[Hardware.info] Intel confirms Haswell USB 3 issue

[Fjodor2001]

Because USB kinda sucks. It's 20 years old, it's time to move on.

In what way would Thunderbolt be better, apart from the somewhat higher bandwidth (10 Gbps for Thunderbolt vs 5 Gbps for USB3)?

 

[Idontcare]

Nice thing about USB is the "U" part. The damn things are universal, just about everything that used to need an AC adaptor charger back in the day has converted over to just using a USB port for charging or transferring data (it truly replaced the old serial ports).

I've got nothing against thunderbolt, but I do like how ubiquitous USB has become outside of the traditional PC.

 

[WhoBeDaPlaya]

In what way would Thunderbolt be better, apart from the somewhat higher bandwidth (10 Gbps for Thunderbolt vs 5 Gbps for USB3)?

Its not, TB and USB3 both suck.
Bring back FireWire

 

[Phynaz]

In what way would Thunderbolt be better, apart from the somewhat higher bandwidth (10 Gbps for Thunderbolt vs 5 Gbps for USB3)?

ThunderBolt is actually 40gbs (2 channels at 20gbs each). Also, that's the data rate, not the signaling rate as it is with USB. USB's data rate is less than a third of it's signalling rate. That's why you only get 15Mbs out of a 480mbs USB 2 connection.

Thunderbolt is also DMA driven, not CPU driven. Therefore it's speed isn't affected by what you are doing on the computer. Ever tried transferring video over USB? Get dropouts while you computer was busy? That's why data transfers should be DMA driven.

ThunderBolt also runs the PCIe protocol, it's basically a PCIe extender melded with Display Port. Give you any ideas? How about an external video card that you can move between machines? Or an external SSD that's actually faster than an internal drive? (although they would probably use a SATA drive in the external case).

Also, ThunderBolt provides 10w of power to attached devices. That's enough to run a desktop hard drive, or the SSD mentioned above.

And finally, because it supports video - it uses a MDP connector - you have one cable to rule them all. Your display and all your peripherals use the same cable - they even daisy chain. Not the mish-mash of 30 different connector types we have to deal with now (USB A, USB B, Mini, Micro, HDMI, DP, MDP, DVI-I, DVI-D, etc, etc, etc.)

It's downside is that being an active connection it's expensive. Cables are $20 instead of $3. Although the nice thing about active cables is it's much more difficult to end up with a crappy junk cable. It probably costs MB makers an additional $20 to add it to their boards.

Unfortunately the $20 extra is what's going to make ThunderBolt fail. How often do you see people in these forums asking what's the cheapest motherboard, or cheapest CPU. They rarely ask what's a GOOD motherboard. Welcome to the race to the bottom.

 

[Phynaz]

Its not, TB and USB3 both suck.
Bring back FireWire

I use FW for my video work

 

[IntoxicatedPuma]

I'm thinking thunderbolt PCIe capabilities are gonna be pretty amazing down the road. Intel's quad core laptop CPU's are pretty powerful so stick a thunderbolt cable to an external PCIe graphics card and you can have a powerful gaming computer when you need it, and unplug it for when you dont. With everything going wireless or cloud based USB in general is becoming extremely irrelevant for data transfer.

 

[Vesku]

I don't think the "no data loss or corruption" covers whatever hasn't been saved to the USB device. To me it reads as a clarification that it's solely a resume issue.

 

[glugglug]

I don't understand why there can't be a software workaround. Just have a special USB driver or windows update patch that makes it re-scan for USB devices after waking up from S3 if you have the defective chipset...

 

[Jimzz]

ThunderBolt is actually 40gbs (2 channels at 20gbs each). Also, that's the data rate, not the signaling rate as it is with USB. USB's data rate is less than a third of it's signalling rate. That's why you only get 15Mbs out of a 480mbs USB 2 connection.

