this post was submitted on 24 Nov 2024
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[–] rumba 12 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Burn all the USBC cables with fire except PD. The top PD cable does everything the lower cable does.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 6 days ago

IDK I’ve had PD cables that looked good for a while but turns out their data rate was basically USB2. It seems no matter what rule of thumb I try there are always weird caveats.

No, I’m not bitter, why would you ask that?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

There are many PD cables that are bad for doing data.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Correct. The other commenter is giving bad advice.

Both power delivery and bandwidth are backwards compatible, but they are independent specifications on USB-C cables. You can even get PD capable USB-C cables that don’t transmit data at all.

Also, that’s not true for Thunderbolt cables. Each of the 5 versions have specific data and power delivery minimum and maximum specifications.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You can even get PD capable USB-C cables that don’t transmit data at all.

I don't think this is right. The PD standard requires the negotiation of which side is the source and which is the sink, and the voltage/amperage, over those data links. So it has to at least support the bare minimum data transmission in order for PD to work.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Technically, yes, data must transmit to negotiate, but it doesn’t require high throughput. So you’ll get USB 2.0 transfer speeds (480 Mb/s) with most “charging only” USB-C cables. That’s only really useful for a keyboard or mouse these days.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

This limitation comes up sometimes when people try to build out a zero-trust cable where they can get a charge but not necessarily transfer data to or from an untrusted device on the other side.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 days ago (2 children)

You forgot thunderbolt and usb4 exists now

[–] rumba 5 points 6 days ago

You forgot thunderbolt and usb4 exists now

You can buy a single cable that does 40GB and USB4 and charges at 240w.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 6 days ago

True but pretty much the only devices that need those are high-end SSDs and laptop docks and in both cases you just leave the cable with the device rather than pulling it out of your generic cables drawer.