From a technical standpoint, is USB3 a fail? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Ed.Kloonk
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 10:40:45 pm
content: Usb 2 had four wires. My concern is that a serial bus progression has been squandered by paralleling of data lines.How can you still call it a serial bus with 6 (or is it just 3) data lines?

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 10:45:11 pm
content: Because each channel represents more than one possible bit, it is a serial protocol. PCI-E is serial, it can have from 1 lane to 32 lanes, so it can range from "true serial" to a more complex parallel-serial interface.I do agree though, I think that backwards compatibility should have been emphasised more, trying to get as much as possible out of pre-existing cables. Maybe trying for double data rate out of the current cables. What USB peripherals truly need 3Gbits/s?

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 11:15:05 pm
content: hold it.it is still a serial port... there is the standard d+ and d- well known from usb 2.0.usb 3.0 stull has two signals : SST and SSR : transmit and receive respectively. just like a uart has a txd and an rxdthe key difference is that in classic usb the pipe is half duplex. everything runs over a single differential pair ( d+ and d- are in essence a differential pair. )in USb3.0 the pipe is full duplex. and each of the signals is a differential pair (sst+ and sst- and ssr+ and ss-)so nothing has changed.they simply went from half duplex to full diplex , changed the voltage levels and that's it.technology wise the real USB3.0 part is much closer to SATA than it is to USB though.oh, and USB was never a BUS ! USB is and has always been a point to point connection, it can be going over a shared pipe but it is still point to point. On a bus you can simply put things in parallel without requireing electronics apart from a select line. USB needs a 'router' ( that what is called a USB hub is in actuality more like a switch / router [ speaking in ethernet terms ] ). A packet sent to a particualr hub channel is not replicated on another channel.

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 11:17:19 pm
content: USB3.0 looks better on paper than it actually is. I'm sure implementation will improve if the standard goes mainstream, but for now, it is piss poor. USB3.0 thumb drives tend to heave read/write speeds of less than 2x of their USB2.0 counterparts, and even the highest quality SSD's and external harddrives are only ~3x as fast as USB2.0.The main problem with USB3.0 is that few people actually care about the extra bandwidth. The benefit of USB was always convenience. Most USB devices are simple plug-and-play devices that can operate perfectly fine under USB2.0. Things like keyboards and mice, webcams, and touch pads, don't benefit from the extra speed of USB3.0; even thumb drives can playback HD video and music in realtime under USB2.0, so nobody really cares that something faster is available. Actually, the only real practical benefit of USB3.0 vs USB2.0 is when backing up and entire multi-terabyte HDD over an external USB drive. USB3.0 adds a slight performance boost over its predessessor, but it has no convenience boost... if anything, it is less convenient!

author: olsenn
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 11:20:19 pm
content: One thing I'd like to append though is that USB3.0 supposedly can source more current, so it has the potential to power bigger devices as well as charge batteries more quickly. I don't know how many devices currently take advantage of this though.

author: Matje
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 11:32:33 pm
content: Quote from: olsenn on October 31, 2012, 11:17:19 pmI'm not sure of that.Quote from: olsenn on October 31, 2012, 11:17:19 pmGiven that these are the usual maximum speeds of the actual storage devices inside thumb drives and SSDs/harddrives, how could this be USB3s fault? Anyway, there is some development happening for a new bulk storage protocol, as the one used since USB 1.0 is really, really nasty crap with high overhead.Quote from: olsenn on October 31, 2012, 11:17:19 pmYou know, you really should regularly backup your data, or you will regret not doing it some day, so this is a really important use case. And a backup taking 10 hours or 3 hours is a significant difference.As for convenience: how much more convenient than USB (all versions) do you expect things to get? Not having to plug in at all or something? I do not understand what you mean.

author: tom66
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: October 31, 2012, 11:51:54 pm
content: I think part of the problem with USB3 is it's trying to do everything at once.Something like disk transfer should be left to an eSATA port.And memory keys were always intended as temporary storage. I don't know why you'd even need SSD-like performance from a memory key.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 12:10:16 am
content: Quote from: tom66 on October 31, 2012, 11:51:54 pmBecause you maybe working with 1GB files.Don't forget that, as drives/ssd/usbkeys get more capacity, applications create bigger and bigger files and fill them up.So an increase in speed is needed.

author: McMonster
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 01:43:38 am
content: I don't agree that there's no need for extra speed. With FireWire and eSATA extinct it's the only popular high speed interface for external drives. Even with existing drives being too slow I don't think it's a problem. USB 2.0 is years old now and still won't die for a while and it's possible that USB 3.0 will also live for a few years, speeds will go up. In the future it may also be used to give ridiculous speed network connections to legacy hardware.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 01:46:32 am
content: USB 3.0 LCD monitors could be interesting.10 monitor setup anyone??

