The Best Connector You’ve Never Heard Of: OCuLink 

what, you don't like the name USB 3.1 2X2 gen 2 XL ?

​@@oussama7132nah it needs more keywords like Pro or Ultra

Did you forget that they change the naming scheme for USB 3?

the names are terrible but I think the biggest issue are the "standards" that are not really standard where you can have 3 different types of USB C all with different "standards" so you end up getting dumb names for the same type of connection that has different standards. I.E. Standards are not really standards if you are catering to different types.

so its now PCI in smaller form. how long till we see 99999999999999999+ pin CPU sockets as a replacement for USB? edit: i edited the cpu pins. happy now?

Disappointed

Me too lmao

i honestly thought it was some sort of composite video connecter (like used on the ps1 or the n64)

Ya saw it was released 12hr ago. So brain automatically said nope, not displayport, propably oculink or mcio

Yeah, my brain short circuited a bit when he said "oculink can't do video" when it looks EXACTLY like a Displayport cable.

This should have been THE means to have a beefy GPU that you can hide behind the monitor in a separate case so your pc can be small. 1 of these OCuLink cables would be enough for a 2080 at least.

​@@paulmichaelfreedman8334Their would be a latency concern though and their's already sfx cases that can fit large graphics cards in them anyways using unique case layouts.

And those are only rated for like 50 insertions. Hardly the "best connector" or even "one you've never heard of"

​@@boboe2244I've plugged and unplugged my Index hundreds of time, connector is fine

Holy sh*t, only 50 insertions? That has to be a typo, right? Lololol that’s wildly bad.

He looked so offended.

I saw a kid NOT MUCH older than that in a grocery store one day. He was sitting in a shopping cart with a phone in each hand playing two different games. I was so flabbergasted that I stood there with my mouth a gap. The Mom turned around and saw me and started laughing. I asked, his he really playing those games? She responded with, Yes, he is, and he's doing better than I could do with just one of them. I was like... no kidding... I can't even figure out what he's doing. So... tech savvy, maybe not... but def a more skilled end user than I will ever be!

My Reverb G2 uses USB-C and DisplayPort on the PC side. I'd never thought to consider it was an OCuLink on the HMD side! Today I realised...

I'm buying the first laptop that does this with a decent enough CPU.

@@m.devellisThere is a mod for the lenovo ideapad that has the oculink connector in the m.2 slot and a spring loaded cover like the rj45 on laptops.

looks AMD has already dropped the ball since razer just announced the 2024 edition of their laptop will have thunderbolt 5.

You probably do not want an external pwn me port on a laptop. Though just that was actually not uncommon back in the firewire days.

@@m.devellisLenovo is supposed to releasing something “soon” with OCuLINK. GPD already has a handheld size laptop with a 7840M in it… (Win Max 2 2023)

Bruh, the timing. I read your comment, did the whistle myself and not even a second later that part of the video played.

Yea but it's a proprietary version of it so you can only buy their 2x MSRP GPUs for it. I have the x13(the first device with that connector) and it sucks balls having such an awesome connector with no real way to utilize it other than spending more than the cost of the device

@@m.devellis Blame Nvidia for that one. They're the ones controlling what devices their products are allowed in.

@@m.devellis If they come out with an EGPU Enclosure with the XG Mobile interface, I would actually sell my desktop without the GPU and just use the X13 for everything

@@agentcrm I keep hearing that but then it why does the Radeon XG mobile cost so much too?

@@agentcrmso nvidia forced the use of a proprietary connector? What do they get out of it? There are no royalties for OcuLink

Ratings are overrated... micro-USB is rated for 10.000 insertions, while in reality if you're lucky it survives 1000. Meanwhile mini-USB is only rated for 5000 insertions and i never have seen one fail, despite that i use that at work connecting it multiple of times every day (for years) and moving the device around a lot with the cable attached. (PICkit 3 Programmer) (We also use the PICkit 4 with micro-USB, but that thing had contact problems after just 2 weeks of use and we now glue on that cable so that it doesn't move.)

​@@bjiirnmini USB was the worst connector I have ever used, easily worse than microUSB.

I dunno micro usb is pretty bad

TOSLink already existed and would do the same thing better. What you may not realize if you are younger is that the PC industry has always been and always will be a grift to steal your money.

