Well, this is about USB 3.2 Gen 2x2, which is a mess created by USB IF for good old, blue USB A connectors. Not USB-C complexity.
USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is the very rarely supported 20Gb/s variant of USB 3, and making devices now that require that for full performance is a weird decision, with high-speed capable ports generally having wider support for either USB4 or Thunderbolt3+. I imagine the reason would be that some chip with an otherwise poor market fit got cheap...
Throwing this into the mix definitely doesn't improve the USB-C "what does this port support" conundrum, but this specific one predates USB-C and is not at all something you'd normally hit.
3.2 Gen 2x2 (and the occasionally relevant 1x2 if you have a weak cable) are USB C only.
USB C ports and cables have 4 USB 3 "superspeed" lanes rather than two. When you use an A to C cable only one pair of those connects. The point of the "x2" modes is that they use the second pair of lanes that would otherwise go unused.
Except of course they don't always go unused. DisplayPort Alternate Mode sends DisplayPort over those two "unused" lanes getting you USB 3 data alongside a half speed DisplayPort connection. (or alternatively full speed DisplayPort on all four and only USB 2), and then of course Thunderbolt 3 and modern USB4/TBT4 use all four lanes and tunnel everything.
10 Gb/s Ethernet interfaces do not require 20 Gb/s USB ports for reaching maximum performance, they already reach that on 10 Gb/s USB ports, despite of what the writer of TFA believes.
The main application of 20 Gb/s USB ports is to connect external NVMe SSDs, when faster USB 4 or Thunderbolt ports and SSDs are not available.
For an external NVMe SSD on USB, a 20 Gb/s USB port will double the throughput, unlike for a 10 Gb/s Ethernet interface where any improvements are completely negligible.
I do not think that 20 Gb/s USB Type C ports are "very rarely supported". Every mini-PC or desktop motherboard that I have bought during the last 10 years had at least one such USB port.
Such ports appear to be rare only on laptops, because most laptops have very few USB ports.
> 10 Gb/s Ethernet interfaces do not require 20 Gb/s USB ports for reaching maximum performance, they already reach that on 10 Gb/s USB ports, despite of what the writer of TFA believes.
While this may be theoretically (almost) possible, I’m quite sure this is absolutely not the case in practice.
For example see these benchmarks of one of the more recent USB to Ethernet chipsets [1], that can reach ~9.5 Gb/s on USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 but only between ~6.2 to ~7.3 on 3.2 Gen 2x1 laptops.
Edit: Haha, didn’t realise TFA was by the same author as these benchmarks but he’s done a lot of testing and benchmarking of these kind of devices over a long time, and it agrees with all the other benchmarking from other people I’ve seen too!
>Every mini-PC or desktop motherboard that I have bought during the last 10 years had at least one such USB port.
Are you talking about USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 though? Because I've never seen any MiniPC with this port and as for motherboards, I checked my local retailer and only ~15% of currently sold ones have Gen 2x2 (mostly high-end ones).
Most of my mini-PCs have been Intel NUCs (or more recently an ASUS NUC). I also had some Gigabyte and Zotac mini-PCs and a few others from less well-known vendors. IIRC almost all had one such 20 Gb/s USB Type C port, unless they had one or two faster Thunderbolt ports.
With mini-PCs, I frequently use external SSDs, so I certainly used those ports at their full speed.
The only mini-PCs that I had in recent years without such a fast USB port were Arm-CPU based, as those are typically starved in fast peripheral interfaces in comparison with the Intel/AMD CPUs.
Both 10 Gb/s Ethernet and 10 Gb/s USB have bit data rates that are 3% lower than 10 Gb/s, due to encoding (64/66 bits for Ethernet, 128/132 bits for USB).
So the their maximum speed is approximately 9.7 Gb/s.
Then for Ethernet there is a protocol-dependent overhead, e.c. depending on whether TCP or UDP is used, and depending on whether standard packets or jumbo packets are used.
The TCP overhead can reach in the worst case up to close to another 3%, reducing the achievable TCP throughput to around 9.4 Gb/s.
The USB frames add some extra overhead, but it is normally not important in comparison with other factors that can reduce the throughput.
All that a 20 Gb/s USB port can do is to reduce the overhead of the USB frames, but that is a negligible improvement. Using jumbo Ethernet frames (which are 6 times bigger than standard frames), if both ends support them, is likely more useful for increasing the throughput, than using a 20 Gb/s USB port.
10 Gig ethernet is 10GBps usable rate (before packet overhead). The line rates are higher to accommodate this.
For 10GBase-R, it's typically 10.3125 GBps, with a 64/66 encoding. For 10GBase-T, it's 4 lanes with PAM-16 at 800 MBaud -> 12.8 Gbps raw.
It uses 128b/132b encoding so 10Gb/s USB ≈ 9.69Gb/s you do then have USB framing overhead but it's probably around 2% on typical 1500B ethernet frames. So all in you are losing probably 5% or so to overhead.
