this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2023
129 points (78.2% liked)

Technology

58303 readers
13 users here now

This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.

Our Rules

  1. Follow the lemmy.world rules.
  2. Only tech related content.
  3. Be excellent to each another!
  4. Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
  5. Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
  6. Politics threads may be removed.
  7. No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
  8. Only approved bots from the list below, to ask if your bot can be added please contact us.
  9. Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed

Approved Bots

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
[email protected]
129
Why aren’t motherboards mostly USB-C by now? (philip.greenspun.com)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
103 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Why aren’t motherboards mostly USB-C by now?::I’m beginning to think that the Windows PC that I built in 2015 is ready for retirement (though if Joe Biden can be president at 78, maybe this PC can last until 2029?). In looking at new des…

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Typically no, the top two PCIE x16 slots are normally directly to the CPU, though when both are plugged in they will drop down to both being x8 connectivity.

Any PCIE x4 or X1 are off the chipset, as well as some IO, and any third or fourth x16 slots.

So yes, motherboards typically do implement more IO connectivity than can be used simultaneously, though they will try to avoid disabling USB ports or dropping their speed since regular customers will not understand why.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Typically no, the top two PCIE x16 slots are normally directly to the CPU, though when both are plugged in they will drop down to both being x8 connectivity.

Any PCIE x4 or X1 are off the chipset, as well as some IO, and any third or fourth x16 slots.

I think the relevant part of my original comment might've been misunderstood -- I'll edit to clarify that but I'm already aware that the 16 "GPU-assigned" lanes are coming directly from the CPU (including when doing 2x8, if the board is designed in this way -- the GPU-assigned lanes aren't what I'm getting at here).

So yes, motherboards typically do implement more IO connectivity than can be used simultaneously, though they will try to avoid disabling USB ports or dropping their speed since regular customers will not understand why.

This doesn't really address what I was getting at though. The OP's point was basically "the reason there isn't more USB is because there's not enough bandwidth - here are the numbers". The missing bandwidth they're mentioning is correct, but the reality is that we already design boards with more ports than bandwidth - hence why it doesn't seem like a great answer despite being a helpful addition to the discussion.