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 01:47:40 am
content: Quote from: olsenn on October 31, 2012, 11:17:19 pmThat is simply wrong. Thumb drives may not be high enough performance to take advantage of it, but todays implementation of USB3 is dramatically faster than todays implementation of USB2. I just got an external USB3 hard drive (normal mechanical drive, not thumb drive or SSD). I used it to backup up two computers I needed to image before I shipped them overseas. One had USB 2 and the other USB3 and the later was an order of magnitude faster. USB3 silicon today may not be reaching its full potential, but it is way better than USB2. It is also a much better designed protocol overall. USB2 was always a band-aid. USB1 was a simple, cheap, slow protocol that did what it was supposed to: replace a bunch of slow device-speicifc ports with a single "universal" connection. USB2 attempted to make that suitable for flash drives, MP3 players, and digital cameras, but was never able to meet its claimed speed because of design decisions inherited from USB1.Quote"Slight" was the difference for me between "finished during dinner" and "leave it over night." I would call that a serious performance boost, and also pretty big convenience increase. USB3 will also allow more power for bus-powered devices which means fewer external plug packs and fewer 'Y' cables for laptop hard drives. That is a pretty nice convenience boost.But your argument that it only matters for backups is also off base. It takes me forever to transfer photos off my digital camera. Sometimes I would like to be able to use USB ethernet adapters, but they are too bad to use except when you really have no other choice. There are plenty of uses for the bandwidth today, ignoring uses that haven't been invented yet because there hasn't been enough bandwidth.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 02:05:52 am
content: Quote from: Psi on November 01, 2012, 01:46:32 amThat's more likely to happen with Thunderbolt, which is appearing on many new motherboards now.It's a real isochronous interface, whereas USB is not.

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 02:07:09 am
content: USB 2.0 is a bit unpredictable.Sure, sometimes you go to copy stuff and it runs at 40MB/s but other times its much less, like 5-10MB/s for no real reason. Sometimes even less than 5.USB 3.0 should fix that, (i'm pretty sure its a polling issue with usb2)

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 02:18:38 am
content: Quote from: Psi on November 01, 2012, 02:07:09 amCrap chipsets, usually. Never expect USB to be of any use on an nVidia chipset, for example.

author: free_electron
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:23:30 am
content: Advantage of USB3.0 over eSATA : eSATA is for Drives only... USB3.0 cameras are coming. streaming uncompressed HD and 4K ... something impossible over USB 2.0 ...As for flash drives being slow: well see that's the limit of flash there .... you will NEVER get blazing speeds if the thumbdrive only has one physical flash chip in it. The reason real flash disks are so fast is that they have multipe flash chips , ram buffer and a real controller that jostles data around ... hard to cram that in 2 square centimeter ... for now ...thunderbolt ? dead and buried unless you are apple.the future is displayport. why ?- not hampered by licensing- extremely fast- active buffers- pass-through- built in scalers.Genesis ( part of ST micro) invented displayport. we have setups with 6 displayport monitors daisy chained together being driven from a single graphics card each monitor does 1920 x1200 without problems.displayport is also the only interface currently capable of delivering a 4K image over a single link.3.0 has better managing mechanisms than 2.0 and you can actually allocate guaranteed bandwidth on it.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:28:41 am
content: Quote from: free_electron on November 01, 2012, 03:23:30 amIEEE 1394.QuoteAhh, DisplayPort, the standard which has two incompatible cables because they wouldn't add one more pin to the connector. Quality work, that. Hell, I can even see a way for that to have been avoided with the pins they have..

author: ejeffrey
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:45:18 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on November 01, 2012, 03:28:41 amDead. You just have to get over it. Yes, firewire was technically far more advanced than USB2. Even firewire 400, despite the clock rate handicap could dance circles around USB2. Nevertheless it is dead and gone and its never coming back. USB3 is the only high speed generic interface widely available on the market. It wins because it has no real competition. Maybe someday thunderbolt will kill it, but I doubt it. At the very least Intel and Apple are going to have to figure out whether it is electronic or optical first...

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:47:40 am
content: Quote from: ejeffrey on November 01, 2012, 03:45:18 amIt's still plenty alive where people use computers for more than Farcebook and Youtube.

