USB 3.2 nor USB 3.1 by itself can deliver video. Using DisplayLink technology, one can convert and compress video into USB data that goes out to a specially-enabled hub or portable monitor. However, few people today use DisplayLink devices. In addition to his extensive writing experience, Chris has been interviewed as a technology expert on TV news and radio shows. He gave advice on dark web scans on Miami's NBC 6, discussed Windows XP's demise on WGN-TV's Midday News in Chicago, and shared his CES experiences on WJR-AM's Guy Gordon Show in Detroit. You don’t need to worry about USB 3 or USB type C rendering one of your devices with an older standard or type useless. You don’t need to worry about upgrading your USB Type-A or USB Type-B connectors anytime soon.
BTW, 10Gbps USB3 introduces a new channel encoding which is more efficient. So while the 5Gbps variant translates to at most ~450MB/s real data (after accounting for channel encoding and protocol overhead), with 10Gbps you get ~1100MB/s. Consequently, Gen1x2 is slower (2x450 = 900MB/s) than Gen2x1 (1100MB/s). But it might work over longer distances. Here’s the interesting part: USB-C connectors are bi-directional. This means that not only can you charge a peripheral device with USB-C cables, but you can also charge your host device using a peripheral when needed.
Obviously, you want USB3+ for anything data intensive. Apart from the speed, it has the added advantage that it's full duplex, so data can flow simultaneously in both directions, like on Ethernet networks or PCIe. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, external SSDs and the best hard drives need at least USB 3.2 / 3.1 / 3.0 speeds. The fastest external SSDs or SSD enclosures can operate at USB 3.2 Gen 2 (10 Gbps) or USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps), though the 10 Gbps speed is far more common and cheaper. However, the most recent USB 4.0 spec can reach up to 40Gbps and is only available in USB-C form. USB-A vs. USB-C: Which is better? We didn’t test the temperature of each cable’s housing, but we did test the cheapest cable by running it at 5 amps and 20 volts for an hour. The housing heated up by 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and the cable itself became relatively warm (see the thermal image below). Not ideal, but it did this without failure. We subjected other cables to two-hour loads without failure, as well. But USB-C is different—and perhaps it's even as truly universal as its acronym (Universal Serial Bus) suggests. USB-C ports are now found on all manner of devices, from simple external hard drives to high-end laptops and, after a long holdout session, the Apple iPhone. While every USB-C port looks the same, not every one offers the same capabilities. USB-C may now be ubiquitous, but it doesn't serve the same functions everywhere. Not by a long shot.
Put simply, the more advanced versions of the USB protocol allow for faster data and power transfer. Most of us will never care enough to tell the difference between USB 3.0 and USB 3.2, but it's nice to know how it all works. If you’re looking for a high-quality USB-C cable that will give you excellent performance, it’s hard to beat Cable Matters 6-foot USB-C cable. The cable can do it all and do it all well (well, almost) from charging at up to 100 watts, transferring data from your USB 3.1 SSD, or running a monitor. The only area where it doesn’t excel is in Thunderbolt performance, which is limited to 20Gbps. That’s not a ding in our book because that’s the tradeoff of a 6-foot cable. To hit 40Gbps, you’d have to step down to a shorter cable. Here's a guide to everything USB-C can do, and which of its features you should look for when buying your next USB-C device. For charging speeds we recorded the maximum wattage at which the cable could charge an Asus ROG Strix 15 gaming laptop over its USB-C port using USB-Power Delivery with an Aukey 100 watt USB-PD charger as the source while the laptop was under load.USB-PD today is limited to 100 watts (with a 240-watt spec on the way). Any USB-C to USB-C cable should handle 3 ampsat 20 volts, or 60 watts.All of the USB-C to USB-C cables fell into the standard 60-watt or 100-watt camps.
As you can see above, some USB-C ports use the USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 specification, with maximum speeds of 20Gbps. The USB-IF decided on "2x2" because this standard doubles the data lanes within a USB-C cable to achieve the 20Gbps transfer speed. These ports have not been widely available. They will likely go by the wayside in favor of another emerging flavor of USB-C port, supporting USB4, which the USB-IF has announced will eventually support data speeds up to 120Gbps.
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