Read more.Doubles the transfer rate compared to USB 3.0, challenging Intel Thunderbolt tech.
Read more.Doubles the transfer rate compared to USB 3.0, challenging Intel Thunderbolt tech.
Brilliant news.... Because USB 3 has really taken of and become a standard we need a new standard to replace the ageing USB 3....
Wait....
It essentially negates one of the few advantages of Thunderbolt - you can now get similar speeds without exposing DMA, the high licensing/hardware costs and restrictions.
It's not replacing it, it's superseding it. There's no harm in advancing the technology further, especially as it's all compatible with each other. Buy a USB3 hard drive tomorrow and it'll work on a 3.1 port. What's the issue?
Also, left out of the article was the increased support for power that 3.1 brings - up to 100W per port! Could mean charging laptops, nevermind phones.
I'd missed that. That is great news for people who want to run 3.5' drives for example or power a hub and a host of devices, but I wonder how its implementation and use will be like in the future. Will we power monitors, NASs, charging stations and so on from our PCs? I can't imagine the technical difficultly of driving that much power...
On the other hand, sales of 1000+ watt power supplies will pick up.
First question ....when will we see widespread product availability?
This is, after all, just agreeing the spec.
Second question, I guess .... what price implications over USB3?
Not sure why you'd want to power a NAS from the same PSU as a PC it's probably receiving backups from (greater chance of an electrical problem affecting both), but it's not a bad idea at all for other peripherals IMO - using a single, larger PSU should increase overall efficiency, reduce desk clutter, etc. The spec allows power to be negotiated at higher voltages e.g. 12v, which is better suited to modern power supplies and reduces loss in the cable.
Power supplies in PCs today are generally capable of supplying far more power than the PC itself is capable of using anyway, so 20-50W for a monitor shouldn't cause any problems if the negotiation is well implemented.
You might be right at that. So USB stops being "Universal Serial Bus" and becomes "Universal Supply Bus" supplying data and/or power as needed. For me there's a big attraction in being able to slap in a big PSU to my PC and then power the entire setup from a single plug (if current draw permits of course). I remember seeing some piece (from IBM) about how replacing 10 conventional servers with a single blade rack could save power because the blade's PSU had smaller losses than the sum of the conventional servers supplies.
From a convenience point of view it'd be attractive to have a single plug that bought up everything. How about some kind of external "power brick" that could power your PC and all the various peripherals with the power leads being replaced with USB? Sorry I'm probably getting too carried away with the tech.
Something ironic in using the "Mr Green" emoty when referring to kW+ power supplies in my book.
100W at 12v - external USB3.1 graphics cards anyone? Sure, the limited bandwidth might slow it down a little (equivalent to a PCIe 2.0 x2 slot, I think?) but with a 100W limit you'd be looking at 7770/GTX650Ti type performance which would be pretty handy...
TBH, I don't even know what it stands for, I always just used it as a big grin.
@scaryjim, I don't think the 100W really matters here, since bandwidth is a larger concern. Not many laptops will implement USB 3.1 to its fullest for a while I don't think since the 100W in itself is more than the total consumption of a large majority of laptops and to accommodate high power USB, you are going to need massive power bricks. Desktops will probably be better served by the usual means.
Just thinking, would we see some kind of PCIE bridge from mobo to PSU and then USB 3.1 ports coming out of the PSU? Reduces the amount of high power lines through a system and perhaps better accomodates large devices powered on while the PC is off...
Latency would be a major concern for external GPUs, and USB isn't a low level bus.
I use a single decent 12v power brick along with a DIY splitter (off-the shelf ones seem hard to find, very expensive, or use very poor quality conductors) to power stuff like switches, router, etc. At some point I might run this PC from it too, and maybe modify the monitor to run from it so it could be easily powered by a DIY UPS, but I'm not sure if the monitor's CCFL backlight runs from DC or directly from AC. It saves using numerous noisy/inefficient/hot running adapters supplied with equipment!
Yeah it will be interesting to see how it's implemented - it's probably unwise to expect upwards of an additional hundred watts or so through the existing ATX connector, maybe MFRs will have a few PCIe connectors next to some dedicated power circuitry on the motherboard? Your back-of-PSU idea sounds plausible too, but I can see consumers getting ripped off for that implementation, only available on very expensive PSUs for example.
Didn't occur to me until I saw the raw code when I hit the quote button - don't pay any mind to me, it's been one of "those" days!
Good point, but what preventing a user from doing the "external graphics" trick unless their laptop is docked. When I bought my Dell D620 (yes, I know it's old - but it works fine) I got the Dell Advanced Dock which used the standard kettle lead because that could take a PCI card.
Actually that's another point - why don't laptop makers allow some kind of advanced dock with a PCIe slot that you could drop a half decent graphics card into? Presumably because the length of the signal runs wouldn't allow it?
USB 3.1 SSD might be interesting it the latency is OK, SATA needs to up its game now!
Yea, it probably wouldn't be a cheap PSU, since the PSU manufacturer would be the one who has to foot the bill for all the RnD into getting USB 3.1 in their unit plus a whole new bit of kit with the PCIE link. However, if Platinum power supplies prove anything, it is that there are people willing to pay a pretty coin for PSUs.
Alternatively it might be like in the early days of USB 3.0 when mobo makers (Asus in particular I remember doing this) provide an additional PCIE card for USB 3.1 so they can fit the VRMs, USB controllers and other components (not a clue about electrical engineering ). It would also provide a point for molex, SATA or PCIE power to go through.
I don't know, I think the obsession with thin and light at the moment has rather shifted attention away from these morphing laptops (Gigabyte recently had one with an i5 IIRC) and integrated graphics have picked up a bit. Might also just be the difficulty of building such a system in the software/BIOS side and the cost of such a dock, so they'd rather just give you a pretty fat mobile GPU like the 7970M or 680M. These start going up against the desktop 7870s and 660/660TI (?) At which point, you are probably wanting a full wattage CPU to go with it.
Except it isn't. It is 100W at 20 Volts - the current limit for the standard USB 3 plug is 5Amps. The technology requires an intelligent interface to negotiate power requirements.
http://www.usb.org/developers/powerd...troduction.pdf
The 3.1 standard uses the existing USB cable spec - it may just implements the additional profiles, although it is difficult to determine from the limited information available.
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For Ultrabooks it makes a lot of sense to replace a power input with a USB 3.1 port to charge the device, with space being at a premium.
It's just a shame that USB 3.1 doesn't offer display capability, and Thunderbolt 2.0 doesn't offer much power delivery capacity - as it would allow one cable to be used to connect a laptop to a large monitor and charge the laptop.
As it stands it is a 2 cable solution. USB 3.1 (data and power) + display (DP or HDMI) or Thunderbolt (data and display) and power (usb 3.1 or dedicated socket)
Even if there was a set spacing between USB and MiniDP/Thunderbolt ports it could allow combination cables to connect to both ports with one insertion and minimise cable spaghetti, whilst also retaining compatability with individual USB, DP or Thunderbolt devices.
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