Thunderbolt is also DMA driven, not CPU driven. Therefore it's speed isn't affected by what you are doing on the computer. Ever tried transferring video over USB? Get dropouts while you computer was busy? That's why data transfers should be DMA driven.

ThunderBolt also runs the PCIe protocol, it's basically a PCIe extender melded with Display Port. Give you any ideas? How about an external video card that you can move between machines? Or an external SSD that's actually faster than an internal drive? (although they would probably use a SATA drive in the external case).

Also, ThunderBolt provides 10w of power to attached devices. That's enough to run a desktop hard drive, or the SSD mentioned above.

And finally, because it supports video - it uses a MDP connector - you have one cable to rule them all. Your display and all your peripherals use the same cable - they even daisy chain. Not the mish-mash of 30 different connector types we have to deal with now (USB A, USB B, Mini, Micro, HDMI, DP, MDP, DVI-I, DVI-D, etc, etc, etc.)

It's downside is that being an active connection it's expensive. Cables are $20 instead of $3. Although the nice thing about active cables is it's much more difficult to end up with a crappy junk cable. It probably costs MB makers an additional $20 to add it to their boards.

Unfortunately the $20 extra is what's going to make ThunderBolt fail. How often do you see people in these forums asking what's the cheapest motherboard, or cheapest CPU. They rarely ask what's a GOOD motherboard. Welcome to the race to the bottom.

Thats because there is very little differance between the $100 board and $200 board for most.

I use to buy the high end boards but after a while I saw I never used firewire, 10 USB ports, etc...

My last 2 boards were the cheapest high end chipset boards from Intel (Z77) and AMD (970). Both do everything I want and have no short comings for me. All the sound, ethernet, etc... is good and pretty much the same. back in the day a high end board at least got you better sound or something. But today theres just not enough differance.

 

[lagokc]

Instead of rolling back the delivery dates why don't they just tell board makers that USB 3.0 isn't working on stepping C1, let the board makers add in USB 3.0 controllers (the way USB 3.0 works on all currently shipping boards), and wait for stepping C2 to ship boards using the integrated USB 3.0 controller?

Would it take to long for the board makers to make a slight revision to the boards?

 

[Arkaign]

I don't understand why there can't be a software workaround. Just have a special USB driver or windows update patch that makes it re-scan for USB devices after waking up from S3 if you have the defective chipset...

Think about it for a second. Even a small drop is fatal in this case. It's just the nature of USB that it hates being disconnected at all if anything is open/using it.

And Microsoft and even Intel are far too lazy to make a special case fix for something like this. The fix could also be worse than the problem and introduce new headaches. Makes me think of AMD's 'fix' for Phenom 1 TLB. Here, we'll fix your problem that you may have never noticed, and to do that we'll chop performance heavily.

Ugh. At least this USB issue is relatively minor. Although I won't buy a release Haswell because as an enthusiast it looks lame, it wouldn't prevent me from buying one. I never put my PC to sleep. Ever. So non-issue for me personally.

 

[sm625]

Many new homes are being built with USB wallplates.

It truly is everywhere. They're in cars, they're even on some bicycles. Now that it is ubiquitous you'd have to be either retarded or work for Apple to suggest that it be replaced.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Thats the first time I see USB wallplates. I never seen it in another country before.

Its also very questionable in terms fo usage. How is it connected? What about the cable limits etc?

 

[lagokc]

Thats the first time I see USB wallplates. I never seen it in another country before.

Its also very questionable in terms fo usage. How is it connected? What about the cable limits etc?

You know those USB chargers you plug into the wall? It's just one of those built into the outlet faceplate.

 

[ShintaiDK]

You know those USB chargers you plug into the wall? It's just one of those built into the outlet faceplate.

Sounds silly

 

[Idontcare]

Sounds silly

Practically every battery-powered device you can buy these days here in the USA comes designed to be charged via USB. I haven't seen a non-USB chargable "toy" in years here. May just be where I shop and what toys the family buys for each other, but thats my world and USB faceplates are "with the times".