I am of the opinion that 5Gbe is a much more sensible speed for a laptop adapter right now as it uses half the power and can obviously run full wack on 10Gb/s USB so you're looking at like 5Gbe vs ~9.4Gbe.
Stop insisting on Cat.6A (and related) copper cables for speeds beyond 1000BASE-T (maybe beyond 2.5G by now), just use dumb multi mode fiber it's way easier technology-wise and if you want power you can have that as well.
At distances where Cat.6A is even an option the demands on the fiber are very low.
And it uses less power than the BASE-T PHY.
The cable at least without integrated power is very thin as well, unless you can't respect it enough to not kink it, in which case you'd want a thicker one just to prevent you from being able to break the fiber.
Point of clarification since it isn’t clear from the title. This isn’t a Framework product, but a product by Wisdpi designed for the Framework Expansion Card form factor.
I do wish there were something like Oculink, but with power available over the connector. USB-C does almost everything, but it seems the chips to break out PCIe lanes for USB4/Thunderbolt for higher speed devices are still a significant cost for accessories.
hey Nirav, dumb question: would it be possible to have usb-c ethernet adapters using intel chips in order to have vPro features on framework laptops (along with vpro-enabled intel chips) ?
That's probably the missing cherry on top, as having vpro once the framework motherboard gets reused as a home server it gives some manageability features.
I chuckled at 10G wired ethernet on a laptop. I mean in a docking station? Sure that seems reasonable. But fun none the less.
I appreciate the USB-C nature of the Framework's expansion ports, it does make real the entire reason that USB was created in the first place, hot plug slots. Still, I (and others) pointed out to Intel early on that using Ethernet with a specific packet type would be cheaper and just as fast (which the ATA over Ethernet folks proved), but then you wouldn't get the 'certification tax' that the USB consortium extracts. :-).
Cynicism aside, the design issues suggest that it might make sense in future laptops to have heat spreaders around the plug in port, although that makes things thicker and people obsess over thinness.
> I chuckled at 10G wired ethernet on a laptop. I mean in a docking station? Sure that seems reasonable. But fun none the less.
What difference does a docking station make? Sometimes you want to spend a minute or two setting up your laptop in a more serious way, and that's just as reasonable with or without a docking station.
The "dock" comment made sense to me because I don't think that true "road warrior" laptop use and 10G Ethernet deployments would coincide all that often.
I've put a disproportionate number of hours and $$$ into my homelab over the years, and I still only have 2.5G Ethernet switches deployed. Most offices' (much less home/coworking space/etc.) network traffic is passing through single-gigabit switches.
Back in the early days of wireless networking I had my laptop configured with the wireless and wired networks bonded. I want to say that was 2Mbps on the wireless, so if I was doing a big transfer I could walk over to a wired port in my house and plug in to get 100Mbps.
Others comments already mentioned multimedia, but for example where I work we have some development board and prototypes with 10g ethernet, but most developers have a laptop rather than a fixed station. Turns out smallish (but overly expensive) thunderbolt 10g adapters can be used for testing and even reach full thoughput in many cases.
If you work with media having a 10G connection on a laptop isn't all that absurd. In fact slow network speeds are the main reason why people have to use things like Thunderbolt instead of using a NAS (e.g. offloading data on a film set).
Future proofing. Websites nowadays load tens of megabytes for a simple news page. I wouldn’t be surprised if in the future a website consumes 500+ megabytes on the initial page load. That will take 40 seconds on a 100 megabit link and 400 milliseconds on a 10 gigabit link.
Try to load any modern website on dial-up. The connection will likely timeout before a full page load.
Every PCIe 10G ethernet card I've seen has a heatsink on it, sometimes covering the entire card or even have little fans on the heatsink.
Expecting it to work full time in a laptop is a bit of a stretch of the heat dissipation budget.
Also, the laptop he is working has the AMD FP8 chipset - depending on how the ports are setup, he might only get 10G USB, if the ports are allocated to video instead.
I was doing a comparison of 10G ethernet NICs just yesterday and ChatGPT was insistent that they are scorching regardless of actual throughput. Unless you manually downshift and upshift the communication rate.
I'm having second thoughts about having one of those dongles on my desk all day for the same reason wireless charging seems wasteful.
Pi 4 and 5 both idle around 3W. But a Pi 5 can pull up to 16W with a USB peripheral, full CPU load, and decoding 4k video. The Pi 4 / 5 will run OKish without a heatsink at idle wattages, but thermal throttle quickly if you attempt to do something intensive.
