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Comment by twarge | Hacker News Reader

USB-C is a great system. Power delivery is incredible and works really well.

Having different capabilities in host, device, and cable is, of course, completely natural. I wouldn't want all my cables to be thick and expensive thunderbolt cables.

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Thick? I never would have even thought to complain about them. Sure you’re not thinking of firewire? Also doesn’t thunderbolt literally use the same form as usb-c these days?

Edit: yup, thunderbolt 3 uses usb-c connectors.

The super thin USB-C 2.0 cables are just ideal for charging. The thicker ones with the USB 3+ signaling are great for high data rates. Just pick the one you need for the job.

The high power levels also need thicker cables, a 100W USB-C cable needs to carry 5 amps or so.

Thunderbolt cables are super thick. And short too.

With my laptop I had a USB-C dock and then upgraded to a TB dock to get 4k video out. The USB-C cable was decently thick and about 1.5 meters. The TB cable was about 0.5 meters long and super thick. Apparently the length is based on physical constraints with transmitting data at very high rates. And obviously the more individual wires you have in the cable, the thicker it is. And you need extra layers of shielding etc.

FYI, you can easily buy 2m tb3 cables

Yeah, they just cost like 70$+ and are rather thick which makes them very sensitive for any kind of carrying around. Regularly breaking a 70$ cable in a bag isn't very affordable :/

My last thunderbolt cable (something like 20 cm long) cost about ~$15 fwiw, had to buy one to get my e-gpu to work with my laptop.

To be fair I completely didn't get the thickness was discussing the cable itself, which I TBH don't even notice.

FYI, Thunderbolt 3 does not support full speed above 0.5m in length in passive cables, so instead of 40Gb/s you’re getting 20Gb/s and reduced capabilities.

There needs to be a standard for labeling cables though. Like putting the data speed and PD wattage on the cable end perhaps.

The charging is accepts combinations of voltages and current (Amps) and the cable limits just the current (3A or 5A), so a wattage label is irrelevant if the voltage and current are missing.

PD profiles are grouped by wattage and consumers shouldn't have to do mat to see how fast their phones will charge. Surely they could be classed by the fastest PD profile they support.

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