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:54:27 am
content: Quote from: Monkeh on November 01, 2012, 03:47:40 amThat's true, but almost none of the newer motherboards have 1394 any more. Intel dropped it from its chipsets and now they are coming out with Thunderbolt. Thunderbolt is a good replacement for the isochronous 1394 interface and there are Thunderbolt->1394 bridge adaptors available for the professional market where audio and video interfaces have to be supported. Thunderbolt is a 10GBps interface. The UA Apollo interface has one already.Displayport was dead before it got off the operating table.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:55:33 am
content: Quote from: DrGeoff on November 01, 2012, 03:54:27 amWith NEC displays, anyway..

author: gxti
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 04:43:49 am
content: Displayport is not dead, but it might be obsoleted by Thunderbolt, which is a backwards-compatible extension to it. Think of it as displayport + pci-express. It may well kill USB 3 too by virtue of being better at its own game, but won't kill USB 2. USB 2 is much cheaper to implement than Thunderbolt can ever be.

author: westfw
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 06:51:01 am
content: QuoteI think the reason USB3 will succeed is that it does everything at once...("no manufacturer has ever gone broke by underestimating the intelligence of the average computer user" ?)

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 11:14:04 am
content: i would gladly use that 2 displayport connector on my graphics card if there would be a damn monitor which has around 2-3ms gtg refresh rate. but no these are equipped with hdmi, dvi or standard vga connectors, while the graphics card atleast most of the ati/amd cards what i use have damn dual dvi ports which is shared so no way on earth to hook up 2 monitors there and display 2 different things on them...as for usb 3 and external drive speeds, i got a usb 3 external case a raidsonic one. with an ssd it was reaching 230MB/s what was the maximum of the ssd trough a delock usb 3 hub. and for flashdrives/pendrives some of them capable of 60mb/s read/write. so i dont get the argument its cant be used for its full potential

author: Psi
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 01:08:35 pm
content: Quote from: M. András on November 01, 2012, 11:14:04 amYou sure? ATI cards with twin DVI or DVI+HDMI should support two monitors and extend your desktop perfectly fine.You have to tell them to go into that mode though, the default mode is clone.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 03:14:54 pm
content: 1394 is dead due to its DMA and ability to take over some control over the system.... it was a vulnerability issue, and besides it would never work with MPAA, RIAA et all due to lack of encryption and drm.Hollywood and everyone wants encryption, drm, that's why HDMI appeared, among other reasons. DVI initially didn't have HDCP, they added it later and that's how it survived as a connector.USB3 is very close to PCI Express, SATA goes towards PCI Express as well (the are drawings of a future pci express x4 slot in which you can plug up to 2 sata connectors directly), thunderbold can pass several pci express lanes through it.Thunderbold is pushed by Intel and Apple because it's their design and companies would have to pay them royalties for it, it's not free like DVI or Displayport. But as functionalitydisplayportthunderbold is nice, being able to move pci express, network, sound and video all through the cable, and connect several devices through single cable like SCSI used to do.very late edit... i meant thunderbolt is nice, not displayport. displayport may very well do the same but I didn't do research, i don't know about what it can do

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 05:26:08 pm
content: Quote from: Psi on November 01, 2012, 01:08:35 pmi wrote the dual dvi port is shared. so both of them acts as one, controlled as one but displays to 2 monitor due to 2 physical port, which is waste of space even for cutout for airflow anythingim using the dvi+hdmi combo due to i wont buy a displayport-hdmi or dvi cable cos its far more expensive then its worth so 2 displayport is currently unused

author: M. András
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 05:42:15 pm
content: Quote from: mariush on November 01, 2012, 03:14:54 pmit would been better if those extra resource and money wasting copy protection system would be doomed right from the start, if you want to sell more of the digital goods. sell it cheaper you still gain a huge money on them right from the start. a new movie for example starts at 30 bucks or more when they come out of the cinema, few monts later now only 10 bucks or less which makes bigger profit? sell 2-4times more at lower prices or sell less at higher price then drop the prices cos its not selling like you want it. i remember when i tried to copy an original music CD to a sony MD disc the recorder refused to initiate the recording due to it sensed the protection on the CD via optical connection but it didnt care about the protection when used plain old analog rca connection

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 06:30:16 pm
content: Quote from: mariush on November 01, 2012, 03:14:54 pmThe 'security' issue was never exploited, and is a total non-issue on present machines. And 1394, by itself, has nothing to do with video or audio, so that doesn't matter.Quote from: M. András on November 01, 2012, 05:26:08 pmUhm, no, they're not typically built that way. You have two discrete DVI ports, one of which is shared with an HDMI port.

author: chrome
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 06:53:06 pm
content: Quote from: M. András on November 01, 2012, 05:26:08 pmWhat videocard do you have that doesn't allow 2 dvi ports to be used.

