That is a so called Phy (Physical Interface chip), not a complete interface solution. USB itself happens inside the FPGA. The same is true for other formats. USB 3, FireWire, PCI, PCIe - often such a chip is needed to get access to the physical carrier and protocol.

Ah interesting. Thanks for the info!

...

Performance and reliability of RME USB2/3, FW400/800, TB drivers are anyway much better compared to the competition due to the implementation of communication in the FPGA which can be reprogrammed/fixed by firmware updates. No use of 3rd party communication chips, which can be buggy.

It's completely unnecessary to raise a demand for USB4/TB4, it only increases total costs for no reason.

Hi Ramses...
long time RME user, new to forums. I too have been pondering this video and the point you make about "No use of 3rd party comm. chips..." I would like to argue, because my Fireface UCX definitely has a 3rd party USB chip in it. More specifically a SMSC(which looks like it might be owned by a different company now) USB3250:

https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/ … 3250db.pdf

Thoughts?

""" I no longer am guessing on an interface release announcement having TB4/USB4, by, the end of 2024."""

Thanks a-lot 'ramses' for your time and great graphics info and all, on all this!!

I figure my much better CPU and motherboard (i just got) will be brilliant with my BabyFace Pro for quite some while...  until at least Dec.2024-)))

Have yet to turn it on due to work etc.

UPDATE ~> likely 'for sure'  inaccurate~~>>     NOTE: haven't delved into the finer points, though TB4/USB4 i believe doesn't have quite the motherboard header requirements that TB2 did. Something like that.

<~Happy to leave that comment wanting.      Recalling My Epiphany!-)

thank YOU - SUPERB effort

I don't disagree - I simply wish for both USB4 and TB4 

ALL are backwards compatible as i understand it.

USB CPU penalty and USB lowest possible sample setting penalty
(noticing again it's called asio buffersize)
- added to: the variety of USB motherboard circuitry 'problem potentials' maybe -

heck, i get it, though still betting big-time that by 2023/2024 latest we see a TB4/USB4 interface

simply the marketing points alone suggest it will happen...

uhhh,,,,, exactly at the time i need it.... hehehehehe

gotta laugh at all of it sometimes...

best to all
music

As already mentioned: higher bandwidths have a negative impact on the maximum possible cable length and price.

It's more important, that every computer has USB2/3 and that the cables between computer and recording interface can be longer (5 m / 3 m) compared to only 2 m for thunderbolt.

For thunderbolt, it can be even the case that you need to buy the more expensive Apple cables. In contrast to that, you can take any USB2 / USB3 cable for a fraction of that cost.

It's also harder to find good PCs/mainboards with thunderbolt, and I, personally, regard it as a big misconception that thunderbolt can't be upgraded by PCIe cards.
I heard the reason is the integration of Video and you need to have a plug on the mainboard, and it has to be implemented in the BIOS.
Well, but then it's IMHO a far too inflexible and complex “crap design”. For me, it would have been sufficient to get thunderbolt only for data transport. But such capabilities (data transport only) are not covered by this (inflexible) standard.

Another thing is that Intel seems to make it still very hard for companies to implement, why you only see it rarely implemented. I am fully satisfied with USB.

at 5 minutes and 30 seconds onward -- a mention of CPU and Direct Memory Access for Thunderbolt IS noted in the RME video.   Most interesting!

YOUTUBE:  Why You Don't Need Thunderbolt For Professional Audio

I guess it's OK to post the link
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSIf4QGYs-c

I must be getting a bit sleepy (i work until i need a nap)... hehehe

Thanks for the prompt!

UFX+ II  ??

What is the question?

was just looking at the UFX+ Anniversary unit - and stumbled across the UFX+ being back-ordered for some months.

Didn't look for more than the one, 'stumbled-upon' mention of the back-order status, and of course who knows!

All is Good!

Additionally:
I was aware of graphics drivers and potential issues... though certainly not
"powermizer from a russian developer"

Should be most useful that.

If you're ever running your CPU fully above 80 percent i think maybe USB will show what I've experienced maybe.

I appreciate greatly RME's points too!   AT THIS TIME.

------- WONDERING -------
I'll bet 100 Euros/Dollars virtually (hehe) right now, that within 24 (36?) months RME announces a TYPE-C  USB4/TB4 interface. More motherboards, more standardization then i guess.

Then again -  I've missed the other products, Dante etc. and what they do, so maybe USB2 will be for regular musicians like me until 2030.

My BabyFace Pro will be great for many more years.

And so...  'sigh/smile'   

Many thanks again!

If you compare different RME solutions in terms of RTL, you will find that they perform at the same level.
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/attachme … es-v2-jpg/

I also through in the past that PCIe should be more efficient compared to USB because of the speed and because the protocol overhead is not high. For this reason, I bought a RayDAT PCIe card and used the UFX+ as Preamp connected to the RayDAT. I found out that there was no real difference in terms of RTL and stability.

Then I upgraded to UFX+ and USB3 runs so rock solid that there is also no reason to complain.

I created a large Cubase project with 400 tracks and two Steinberg VSTs in every track and stereo sum, in total ~802 VSTs.
Each of the tracks is a 5-6min wave file. DRAM consumption is around 20 GB in Total and CPU load between 22-30%.
This project runs at lowest ASIO buffer sizes (32 samples at single speed, 64 samples at double speed) up to 96 kHz without audio drops during playback, no matter whether I use UFX+ with (USB3) or RayDAT (PCIe). Furthermore, the CPU consumption is comparable.
Even if PCIe should be a bit more efficient from the protocol, I see no difference even in such large “artificial/benchmark” project, see:
https://www.tonstudio-forum.de/blog/Ent … cks-de-en/

More important is to have a good system with good drivers and settings to have low DPC latencies. Then your CPU cores can quickly react to a workload when CPU cores (where audio related tasks are scheduled to run on) are not blocked too long by badly written drivers.
A while ago, I resolved the last issues on my system … Although DPC latencies were low without any big spikes, I had random audio glitches without any heavy CPU/audio load. It turned out that it was the energy saving of the nVidia GPU, where you needed a special tool powermizer from a Russian developer to be able to turn it off.