These realtek 10gbe chips are more in the range of the Pi Zero class machines (0.5W idle, 2W loaded) which don't often come with heatsinks though they might benefit from them. If it has a good thermal connection to a good thick ground plane on the PCB, that's worth almost as much as a passive heatsink on the top of the chip.
usb-c < card edge < motherboard integrated in terms of how much heat can be transfered through the connection. Where the motherboard would have the largest ground plane to soak up heat from such an IC and dissipate it passively. The usb-c module is worst case by being a small enclosed box with very little thermal connection through the plastic insulating housing. An aluminum enclosure might dissipate enough heat passively to make it pleasant to use.
Raspberry Pi 4 doesn't need a fan. People just like to put them on because because micromanaging CPU temperature is part of the hobby for some. Yes it might throttle its CPU speed when going full tilt for some time, but lets be real how many workloads require poor Raspberry Pi to be loaded 100% for prolonged periods of time?
From what I've gathered, heat absolutely does[1] affect[2] it[3]:
Subsequently, in 1967, Black of Motorola experimentally derived a median time to failure (MTTF, i.e., operational lifetime) model for EM in Al interconnects, showing that the time to failure due to EM is inversely proportional to both the current density and the absolute temperature of the interconnect.
Thermal cycles, heat, current, all contribute to degradations and failures. It just so happens that cycling is the worst and everyone knows "it's the power cycles that kills computers". Doesn't mean at all that electronics can't be damaged countless other ways.
To add perspective, an old-school 7805 voltage regulator dissipating just 1 watt is already impossibly hot to hold with bare hand (as me how I know). So 3-4 watts on a small module will make it noticeably hot.
I looked in to it and it seemed like 10gbit was much better over fiber. Ended up deciding that 2.5gbit is plenty. The 2.5 gear is significantly cheaper and runs cool.
> I looked in to it and it seemed like 10gbit was much better over fiber.
Yes, except that most devices use Ethernet. So, at the end of the day, you still need Ethernet cables unless you want to deal with an additional switch or converter in every room.
If you want to ackshually, both fiber and copper are empty pipes that can carry any layer 2 protocol, and are not inherently Ethernet. They only become Ethernet cables when they're connected to terminals that pass that protocol through them.
Unless we're defining some networking standard, "Ethernet cable" is a perfectly acceptable term. Everyone will understand what is meant. The added specificity you're asking for doesn't improve the quality of communication.
You're still talking about a cable. The cable may be compatible with those standards, but you can put anything through it. It's just a physical connection.
>And people nerdy enough to run 10GE at home might well run fibre. So, no, the specifity is needed and useful.
No, because if you say "which do you want? Ethernet or fiber?" no one will look at you like if you asked if they want salt or beef. It's technically incorrect, but everyone will understand what is being asked.
I disagree with that for two reasons. First, my central switch is probably capable of both copper and fiber. Second, how many wired devices do you have spread around your house? Let's say I have an above average number of devices: a router, a NAS, two access points, and three desktops. Router, NAS, and one access point can all be adjacent to the switch and avoid any conversion hassle. The desktops are using fiber so no conversion hassle there. That leaves one copper cable or converter needed for the other access point.
I guess I have rather overestimated what a normal amount of wired devices is based on my own sample size. That or the opposite is happening with you.
My house has a POE doorbell, several POE cameras, 2 TVs that each get a connection to their attached android TV boxes, Wife's office gets a pair of connections, ditto with mine, then you've got the APs for the wireless bits + a few servers in the rack with the networking equipment.
Mind you I know I am on the high side, but I use that as the reference point. I'd figure a normal house would have 4-5 wired connections to my 20ish.
Indeed, that's largely why I decided 10gbit at home isn't really worth it. The current 10gbit ethernet stuff is expensive and power hungry, the enterprise stuff is hard to use on consumer gear. And the only real use case is super fast access to a nas.
I got it solely because our ISP bumped our home fiber to 10Gb and it would’ve hurt my soul for the router to be slower than that. And hey, if you’ve already got a router with 10Gb ports available and ready to go…
You'd be amazed what exists on the market these days. For example, the pre-terminated InvisiLight fiber cabling is 0.6mm in diameter and has a 2.5mm bend radius. I've personally installed this cabling while making many 90 degree (and sharper in some cases) bends without any issues. That makes it easy to hide and trivial to fit right through doorways and other tight spaces too.
Unlike "5 Gb/s" USB, which in reality is 4 Gb/s USB, so a 5 Gb/s Ethernet interface cannot reach its maximum speed on a 5 Gb/s USB, the "10 Gb/s" USB is really 10 Gb/s, i.e. the difference between its real speed and 10 Gb/s is small enough to be negligible.
The same is true for 10 Gb/s Ethernet, whose speed is not exactly 10 Gb/s, but the difference from 10 Gb/s is also negligible.
Therefore, you do not need a 20 Gb/s USB to reach the maximum speed with a 10 Gb/s Ethernet interface, a 10 Gb/s USB port is good enough.
The overhead of data framing on USB is slightly higher than on Ethernet, so the maximum throughput on an USB 10 Gb/s Ethernet interface is a little lower than for a PCIe Ethernet NIC, but the difference is small enough to not matter. Usually other factors, like bad device drivers or inefficient programs, can cause much greater variations in Ethernet throughput.
