Question When will USB4 be on most of the AM5 boards?

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

I've started seeing Lightning5, but have yet to see USB 4 on the AM5 boards when I browse at Micro Center. Is it likely to be on most boards by the end of the year?

 

[gdansk]

X870E. If AMD mandates 40gbps USB4 for that platform that's when it'll be common. Otherwise it adds cost and most people don't care so it's a less common feature.

Actually, even my crappy X670E seems to support USB4... may be more common than I thought.

 

[RLGL]

Microcenter does not always have the latest products in stock.

 

[Hail The Brain Slug]

X870E. If AMD mandates 40gbps USB4 for that platform that's when it'll be common. Otherwise it adds cost and most people don't care so it's a less common feature.

Actually, even my crappy X670E seems to support USB4... may be more common than I thought.

Until AMD updates the IOD or chipset to provide USB 4 connectivity, it will be an upsold add-on requiring additional hardware.

This is the reason most AM5 boards don't have it. It's not provided by the CPU or chipset IO.

 

[izxzi]

This. You only see USB4 (and TB3, before that) on premium boards that have to use a separate chip - generally ASMedia for USB4 - which in turn connects to the CPU/SB via PCIe.

I expect we'll see native USB4 on the Zen6 IOD, and perhaps on the higher-end Zen5 chipsets.

 

[WelshBloke]

Slightly off topic question but what can saturate a USB 4 connection on a PC?
I presume that it would have to be video related but I'm not sure what could pump out that amount of data.

 

[Shmee]

Most PCIe gen4 m.2 drives could saturate a 40gbps link, assuming they are connected to a USB port and external USB to PCIe controller which both support it.

 

[izxzi]

Anything that needs 20-40 Gbps speeds would be able to saturate USB4.

Say, a USB4 NVMe enclosure with a Gen4/Gen5 SSD.

And of course, video as in just your DisplayPort 2.0+ signal: 8K/60Hz/10-bit uncompressed is 80 Gbps (works because 40 Gbps is bidirectional bandwidth).

 

[GunsMadeAmericaFree]

Is it correct to say thunderbolt 4 and 5 are types of USB 4, but USB 4 is not necessarily thunderbolt? I saw some boards with thunderbolt 5 at Micro Center....

 

[izxzi]

Is it correct to say thunderbolt 4 and 5 are types of USB 4, but USB 4 is not necessarily thunderbolt? I saw some boards with thunderbolt 5 at Micro Center....

Thunderbolt 4 is based on the USB 4 standard, and Thunderbolt 5 is based on the USB 4 v2 standard.

The difference is that the USB standards allow lots of features to be optional, while Thunderbolt makes some of the features mandatory.

In real life, this means that a USB 4/5 device will always work well with a Thunderbolt 4/5 host (port), while a Thunderbolt 4/5 device may be limited when connected to some USB 4/5 host (port).

We should expect more clarity once AMD starts including USB 4/5 functionality via its CPUs/chipsets instead of relying on third-party add-on chips like Asmedia.