@@FrodoMaster1996 Nah Mini USB is little larger but its lot more durable than Micro USB

OCuLink comes in x4 and x8 variants. Max it can do is 64Gbps (16GB/s) @ x8. In x4 operation it's 32. Like you just worked out... They did mention it's two variants but yeah. They definetly didn't make that very clear. The way it's written makes it seem the 4 lane is what does 64Gbps. (they even put that equation up and its wrong lol). So don't blame you for being confused. That also means the 4 lane version (it's most common variant in the consumer space) is only on par with Thunderbolt at the moment. You should point this out to them.

@@nated4wgy No, that's very much what was said. And shown! At 1:10 ! Literally giving 4 x 8 maths on the picture! The 8-lane connection is mentioned entirely separately. In fact, at 0:58 they even show a timeline with OCuLink 2 at 2017, showing 4 lanes, and 64Gbps. Something's definitely off here. Edit: okay, I went and looked. _Apparently_ (though I honestly can't find much in terms of easy to parse information) the "64" in this case should be gigaTRANSFERS per second, GT/s. That is to say, 32Gbps, both ways at once. Like an Ethernet cable. That would also make your math make sense, since 16GB/s would be multiplied by 8 for bits, resulting in 128Gbps. But since it's actually half the throughput, running duplex - it's multiplied by 4 instead, giving 64GT/s. But... it's 64GT/s in its normal x4 configuration, not x8 like you said so... Either way the video's very wonk with the numbers. Also why is there like two websites that even have the numbers?!

They made a mistake, Gen4 lane is 16Gb/s, 4 of them make 64Gb/s

isnt it 32 in one direction and 32 in the other so 32 * 2 = 64?

@@nated4wgy That was my point 😔

Came to the comments to appreciate it. 👍🏻

I think the ports are only 4 lanes.

Good idea, it'd be easier than swapping the gpu module, and there's already external mobile gpus docks and desktop gpu enclosures on the market for it. Mobile handhelds have already been using it and those manufacturers also made their own egpu docks, just look at onexplayer and gpd.

Agreed! I've been using the Asus ROG Flow series gaming 2-in-1 tablets which use a proprietary implementation of OCuLink for their XG Mobile eGPUs and they are amazing. But Framework's modularity is a game changer too. I'd LOVE to see all this in one product line, especially if its eGPUs weren't at all proprietary and vendor-locked!

@@jolness1 there is a 8 lane standard as well.

@@AquaeAtrae yeah those look great, my biggest issue with those are that it's a closed garden, so i can't just chuck my existing gpu in a box and hook up, or use a different computer (unless it's a asus with XG mobile stuff) on it.

Another point for thunderbolt is that cheap ass manufacturers can scam the masses with a low speed USB-C port. USB-C is a total scam. They did that crap on purpose and advertised 'USB-C' as 'High Speed' when it is only a standard for a physical connector. It is like saying your wall outlet can deliver 5 million volts just because it is an electrical connector. Try it. I dare you. Why does Thunderbolt use a USB-C connector? So they can scam people into thinking they have Thunderbolt when they don't. The old 1394 would have worked for the same speeds and been distinctively a high speed only connector. That's what Thunderbolt would have used if the industry wasn't a complete bait and switch scam job.

