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Comment by kimixa

13 hours ago

PCIe also had things like "1.1", "2.1" and "3.1" - that fixed issues and added functionality - but there wasn't the same crossover between "feature sets and spec revisions" and "speeds" we see in USB today.

Manufacturers of mainstream consumer motherboards never used 1.1, 2.1, etc. for PCI-E though. What is 4.0 on the spec sheet will be 4.0 to the buyer. My old 2016 motherboard has a slew of 3.0 labelled USB ports that are now not 3.0, hence the conundrum. It just doesn't make sense why they changed established naming conventions. Is this something that causes me sleepless nights? Not in the least. But it's still an annoyance for consumers and even advanced users as detailed in that latest Geerling video et al.

  • 1.1 was very much commonly used in consumer marketing, to the level where there's many instances today of people referring to pcie1.x speeds as "1.1". And I'm pretty sure I've seen 2.1 in consumer marketing contexts. But you're right I didn't know 3.1 existed until I looked it up :p

    But USB 3.0 is pretty much the only "speed" that hasn't changed - it always required the extra connectors for 5Gbps from the start - but no more. What about those ports is now not "3.0"?