The 9.4 Gb/s throughput obtained in TFA is perfectly reasonable when taking into account the packet overheads, which make impossible to reach 10 Gb/s for user data, regardless of hardware. A 20 Gb/s USB interface could not provide any serious improvement over that.
Before Jeff first talk about this, I got one of those cheap Ethernet adapters (with the new realtek chip) on aliexpress for ~55€. It works really well, but I don't have USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 hardware, so I only get ~4Gbps out of it. But I'm pretty happy to break the 1G barrier, and the adapter will be useful in the future when I get better hardware; and I don't have to go through a 2.5Gbps or 5Gbps step.
In a way, I kinda don't get the idea of an expansion card for ethernet, rather than just a dongle. Specifically, as in this case, where it sticks out from the side of the chassis.
If I'm on the go, I'll have to take it out of the chassis while it's in my bag so I don't damage it. In that case, it's easier to have a regular USB-C card in that port, and toss a dongle in my bag instead of the expansion card.
If I'm not on the go, I'm at a desk, and I'd still rather plug in a dongle than regularly swap an expansion card.
I'm not saying you'd never want the expansion card, but it feels pretty niche.
A lot of people use their laptop as a desktop replacement and kinda leave it in one spot or only move it between two spots (home desk/office desk) rather than as an actually portable take anywhere use anywhere situation
In that case I'd rather just have one of those big usb hubs that has every port on it. Rather than an adapter designed that it only works on one laptop. Sure in theory you could plug them in to any but the design of it is such that you'd snap the connector if you plugged it in to a normal port.
While a regular usb-c ethernet adapter has a flexible cable between the laptop and the bulky rigid part.
Thunderbolt hubs are rather amazing now; in the past they'd either get super hot and have reliability issues, or had severe bandwidth limitations (especially if using larger displays).
The current crop has been great for my needs — a couple models have 10G Ethernet built in (CalDigit is the one I'm using now), and most now have more than one Thunderbolt port that allows a high speed storage device to be used as well (in addition to a 5K or 4K display or two!).
My TB5 dock from OWC on a M4 Pro MacBook can run dual 4k 240hz displays, 2.5gb ethernet, and several peripherals no problem. It also provides 100W of power. All over a single cable. So good these days
I may have the same one and I love it so much. Plug one USB C-looking cable into my laptop, and two 32” monitors and a host of accessories light up as it starts charging. It’s the greatest docking station ever.
Those sucked so hard, were extremely finicky to plug in, and I was in constant terror of breaking it. Even the popout jack things were horrific in that respect.
I'm 1000% for wired connections where possible, but for laptops too thin to have one built inside of the frame the best choice is a proper docking station, ideally with a cable that isn't impossible to user replace.
Like the constant cries for an iPhone Mini, which subsequently sold terribly, because people like good battery life, a generous screen size, and feature-rich cameras. Apple didn’t learn because they went on to do the Air, but whatever.
The minis, despite being sold at the same time as SEs and having to share demand, did fine. And if you want to improve that situation the obvious answer is to pick one or the other, not to cancel both. If you want even better stats, much more than needed, wait 2-3 years between releases.
My best guess for Apple's actions is that despite there being a very real demand for a smaller phone, they don't think the discomfort is bad enough for people to switch to Android, so they don't even try. A small phone makes a lot of profit, but ignoring the demand also makes a lot of profit.
I agree, every product should only be as large as possible, have top of the line specs, and a price to match. Literally nobody exists in different market segments. There should only be one product in each category. You will purchase your Phone(tm) and be happy.
There’s nothing to “get”. The circuit doesn’t fit inside the slot for expansion cards. You could plug in a dongle instead, but then you’d have a big hole in your laptop with a cable sticking out. Or you could just get a wider laptop bag. They make them in multiple sizes, you know.
Technically all framework 13 laptops always have four things plugged into it because the ports are modular such that the user can choose which ports they want.
Unless you're crazy and leave the expansion ports unpopulated.
Er, no, then you'd use the regular USB-C expansion card and plug the dongle into that, and then the port becomes generally useful.
A wider bag doesn't solve it. The part that sticks out could still easily snag on something. I wouldn't want to take that risk, and I doubt many people would.
Not arguing, just saying that sometimes things come with compromises. It shouldn’t be surprising to anyone that some expansion cards don't fit in the expansion slot. There’s always going to be _something_ that needs a bit more space.
Having it stick out like that is such a stupid design. Almost as dumb as all the 2FA dongles. The USB-A ones that you could leave in actually made the most sense. Yes I know.
I have a 10GbE network in my house and a Framework 13 AMD laptop (7840U variant), I found that most of the available 10GbE adapters on the market get too hot, and after trying a few I settled on the UniFi USB4 10GbE adapter as it has enough thermal dissipation to be able to sustain full performance over an extended period of time. I don't see how you can dissipate enough heat in the Framework insert shells.
