Thunderbolt 3 vs. USB-C - What Is The Difference? [Simple Guide]

[Music] usb has a long and needlessly complicated past just try googling a chart of all the different usb generations ports their specs and compatibility if you've got the time and you'll see what we're talking about it's a mess thankfully we don't need to know this history lesson to use and appreciate the usb connection today it had its hits it had its misses and now with the help of usb type-c it's slowly becoming more streamlined than ever but here's the thing many technologies utilize this connector now one such technology is thunderbolt 3. and quite frankly it can be difficult to distinguish usb c from thunderbolt 3 at a glance that's why in today's video we will be talking about this topic so without any further ado let's begin by introducing the two terms we'll start with usb type-c as it does hold seniority over thunderbolt 3. as you can guess usb type-c is one in a long line of usb connectors before usb type-c we've had no fewer than 10 different usb connectors all with different shapes and pin configurations this kind of defeats the purpose of the u in usb which stands for universal serial bus now granted not all 10 connectors have seen as wide an implementation usb type a still remains the most popular type this is the connector that most peripherals use but all of them usb type a included are slowly being supplanted by usb type c and while the knee-jerk reaction to this adds to most types of change may be negative this isn't a bad thing usb type-c is compact and symmetrical sure having to flip the usb type a plug a few times before you can insert it into the connector isn't a huge deal but it is an inconvenience that usb type-c will eliminate furthermore usb type-c features a grand total of 24 connectors that's more than twice as many connectors there are in usb type-a but here's where things get a little tricky usb type-c is just a connector it isn't a type of interface it supports all of the usb technologies from usb 2.0 to the newly released usb 4.0 usb 4.0 will only support usb type-c connectors but usb type-c connectors will still be compatible with older versions of the usb interface we know it's kind of complicated but we wouldn't be pointing it out if it weren't relevant and it's relevant because the same doesn't hold for thunderbolt 3. thunderbolt 3 is a type of hardware interface developed by intel and apple that uses the 24 pin usb type-c connector this was the first iteration of the thunderbolt technology to utilize the usb type-c connector but it won't be the last as it's been revealed that the thunderbolt 4 interface will continue this tradition it used to be that manufacturers had to pay a hefty royalty fee in order to implement thunderbolt 3 in their products which is why so few devices utilized it and why those that did were so expensive to begin with but but as of march 2019 oems no longer have to pay any royalties to use this interface so expect to see more devices with thunderbolt 3 support as of the recording of this video however thunderbolt 3 is still most commonly found in apple products laptops and some motherboards and external gpu enclosures external gpu enclosures favor thunderbolt 3 overall the other available types of hardware interfaces for its high transfer speeds it doesn't quite match a direct connection via pci express but it does come close which is hugely important for graphics cards interestingly enough thunderbolt 4 won't see an increase in transfer speeds it'll only introduce some new other features like dual 4k display support so if new graphics cards start to take full advantage of the pci express 4.0 interface then thunderbolt 4 might not be able to keep up with newer graphics cards but that's a discussion for another time so now that we know what usb type c is and what thunderbolt 3 is let's highlight some of the differences to start with we have to point out that comparing usb type c specifically with thunderbolt 3 is a bit like comparing apples and oranges just because they're both fruit doesn't mean direct comparisons can be made as we've said usb type c is just a connector whereas thunderbolt 3 is the type of hardware interface that utilizes the usb type-c connector in a vacuum there is no comparison to be had here but if we limit the usb type-c to a single usb technology then we can at least make some comparisons thunderbolt 3 has a data transfer speed of 40 gigabits per second conversely usb 2.0 features a max speed of 480 megabits per second granted this is the slowest connection compatible with usb type c but even if we take usb 3.2 gen 2x2 super speed plus yes that is the full name of that technology we're still looking at a 20 gigabits per second cap and this is easily the fastest usb technology available everything between it and usb 3.0 features data transfer speeds of either 5 to 10 gigabits per second so yes it should be obvious why external gpu enclosures relied on thunderbolt 3. it's significantly faster than any previous usb technology this is going to change now that both usb 4.0 and thunderbolt 4 are set to feature a speed cap of 40 gigabits per second but until that happens thunderbolt 3 will remain the king of speed and that about does it for this video to summarize usb type c is a connector type that supports various iterations of the usb technology thunderbolt 3 is its own hardware interface but it uses the usb type-c connector the two don't really fall under the same categories so they aren't easy to compare but if we're comparing thunderbolt 3 and usb as a whole in terms of speed thunderbolt 3 is significantly faster in any case we hope you found this video helpful you can let us know if you have by liking it sharing it with friends and leaving a comment and if you want to see more videos like this one make sure to subscribe to our channel and click the bell icon to enable notifications we upload a new video every week so stay tuned for the next one in the meantime mayor games be fun and your losses view and as always we'll see you next time on gamingscan

Channel: GamingScan

Views: 1,929,808

Keywords: gaming, thunderbolt vs usb c, usb c vs thunderbolt, thunderbolt 3 vs usb c, usb c thunderbolt, usb c vs thunderbolt 3, thunderbolt 3 usb c, usb-c vs thunderbolt, thunderbolt usb c, thunderbolt usb, usb-c vs thunderbolt 3, thunderbolt 3 (usb-c), usb-c thunderbolt, what is a thunderbolt port, is thunderbolt the same as usb c, usb c vs usb 3, thunderbolt 3 vs usb-c, is thunderbolt 3 usb c, what is thunderbolt, thunderbolt to usb c, thunderbolt ports

Id: ilQTUWKQRMA

Length: 6min 46sec (406 seconds)

Published: Sat Nov 07 2020