Your precious Thunderbolt is really just a scam to make the average consumer think their USB-C port is fast. On every PC I have with a USB-C port, the USB-C is slower than some of the USB-A ports. That is reality for most consumers yet they are led to believe that port can do 50Gbps just because it is USB-C. Frankly, Thunderbolt is an overpriced license and really only worth the money for enterprise users. I wish they'd write a new 1394 standard because that would be royalty free. a 1394 cable can definitely hit Thunderbolt speeds with a modern controller. At the end of the day, Thunderbolt is no more of a transfer speed guarantee than a random USB-C port. But did Thunderbolt go with something distinctive? no. They chose USB-C because they got bought off so manufacturers could imply their USB-C ports are faster than they really are. It is sort of like 80 Plus ratings on PSUs where the 80 Plus really says nothing about quality or real world performance. I'm not sure why you'd need it on your gaming PC unless you wanna hook up an external GPU to a desktop, in which case, you might want to seriously re-evaluate your life choices. Your 10k sub YT channel doesn't justify Thunderbolt for transferring your video files. If you think otherwise, find a good therapist! The port doesn't magically make your flash drive faster. They will still be slow AF. Even if you have an NVME reader that nominally meets TB5 speed, it will never run anywhere near that fast. The potential transfer speeds far outstrip the capability of average NAND flash to expel data. Thunderbolt is mostly a fad that companies make a ton of money from, selling un-needed capability that really doesn't meet the claims to people who don't know any better. If you want fast transfer, open up PC 1, take the NVMe drive out and put it in PC 2. A $20 NVME to PCIe adapter will be faster than Thunderbolt in its wettest dream. Anything else is just jerking off. Seriously, if you want the fastest, Thunderbolt is a waste of time. It only exists because people are lazy and clueless. You don't even need it to hook a dGPU up to a laptop and direct connection to PCIe is always gonna be faster. Unless you have all thumbs, the time taken to swap a NVMe drive still doesn't make TB faster. And if you are all thumbs, this really isn't the hobby for you. You can also set up a server and that could probably transfer files between devices faster than Thunderbolt, while spending a fraction of the money. The thing is, you'll run into caching issues long before transfer speeds come into play and you might be able to max out that Thunderbolt interface...for about 5 seconds, and then the transfer rate will drop to prehistoric levels. By the time it is all said and done, you might as well have sent it over a 10Gbps interface, most of which can maintain that speed consistently these days. Thunderbolt is just gonna be hurky-jerky in its data delivery. You literally only need google 'external GPU over Thunderbolt' to see it isn't that impressive, a literal direct visual performance test. PCIe it is not. By the time it is actually affordable, it will have been greatly exceeded by a new standard you haven't even heard of yet. But if the industry really cared about your transfer speeds, USB would have been optical from 2.0 onwards. Or ditch USB altogether. A TOSLINK cable would be faster for digital data transfer. It was faster 20 years ago than USB and would be faster today if they had kept developing it for binary data transfer.

​@@Lurch-Bot Oh look who can't detect sarcasm and thus wasted a bunch of time writing paragraph after paragraph of salty rants. Get some help dude, this is unhealthy.

It looked like DisplayPort to me lol

@@greatwavefan397 It does look like that, but it looked too big, even in the picture. Plus, the title kinda rules it out.

Well that's just insulting.

And 4x8=64 😂.

Yes, but the controller actually costs $10, and maybe another $10 for all the signals on the PCB. Also Thunderbolt 5 is already out and even Intel's pathetic Thunderbolt controller that can only power one of the ports at full speed can do 64 Gb/s. And when the ASMedia controller comes out it will likely have PCIe 5.0 x4 or even x8 to allow 64 or even 80/120 Gb/s per port.

Very, very different sort of fiber. The old audio TosLink used a plastic fiber with basic LED and phototransistors transducers, one way. Very very cheap, very low bandwidth - the main reason to use optical was as a way to escape the curse of ground loops and differentials, the hated electrical problem that is usually the source of that humming noise in the speakers you can't get rid of. Optical components for high-speed data communication are a lot more expensive.

@@vylbird8014 An example of the cost difference is that a 5m standard DP cable is like $20 while the same length cable but with optical fibre instead of copper is $130. Source: I found out that 5m DP cables cannot carry 3440x1440@100Hz without issues while my optical one can do so with ease.

@@emu071981 Yeah. It's the same story with Thunderbolt: The early versions were intended to run over short-range optical cables. Intel initially called the standard Light Peak. Once the engineers got to work on it though, it was eventually found that designing copper connections capable of handling the bandwidth was actually a lot easier than trying to make cheap enough optical interfaces - and there was no demand for five-meter-long cables in the intended use cases. anyway. So the optical element was removed and it became a copper-only technology.

The main benefit of OcuLink is performance and price of the eGPU enclosure. Thunderbolt/USB4 costs like $20 on the host side, so not too expensive.

You do not want a port that enables anybody with the right tool to pwn you, on a laptop, especially not a business laptop. You need a port with somekind of protocol, and setup and drivers, and that gets you to USB or Thunderbolt.

