
With USB 4, Intel is finally making good on the promise of royalty-free 40 Gbps - ameuret
https://www.theverge.com/2019/3/4/18246182/usb-4-thunderbolt-3-specs-features-release-date
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jameskilton
Do note that the correct name for this iteration is "USB4" with no space[1].

Because naming things is hard.

[1]
[https://usb.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/USB_PG_USB4_DevU...](https://usb.org/sites/default/files/2019-02/USB_PG_USB4_DevUpdate_Announcement_FINAL_20190226.pdf)

~~~
ihuman
How come USB4 is one word, when USB 2.0, USB 3.0, and so on are 2? Is there an
actual answer at all?

~~~
out_of_protocol
Latest version name is USB 3.2 Gen 2×2

You see, lines up perfectly

~~~
Aardwolf
"4" means bad luck in some countries, so maybe they should name it "USB5" from
"3 + 2"

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linarism
This is definitely one of the enabling technologies for Apple to use their own
ARM-based CPUs on MacBooks

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Royalty USB4 sure seems like the time that iPhone would adopt a USB-C
connector like their laptops.

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sitkack
Intel implements firewire immediately after killing firewire.

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berbec
All I want is a Ryzen laptop with access to an eGPU

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
It _MIGHT_ be possible today... Kind of... With an ugly hack.

If said laptop has a m.2 port that exposes PCI-e lanes you might be able to
use a m.2 to PCI-e adaptor. Dump the Thunderbolt binaries from a Intel UEFI,
init a Thunderbolt PCI-e card on an intel system (to load the firmware onto
that Thunderbolt Card) and then get Thunderbolt at least under Linux.

Wendel from Level1Techs was able to get Thunderbolt working on a Desktop
Threadripper[0].

Obv it would be an ugly (both in looks, as you will have things hanging off
the laptop and software as you will have to be injecting code into your UEFI).
And if you have a M.2 port with PCIe then might as well just hook the GPU
directly to the M.2 <-> PCIe adaptor[1]). Either way you would be limited to 4
PCIe lanes.

And with either method, you still might not get it to work. You might want to
check out the eGPU Forums[2].

[0]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOlQbP63lDQ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uOlQbP63lDQ)

[1]
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDyL2tPyXFA](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDyL2tPyXFA)

[2] [https://egpu.io/forums/](https://egpu.io/forums/)

~~~
dogma1138
if you are going to use an m.2 to PCIe adapter might as well dump the middle
man and just plug in a PCIe GPU straight into the x4 slot since that would
work just fine.

Have a PCIe x4 cable going from the laptop to a box instead of a Thunderbolt
cable the only thing you might "lose" is hotswap but technically even that is
mainly an electrical problem if you don't use the PCIe power pins hotswap can
work just fine.

~~~
Crosseye_Jack
> if you are going to use an m.2 to PCIe adapter might as well dump the middle
> man and just plug in a PCIe GPU straight into the x4 slot since that would
> work just fine.

I did say that and even linked a video of someone trying to do just that (The
part about using the M.2 port is about 5 mins into the video).

> And if you have a M.2 port with PCIe then might as well just hook the GPU
> directly to the M.2 <-> PCIe adaptor[1]). Either way you would be limited to
> 4 PCIe lanes.

It does depend on what bios settings you are running and if you bios allows
you to change those settings to get the card seen by the laptop. Linus (from
LTT not Linux) wasn't able to get it to work, but then again it is Linus and
his projects often don't go to plan.

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ksec
We already have dozen of other similar submissions.

We have one that has 270 comments here [1].

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19304857](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19304857)

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rasz
>40 Gbps

40 or "40"?, because currently: "dual-port '40 Gbps' Thunderbolt controller
has 32 Gbps of PCIe bandwidth total, and each port supports 22 Gbps"

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examancer
This is good for everyone. Hopefully the adoption is swift and we can pretend
the myriad Thunderbolt/USB-C/USB 3.0 issues, differences, and confusion never
happened.

