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Is it possible to have a USB-C to USB-C cable for Link and improve speed?

Sabrejet
Protege
Or a HDMI to USB-C?  If I bought some kind of card with USB-C ports and a cable if it exists, would it improve speeds?

9 REPLIES 9

Pixie40
Expert Trustee
Well, consider this little fact:

The charge cable that comes with your Quest is USB C to USB C, 2.0.
The Official Link cable is USB C to USB C, 3.0.

Your wish is already a reality.
Lo, a quest! I seek the threads of my future in the seeds of the past.

Sabrejet
Protege
Awesome.  Would a usb-c to usb-c such as the official Link cable be faster than the typical C to A cables?  I have a 16 foot that seems great, just wondering if the official cable is better.

Strongit
Heroic Explorer
If I recall the official cable is very slightly faster but only by about 0.2 mbps as per someone else on the forums running the cable test in the oculus software.  If you already have a 16 footer and it's USB 3 you're good to go, you won't notice any difference.
Quest 1, i5-8600K at 4.7 GHz, eVGA 1080 ti FTW3, Gigabyte Z370 AORUS Ultra Gaming, 16 GB 3200 MHz

Sabrejet
Protege
Thanks Strongit. I just tested it and it says bandwidth is 1.9 Gbps.  I had a great session today now that some of my game controls are better set up and thought the speed was pretty good.  I'm going to go read up on this a bit.

enigma01
Trustee
I have both the Official cable and 5m third party cable (USB 3.0 2m and 3.0 3m passive extension) I get around 1.9Gbps on bandwidth test on both too. I can't notice any in game performance differences between the two. 

The official cable is USB 3.2 Gen 1 / USB 3.1 Gen 1 rated at 5Gbps. You can also get USB 3.1 Gen 1 USB A to C cables also rated at 5 Gbps (which is probably what you have @Sabrejet) 

The only real advantage of the official cable is that it is fibre optic. Typically the data signal on standard USB cables degrades over around 3m, and hence the bandwidth degrades. The official cable doesn't suffer this issue. But as I mentioned, I'm don't see any performance difference over the official cable and my 3rd party USB 3.1 Gen 1 cables. The official cable also keeps my headset fully charged whilst gaming, whereas the 3rd party cable my battery slowly drains (only around 5% per hour, not a big issue really if you start with it almost fully charged)

Sabrejet
Protege
Yep, you described my cable exactly @enigma01, I played for about an hour and a half and it was running out quite a bit.  But it was okay.  Thank you for the info very much.    Yeah I'm very happy with the speed.  I was playing some steamvr games, and I had it uninstalled during my VR hiatus, and my supersampling was turned up really high for my old CV1, so when I plugged in my Quest I thought I was having latency issues.  Long story short, after I fixed that my games seem better than fine, a lot more enjoyable, it's really nice to have such a good image and good controls.

Pixie40
Expert Trustee
I'd gone with the official cable because several reviews had mentioned it having a higher build quality. Kind of glad I did. More expensive then the alternatives, but I'm willing to pay for quality.
Lo, a quest! I seek the threads of my future in the seeds of the past.

enigma01
Trustee
@Pixie40 There is one small thing they kinda disappoints me about the official cables build. The official cables USB C connectors are folded and stamped, you can see that they have a seam. High quality connectors usually use a deep draw extrusion and have no seam, even my cheap 3rd party cables have been made this way. 

They do this because the stamped connectors can be more easily broken and potentially result in the cable not handling power effectively. 

Sabrejet
Protege
@Pixie40 I would've liked the official cable with the logo on it, it's
shape would've also been helpful as in the past I could easily locate my
Oculus plugs which was a nice feature (loved it actually.)  The main thing that sold me on
my current cable was it's length, although to be honest I'm finding it's
way more than I needed, but possibly a good thing as I just moved and
trying out different setups.

@enigma01 Truth, you literally made me remember my recent HDMI cable for my monitor and it had seams.  It broke very quickly.  I think the problem is the "tube" isn't buried very deep in the socket to begin with, and with a seam it compromises the collective grip.  The Link cable does look very sturdy in pictures, but I have given my 3rd party one an accidental hard as heck tug a few times that might have not been so good.