author: mariush
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 07:03:25 pm
content: ATI cards have one vga, one DVI-I ( digital + analogue, vga out is in this connector), one DVI-D (digital only) shared with HDMI if there is one. So the cards should run 3 monitors, one on vga and two on digital connections, but I'm not sure, the vga I think is generated from the first digital output so only two monitors are actually usable.With displayport, you can get an active displayport to dvi and get a third monitor running.Of course, there are cards that have 6 outputs like this one:

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 08:42:35 pm
content: DisplayPort is still growing, every damn high-performance graphics card will have a few of them!Thunderbolt? Good luck finding that on a normal motherboard. or intel chipsetOnly a severely overpriced abomination will have it.USB2 wasn't slow, it was actually several thousand files that will slow down even a transfer from the SAME disk to another partitionUSB3 however is FAST and BTW, STOP USING YOUR 5400RPM 2.5" IT'S NOT GOING TO DO YOU ANY GOOD ON USB3That said, use a 7200rpm 2.5" on USB3 or go to 3.5"Or get a proper SSD, not a crap one ( What was it? What was the brand that had failing SSDs? Ah yes, OCZ )Next : Higher currents available, how could you argue with that. I have never been able to run a normal laptop drive without having to use the daisy chain for extra power on USB2And wait, Thunderbolt's only good feature? Expansion connector, THAT'S ALL. And probably a provision for a external GPU (like finally it's possible)And yet it's only going to be available on the abomination@MariushBeginning with the HD 6970/6990,They have DP version 1.2 so they can support three monitors on a single DP and another three on the other oneAnd well with the 6990 you have 4 DP 1.2 connectors ...No need to have 6 DP connectors, WOOHOO!The new kingpinSimply MASSIVE

author: DrGeoff
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 08:54:46 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on November 01, 2012, 08:42:35 pmThunderbolt is now available on Asus, MSI and Gigabyte motherboard to name a few. Using the Intel Z77 chipset.Which motherboards have displayport on them?

author: gxti
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 08:55:29 pm
content: Thunderbolt just came off an exclusive license with a certain Californian fruit company, which is why you're only now starting to see it in the market, and only in the high-end stuff because it's for the early adopters. In a year or so I'll be more prevalent, though still burdened with licensing and hardware costs. Not that I'm going to run out and buy anything, but that's why it's rare. And while USB 3 is cheaper than thunderbolt, it still has licensing costs (usually baked into the PHY's price) and has not reached a fraction of the saturation that USB 2 has. These things take time.

author: Monkeh
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 01, 2012, 09:05:59 pm
content: Quote from: T4P on November 01, 2012, 08:42:35 pmYes, it was slow. Very slow.Quote from: DrGeoff on November 01, 2012, 08:54:46 pmQuite a few, actually.

author: T4P
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2012, 08:39:14 am
content: Quote from: DrGeoff on November 01, 2012, 08:54:46 pmOops. I forgot the Z77 but that's not the point.Z77 boards are expensive at the same time!DisplayPort is just a display connector not a damn I/O!USB = Universal, easy to implementThunderbolt = Not universal and hard to implement but fastThe new AMD ones like the A85X chipset series have displayportHere's a few :Gigabyte F2A85X-UP4Gigabyte F2A85X-D3H

author: peter.mitchell
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: November 03, 2012, 09:22:10 am
content: The cards can drive the following combinations;One dual link DVI-I device + one VGA device (via the DVI-I single link port) + one HDMI device + 2 mini displayport devices--or--One dual link DVI-I device + one DVI-I (single link) digital device + 2 mini displayport devices--or--One VGA device (via the DVI-I dual link port) + one DVI-I (single link) digital device + 2 mini displayport devices--or--One VGA device (via the DVI-I dual link port) + one VGA device (via the DVI-I single link port) + one HDMI device + 2 mini displayport devicesOne mini displayport connector is also electrically connected to the single link DVI-I port so you can use a passive DVI to displayport adapter, however if the DVI port is in use you can only use displayport devices like an ACTIVE converter.Which means that;If you wish to drive more than 1 dual link DVI device (a monitor with a resolution greater than 1920x1200, or a device that has an unusually high refresh rate) you will need an active mini displayport to dual link DVI converter.If you wish to drive more than 2 electrically DVI devices [the HDMI port is just electrically connected to the DVI port, no actual signal conversion) you will need an active mini displayport to DVI converter.As I have 3 2560x1440 monitors, I use a single DVI-I dual link and two mini displayport to DVI-D Dual Link converters.I hope this clarifies.