I get the difference between something like USB 2 and USB 3 where USB 3 has more wires but how does one USB C cable manage to transfer data faster than another USB C cable that has the exact same number of paths?
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A cable does not exactly have speed but will have electrical properties that are frequency depended. Depending on the material, and tolerances in manufacturing the properties can change. This can result in a larger usable frequency range and in less noise and other distortion, which can all result in higher bandwidth.
Is also not just the wires but the electronics in the endpoint where more complex filters etc can result in higher max capacity in the same cable
If you look at the common connection that ethernet over copper the nonsocial variant all use a 8P8C which is a connector that is from the 1970s if not earlier. With Cat-3 cables the usabel bandwidth is around 12 MHz and with two pairs you could achieve 100Mbit/s
The same connector with Cat-5 cables mind with higher tolerances and a bit different twisting could manage 1000Mbit/s it also requires a moire complex receiver circuit to filter and interpret the signal.
With Cat-6A 400MHz bandwidth is possible for 10 Gbit/S. With Cat 8 and 1600MHz bandwidth, you can manage 40Gbit/. This is all with the same connector and number of wires. But exactly how the cable is made and the required tolerance is not the same
USB 3.0 add two differential pairs to the A connector and create a larger B connector with the.
The USB-C connector adds two more differential pairs. So the A and B connectors do not have the same number of differential pairs as C
USB-C is a connector, not a protocol specification. the protocol specification that commonly is used over cable with USB-C is USB-3.1 and USB-3.2
If you look at the USB 3.0 the SuperSpeed had a signal bitrate of 5GBit/s. Later in USB 3.1 double it to 10Gbit/s with SuperSpeed
USB 3.2 then add the ability to use dual lanes at the same time in each direction and by using the same signaling as 10Gbit/s but two lines the result is 20Gbit/s
It is the dual lane that requires USB-C because it has four high-speed differential pairs compared to just two pairs for A and B.
USB 4.0 that now start to be introduced manage lane speed of 20Gbit/s and 40Gbit/s
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