I'm not sure why you want to either really. I can't see many scenarios where the absolute portability of having a 10GBE adapter in the laptop is really necessary. I suspect the general use of these kind of things is for people docked at a desk, at which point its best served by a well cooled dongle or a chunky dock like a TS5
Frankly, considering this is a laptop, I wish they spent more effort on delivering a flush 1gbe module rather than a 10gbe module. It has become an elephant in the room every time someone asks about my framework laptop. It... sticks out like a sore thumb, per say.
As others have commented, this is not a Framework product. That's part of the beauty: they open source there designs, allowing for third parties to easily make things like this (and much more beside). I believe at some point someone in the community was trying to design one of those slim ethernet ports that expands open when you need it (the jack doesn't really fit). Apparently some of the mechanisms for doing so are still proprietary though.
The video mentions that drivers were needed to get the full speed on Windows, and that the Realtek Linux drivers didn't compile on a modern kernel. So it's probably software.
Realtek makes some pretty affordable networking chips but their Linux drivers can be a real gamble. Either it works out of the box or you're in for years of messing around.
I think most people do not have 10g UTP infrastructure they want to exploit, but many people do have 2 computers they'd like to connect together at high speed, and these people are far better served by just connecting those computers' Thunderbolt ports together. With nothing other than an admittedly pricey cable, you get 10, 20, or 40gbps links depending on the endpoints. That's the "something faster" that will work well for most people.
Only Framework could reincarnate godawful PCMCIA cards as proprietary USB-C dongles and be praised for it. Insanity. Maybe next they can bring back the XJACK.
No one wants to address the elephant in the room: it's a crap design for proprietary modules. Sure the design is open, can you use them anywhere else? Nope.
You're paying a premium for USB-C dongles that can't be used on any other brand of laptop. Apple is probably upset they didn't think of it first.
Of course you can use the modules on any other brand of laptop. It's not going to look pretty doing it, but I've routinely used the USB-C to USB-A, as well as the mini SSD, on a MacBook Pro.
Colleagues borrow them all the time when they need a SD card or MicroSD card reader. Is it as pretty as a dedicated reader for those cards? No, but it does the job.
Saying they're proprietary is misleading a bit. The form factor makes it awkward to use elsewhere but they work just fine anywhere you plug them into.
The weight/shape of the module will break the USB-C port in short order because it is solely supported by the connector.
For instance, by bumping the spatula hanging off your Mac.
For that matter, USB-C are crap connectors, I don't care how many graphs and BS data you show me stating they're the most reliable connector ever. I do not believe it.
They're the only types of connectors I've seen damaged repeatedly, and the only one with which I've personally experienced damage, and I've been using laptops since before many of you were born.
I understand your disdain for fandom but in this case this isn't a product by framework. This is a 3d part product resulting from framework's basic motivation and associated actions of nurturing a 3rd party ecosystem. I don't like fandom but we can admit framework's theoretical raison d'etre is pretty good
Sounds like the dual problem of "I want the thinnest" is the "I want the most powerful" on miniature equipment, and of course you run into an unbalanced situation
Honestly I don't see much of an use for 10Gbps in a notebook that can't be solved by a dongle when you actually need it
No one needs anything, but can and do I use more than 1Gbps from my laptop? Of course. 1Gbps is only ~125MB/sec transfer speed. When I’m copying large files to and from my home NAS, I often want more speed than that so a while ago I picked up a 2.5g adapter, later 5g, and now finally with these new chips a 10g adapter.
Same for my SFF PC which only came with 2.5g onboard and no extra slots because ITX and can now do 10g via the same USB adapter which is great.
Well, it's Framework we are talking about. My plan is to buy it because at some point of its lifecycle my Framework 12 motherboard will be used as a new node in my Homelab. :)
Yes, I have 5Gbit symmetric fiber, why would I want to limit myself to less speed than that on my laptop? I regularly peak out my Internet connection while doing Steam downloads and OS updates.
Yours is an “edge device” but I am root, so mine is a portable tool for managing and testing the network that does not have working WiFi access points attached to it or obviously I would not be there.
And yes, some of those links are above 1gbps so that the users can have individual 1gbps links.
More amazed by the complexity in bundling offers, of decking out your Framework device with 6 flush USB-C port extension ports sets you back 60 bucks already.
That's like a weird hidden tax.
In a network world where 1GB Ethernet randomly can handshake at 100Mbit still, getting reliably more than 3/4 of the advertised Bandwith from the Adapter seems quite harmless.
I like the modularity, but I'd feel better if it came with the "blanks" that just extends the inside USB-C port towards the outside.
I feel like things would not look like nickel-and-diming if those blanks came with the laptop, and they just priced them in the final price. Or even better, offered the option to "upgrade" one or several of those to whatever you need.