@@Carewolf You don't understand what you're talking about. Thunderbolt is literally PCIe with more steps and it doesn't need "setup and drivers". Thunderspy and Option ROM attacks are proof that Thunderbolt isn't safe. Thunderbolt 4 allows any device to connect by default. Secure Boot and IOMMU are bulletproof protections from these kinds of attacks, and both also work on OCuLink and are enabled by default. Also it's much easier to pwn someone with USB, all it takes is a cheap microcontroller that acts like a keyboard. Thunderspy needs $300 worth of bulky equipment and in some cases disassembling the laptop.

@@null-nl5su The attacks on Thunderbolt at all attacks that circumvent the built-in protections. You are advocating for a connection with NO built-in protection.

@@Carewolf You didn't understand what I wrote AT ALL. Option ROM attacks don't circumvent anything and don't work when Secure Boot is enabled. Thunderspy does circumvent Thunderbolt security levels but it requires dissasembly and an SPI programmer with default settings and Thunderbolt 4 also has "no built-in protection", it allows any device to connect by default. Thunderspy doesn't work when IOMMU is enabled and it is by default.

the connector has terrible longevity, think some of the handhelds/mini laptops makers have had to put in a lot of work to make it more durable. a connector like that couldnt really be on a consumer product if it could degrade so quickly

@@konzo5942 So they redesign the connector. Cheap? No. Doable and viable? Absolutely.

A SFF build in something like a Fractal Ridge case isn't big, but it does come with some ITX tax.

@@TheAmazingCowpig Or AMD/NVidia develop GPU boards specially made for water cooling so they can be half length with two boards stacked. Such a cooling solution is possible in a relatively small form factor. But an external GPU really is best if they're always big.

mid atx case ftw

Was there an adapter for this kind of thing?

Steam Deck never had OCuLink by default, unless you're referring to the M.2 NVMe to OCuLink adapter.

@@Kerbiter yep, talking about the adapter.

@@_Rerr_ indeed there is.

I would rewind back to 2016 and look up a company called Alienware 😆

What are you going to plug it into? Any laptop that actually supports Thunderbolt has a dGPU anyway and is in the upper half of the laptop market, price wise. The whole idea you can upgrade a laptop with a Thunderbolt GPU is ludicrous. Anything you need to upgrade doesn't support it anyway. The royalties are too expensive.

What are you going to plug it into? Any laptop that actually supports Thunderbolt has a dGPU anyway and is in the upper half of the laptop market, price wise. The whole idea you can upgrade a laptop with a Thunderbolt GPU is ludicrous. Anything you need to upgrade doesn't support it anyway. The royalties are too expensive. Thunderbolt is a White Whale.

@@Lurch-Bot well then there can be models made to be used so. Also there's still a need to upgrade for lower end dgpus as well, I could put up a vram-rich amd card after my 3050 chokes on it's 4G 😅 Or for upcoming amd ultrabooks whicc has usb4v1 which is better than thunderbolt 4 when it includes pcie which is required by Microsoft anyway so you won't see any usb4 laptop without pcie For intel, better wait for tb5

Well not sure, that's like saying PCI-E is a bit niche. What's niche about having an extensibility port? Just because it's not used by an average user whose work doesn't involve using special hardware with their PC, for example, it doesn't become niche . Instead I would say that people are just too used to their laptops not being extensible that the idea of extensibility is a bit alien.

@@Kerbiter Few people use external GPUs or similar.

@@Alias_Anybody not necessarily due to lack of demand, so far eGPU options been subpar (high penalty, compatibility issues because of another protocol on top) and costed a lot with Thunderbolt. It's not entirely fair to use such argument when the market supply wasn't there. People just got used to work that way and may be reluctant to changing their way.

Also meant professional equipment more, such as audio interfaces or whatever else that may use PCI-E.

You do realize that, for the average consumer, whatever USB-C port they have is slower than most of their USB-A ports... The average consumer buys thinking USB-C=Thunderbolt. The whole thing is a scam. A true next-gen high speed data transfer standard would use its own connector. And it would be optical. They are literally giving us today what we should have had 15 years ago.

the ps2 av connector was first used on the ps1 but the ps2 version added component video output

You need to have that port and plug checked out. It's not easy to unplug USB-C cables from my laptop.

Yep, the only pre-assembled cable I could find on digikey is £61 - I'll just keep using flat ribbons for short range and DP cables for longer range PCIe connections.