 

[TY-1]

Hmm, I might have to include one or two of those the next time I remodel a room.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Practically every battery-powered device you can buy these days here in the USA comes designed to be charged via USB. I haven't seen a non-USB chargable "toy" in years here. May just be where I shop and what toys the family buys for each other, but thats my world and USB faceplates are "with the times".

The problem with such installations is, that they quickly get obsolete one way or the other. Another issue that kills the idea anyway is that you need a cable for it. So why bother? Super small recharger or cable? One device needs a USB, another Mini USB, another Micro USB, a 4th one uses its own format in the other end. And to make it even worse, there is an A and a B model of all types as well to add on.

Hence its a silly gimmick to put in.

 

[Piroko]

Such a sad wallplate.

Practically every battery-powered device you can buy these days here in the USA comes designed to be charged via USB. I haven't seen a non-USB chargable "toy" in years here. May just be where I shop and what toys the family buys for each other, but thats my world and USB faceplates are "with the times".

Oddly enough the EU got that rolling in 2009: http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/sectors/rtte/chargers/

I'm still a bit annoyed that they didn't push charging over USB3 beyond 900mA/5V. FireWire was able to handle up to 1.5A/33V in 2001, that was innovative.

 

[ShintaiDK]

Danish outlets are happy face

 

[Mopetar]

The problem with such installations is, that they quickly get obsolete one way or the other. Another issue that kills the idea anyway is that you need a cable for it. So why bother? Super small recharger or cable? One device needs a USB, another Mini USB, another Micro USB, a 4th one uses its own format in the other end. And to make it even worse, there is an A and a B model of all types as well to add on.

Hence its a silly gimmick to put in.

I don't think it's that silly, and really as long as the cables are designed somewhat intelligently it's not a problem. Take Apple's iDevice chargers. They're a 30-pin or lightning connector on the end that plugs into the device, and USB on the other. The USB end can plug into a computer directly, or you can plug it in to an adapter that plugs into an electrical outlet. Putting the USB in the electrical outlet just eliminates the extra step. Also, it would be region agnostic so people would have less need to carry outlet adapters around.

Just putting those kinds of outlets in airports would make international travel so much better. A lot of people are probably capable of getting by with traveling with just their smart device. Reducing the need to carry adapters, converters, or other extra baggage is just icing on the cake.

 

[Plimogz]

Danish outlets are happy face

Hey Kids! come play with your smiley wall friend!

At least the NA outlet looks like it is shocked by your plan of sticking a fork in it's eyes.

 

[ShintaiDK]

They got a protection system(tamper-evident?), so its very very hard to plug something else than an proper connector in.

Maybe easier to see here:

 

[Wall Street]

I'm still a bit annoyed that they didn't push charging over USB3 beyond 900mA/5V. FireWire was able to handle up to 1.5A/33V in 2001, that was innovative.

You have to keep in mond the other end of the compromise. Laptop manufacturers say "we need to deliver THAT MUCH power to each connected device!?!" every time the power limit is increased. 1.5A@33V is almost 50 watts. So I bet most laptops ignored that part of the spec anyways, making that spec somewhat useless in real world implementations.

 

[Piroko]

You have to keep in mond the other end of the compromise. Laptop manufacturers say "we need to deliver THAT MUCH power to each connected device!?!" every time the power limit is increased. 1.5A@33V is almost 50 watts. So I bet most laptops ignored that part of the spec anyways, making that spec somewhat useless in real world implementations.

Yea, connected devices need to negotiate the charging power that they can handle (900mA from USB3 is only optional as well). But FireWire at least had the option to charge stuff quickly. I can turn this around, why not charge your Notebook via FireWire?
USB3 should have pushed for optional ~10W charging in the spec, that's enough to comfortably charge Smartphones and small Tablets. As it is now, manufacturers just ignore the spec and draw more anyways. Not something I'm a fan of.