Framework’s single greatest marketing triumph is selling a $20 3.5 mm audio jack for a device that doesn’t have one but easily could (Framework 16) and somehow avoiding constant complaints/“so brave”/etc.
USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 is the very rarely supported 20Gb/s variant of USB 3, and making devices now that require that for full performance is a weird decision, with high-speed capable ports generally having wider support for either USB4 or Thunderbolt3+. I imagine the reason would be that some chip with an otherwise poor market fit got cheap...
Throwing this into the mix definitely doesn't improve the USB-C "what does this port support" conundrum, but this specific one predates USB-C and is not at all something you'd normally hit.
3.2 Gen 2x2 (and the occasionally relevant 1x2 if you have a weak cable) are USB C only.
USB C ports and cables have 4 USB 3 "superspeed" lanes rather than two. When you use an A to C cable only one pair of those connects. The point of the "x2" modes is that they use the second pair of lanes that would otherwise go unused.
Except of course they don't always go unused. DisplayPort Alternate Mode sends DisplayPort over those two "unused" lanes getting you USB 3 data alongside a half speed DisplayPort connection. (or alternatively full speed DisplayPort on all four and only USB 2), and then of course Thunderbolt 3 and modern USB4/TBT4 use all four lanes and tunnel everything.
The main application of 20 Gb/s USB ports is to connect external NVMe SSDs, when faster USB 4 or Thunderbolt ports and SSDs are not available.
For an external NVMe SSD on USB, a 20 Gb/s USB port will double the throughput, unlike for a 10 Gb/s Ethernet interface where any improvements are completely negligible.
I do not think that 20 Gb/s USB Type C ports are "very rarely supported". Every mini-PC or desktop motherboard that I have bought during the last 10 years had at least one such USB port.
Such ports appear to be rare only on laptops, because most laptops have very few USB ports.
While this may be theoretically (almost) possible, I’m quite sure this is absolutely not the case in practice.
For example see these benchmarks of one of the more recent USB to Ethernet chipsets [1], that can reach ~9.5 Gb/s on USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 but only between ~6.2 to ~7.3 on 3.2 Gen 2x1 laptops.
1. https://www.jeffgeerling.com/blog/2026/new-10-gbe-usb-adapte...
Edit: Haha, didn’t realise TFA was by the same author as these benchmarks but he’s done a lot of testing and benchmarking of these kind of devices over a long time, and it agrees with all the other benchmarking from other people I’ve seen too!
Are you talking about USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 though? Because I've never seen any MiniPC with this port and as for motherboards, I checked my local retailer and only ~15% of currently sold ones have Gen 2x2 (mostly high-end ones).
With mini-PCs, I frequently use external SSDs, so I certainly used those ports at their full speed.
The only mini-PCs that I had in recent years without such a fast USB port were Arm-CPU based, as those are typically starved in fast peripheral interfaces in comparison with the Intel/AMD CPUs.
So the their maximum speed is approximately 9.7 Gb/s.
Then for Ethernet there is a protocol-dependent overhead, e.c. depending on whether TCP or UDP is used, and depending on whether standard packets or jumbo packets are used.
The TCP overhead can reach in the worst case up to close to another 3%, reducing the achievable TCP throughput to around 9.4 Gb/s.
The USB frames add some extra overhead, but it is normally not important in comparison with other factors that can reduce the throughput.
All that a 20 Gb/s USB port can do is to reduce the overhead of the USB frames, but that is a negligible improvement. Using jumbo Ethernet frames (which are 6 times bigger than standard frames), if both ends support them, is likely more useful for increasing the throughput, than using a 20 Gb/s USB port.
I am of the opinion that 5Gbe is a much more sensible speed for a laptop adapter right now as it uses half the power and can obviously run full wack on 10Gb/s USB so you're looking at like 5Gbe vs ~9.4Gbe.
At distances where Cat.6A is even an option the demands on the fiber are very low. And it uses less power than the BASE-T PHY. The cable at least without integrated power is very thin as well, unless you can't respect it enough to not kink it, in which case you'd want a thicker one just to prevent you from being able to break the fiber.
That's probably the missing cherry on top, as having vpro once the framework motherboard gets reused as a home server it gives some manageability features.
An Intel WLAN card in an M.2 slot on the mainboard might work (given your givens; a vPro enabled chipset).
I appreciate the USB-C nature of the Framework's expansion ports, it does make real the entire reason that USB was created in the first place, hot plug slots. Still, I (and others) pointed out to Intel early on that using Ethernet with a specific packet type would be cheaper and just as fast (which the ATA over Ethernet folks proved), but then you wouldn't get the 'certification tax' that the USB consortium extracts. :-).
Cynicism aside, the design issues suggest that it might make sense in future laptops to have heat spreaders around the plug in port, although that makes things thicker and people obsess over thinness.
