ELi5: How does a cable have higher bandwidth than another?

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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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18 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

First of all, USB-C has a lot of connector/pins/wires in it. Not every cable has all connectors, depending on the purpose. USB-C can be a USB 3 or higher connection, it can be thunderbolt (basically PCI-E over this cable), it can carry large amounts of power on several wires, etc. A wire intended to charge a phone may only carry USB + the number of charging wires expected for the phone to use.

Second, quality of the wires does matter. Signals degrade over copper over long distances, even a few inches or feet. Building the cable in certain ways can make it work over longer distances safely. It may involve making the wires thicker, shielding the overall cable with grounding, running wires together which serve the same purpose (eg: + and – for the same communication line) and so on.

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