What difference does a docking station make? Sometimes you want to spend a minute or two setting up your laptop in a more serious way, and that's just as reasonable with or without a docking station.
I've put a disproportionate number of hours and $$$ into my homelab over the years, and I still only have 2.5G Ethernet switches deployed. Most offices' (much less home/coworking space/etc.) network traffic is passing through single-gigabit switches.
Back in the early days of wireless networking I had my laptop configured with the wireless and wired networks bonded. I want to say that was 2Mbps on the wireless, so if I was doing a big transfer I could walk over to a wired port in my house and plug in to get 100Mbps.
https://frame.work/pl/en/products/dual-m-2-adapter
People have been making custom OCuLink adapters and recently Framework developed its own:
https://frame.work/pl/en/products/framework-oculink-dev-kit
Try to load any modern website on dial-up. The connection will likely timeout before a full page load.
Expecting it to work full time in a laptop is a bit of a stretch of the heat dissipation budget.
Also, the laptop he is working has the AMD FP8 chipset - depending on how the ports are setup, he might only get 10G USB, if the ports are allocated to video instead.
I'm having second thoughts about having one of those dongles on my desk all day for the same reason wireless charging seems wasteful.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_over_twisted_pair#Var...
These realtek 10gbe chips are more in the range of the Pi Zero class machines (0.5W idle, 2W loaded) which don't often come with heatsinks though they might benefit from them. If it has a good thermal connection to a good thick ground plane on the PCB, that's worth almost as much as a passive heatsink on the top of the chip.
usb-c < card edge < motherboard integrated in terms of how much heat can be transfered through the connection. Where the motherboard would have the largest ground plane to soak up heat from such an IC and dissipate it passively. The usb-c module is worst case by being a small enclosed box with very little thermal connection through the plastic insulating housing. An aluminum enclosure might dissipate enough heat passively to make it pleasant to use.
Even with a heatsink and fan, I had to upgrade to a higher quality set to keep Jellyfin from thermal throttling a Pi5 while transcoding 4K video.
(Technically the Pi 4's hw encoder doesn't go up to 4K either, though, so I guess moot point).
Subsequently, in 1967, Black of Motorola experimentally derived a median time to failure (MTTF, i.e., operational lifetime) model for EM in Al interconnects, showing that the time to failure due to EM is inversely proportional to both the current density and the absolute temperature of the interconnect.
[1]: https://infinitalab.com/blog/ic-failure-analysis-defect-type...
[2]: https://resources.system-analysis.cadence.com/blog/msa2020-b...
[3]: https://www.mdpi.com/2079-9292/14/15/3151#sec3-electronics-1...
Yes, except that most devices use Ethernet. So, at the end of the day, you still need Ethernet cables unless you want to deal with an additional switch or converter in every room.
Unless we're defining some networking standard, "Ethernet cable" is a perfectly acceptable term. Everyone will understand what is meant. The added specificity you're asking for doesn't improve the quality of communication.
And particularly for 10GE the heat and power problems are due to the copper transceiver DSPs.
And people nerdy enough to run 10GE at home might well run fibre.
So, no, the specifity is needed and useful.
You're still talking about a cable. The cable may be compatible with those standards, but you can put anything through it. It's just a physical connection.
>And people nerdy enough to run 10GE at home might well run fibre. So, no, the specifity is needed and useful.
No, because if you say "which do you want? Ethernet or fiber?" no one will look at you like if you asked if they want salt or beef. It's technically incorrect, but everyone will understand what is being asked.
I disagree with that for two reasons. First, my central switch is probably capable of both copper and fiber. Second, how many wired devices do you have spread around your house? Let's say I have an above average number of devices: a router, a NAS, two access points, and three desktops. Router, NAS, and one access point can all be adjacent to the switch and avoid any conversion hassle. The desktops are using fiber so no conversion hassle there. That leaves one copper cable or converter needed for the other access point.
My house has a POE doorbell, several POE cameras, 2 TVs that each get a connection to their attached android TV boxes, Wife's office gets a pair of connections, ditto with mine, then you've got the APs for the wireless bits + a few servers in the rack with the networking equipment.
Mind you I know I am on the high side, but I use that as the reference point. I'd figure a normal house would have 4-5 wired connections to my 20ish.
If you have a laptop or TV it probably doesn't need 10G.
I have seen the same with just usb-c multi-port dongles for macbooks (the ones they give you at work along with the macbooks).
in fairness to the docs/dongles though, they have an incredible amount of features that would have been science-fiction twenty years ago.
The same is true for 10 Gb/s Ethernet, whose speed is not exactly 10 Gb/s, but the difference from 10 Gb/s is also negligible.
Therefore, you do not need a 20 Gb/s USB to reach the maximum speed with a 10 Gb/s Ethernet interface, a 10 Gb/s USB port is good enough.
The overhead of data framing on USB is slightly higher than on Ethernet, so the maximum throughput on an USB 10 Gb/s Ethernet interface is a little lower than for a PCIe Ethernet NIC, but the difference is small enough to not matter. Usually other factors, like bad device drivers or inefficient programs, can cause much greater variations in Ethernet throughput.
The 9.4 Gb/s throughput obtained in TFA is perfectly reasonable when taking into account the packet overheads, which make impossible to reach 10 Gb/s for user data, regardless of hardware. A 20 Gb/s USB interface could not provide any serious improvement over that.
If I'm on the go, I'll have to take it out of the chassis while it's in my bag so I don't damage it. In that case, it's easier to have a regular USB-C card in that port, and toss a dongle in my bag instead of the expansion card.
If I'm not on the go, I'm at a desk, and I'd still rather plug in a dongle than regularly swap an expansion card.
I'm not saying you'd never want the expansion card, but it feels pretty niche.
While a regular usb-c ethernet adapter has a flexible cable between the laptop and the bulky rigid part.
The current crop has been great for my needs — a couple models have 10G Ethernet built in (CalDigit is the one I'm using now), and most now have more than one Thunderbolt port that allows a high speed storage device to be used as well (in addition to a 5K or 4K display or two!).
Anyway it is probably just there to demonstrate the possibilities to consumers. What if a lower profile standard for networking gets popularized?
I'm 1000% for wired connections where possible, but for laptops too thin to have one built inside of the frame the best choice is a proper docking station, ideally with a cable that isn't impossible to user replace.
The economics/upgrade math just does not make sense.
My best guess for Apple's actions is that despite there being a very real demand for a smaller phone, they don't think the discomfort is bad enough for people to switch to Android, so they don't even try. A small phone makes a lot of profit, but ignoring the demand also makes a lot of profit.
The Air was a real flop.
If it had a hinged or expanding[0] ethernet port so it could sit flush with the chassis when not in use it would make a lot more sense.
[0] It's easier to show what I mean https://www.reddit.com/r/TechnologyPorn/comments/hvlxep/orig...
No, you wouldn't. You'd have one of these instead: https://frame.work/products/usb-c-expansion-card?v=FRACCQ000... (or the one matching a color you prefer and your particular model)
Unless you're crazy and leave the expansion ports unpopulated.
A wider bag doesn't solve it. The part that sticks out could still easily snag on something. I wouldn't want to take that risk, and I doubt many people would.
I feel like you're arguing just to argue...
-edit- here it is: https://community.frame.work/t/low-profile-ethernet-expansio...
Realtek makes some pretty affordable networking chips but their Linux drivers can be a real gamble. Either it works out of the box or you're in for years of messing around.
No one wants to address the elephant in the room: it's a crap design for proprietary modules. Sure the design is open, can you use them anywhere else? Nope.
You're paying a premium for USB-C dongles that can't be used on any other brand of laptop. Apple is probably upset they didn't think of it first.
Colleagues borrow them all the time when they need a SD card or MicroSD card reader. Is it as pretty as a dedicated reader for those cards? No, but it does the job.
Saying they're proprietary is misleading a bit. The form factor makes it awkward to use elsewhere but they work just fine anywhere you plug them into.
You can likewise put 26" rims on a Ford Fiesta but it will look and function equally poorly.
My Framework ethernet dongle works perfectly fine with a Mac that I use for work, for instance.
It is mechanically disagreeable.
The weight/shape of the module will break the USB-C port in short order because it is solely supported by the connector.
For instance, by bumping the spatula hanging off your Mac.
For that matter, USB-C are crap connectors, I don't care how many graphs and BS data you show me stating they're the most reliable connector ever. I do not believe it.
They're the only types of connectors I've seen damaged repeatedly, and the only one with which I've personally experienced damage, and I've been using laptops since before many of you were born.
Sure. But this does not make them proprietary, they work fine with non-Framework laptops as well.
Can you slide them into a just-sized mechanical receptacle on a MacBook? On a Dell, HP, etc.
No.
Honestly I don't see much of an use for 10Gbps in a notebook that can't be solved by a dongle when you actually need it
Same for my SFF PC which only came with 2.5g onboard and no extra slots because ITX and can now do 10g via the same USB adapter which is great.
For the niche enthusiast, that dongle is fine.
And yes, some of those links are above 1gbps so that the users can have individual 1gbps links.
That's like a weird hidden tax.
In a network world where 1GB Ethernet randomly can handshake at 100Mbit still, getting reliably more than 3/4 of the advertised Bandwith from the Adapter seems quite harmless.
https://frame.work/marketplace/expansion-cards?search=USB-C
No they dont come free in the base config either, you have to pay a minimum of 10 for every slush port.
I feel like things would not look like nickel-and-diming if those blanks came with the laptop, and they just priced them in the final price. Or even better, offered the option to "upgrade" one or several of those to whatever you need.
Aside from me just now, I guess :p