Ask ten gamers what their favorite feature is on our latest ROG, TUF Gaming, ProArt, and Prime motherboards, and you’re likely to hear ten different answers. But you’ll almost certainly hear about USB4. A pair of onboard USB4 ports comes standard with every X870/X870E motherboard, and with these versatile, high-bandwidth ports, the sky is the limit. Now that USB4 ports are more widely available for PC builders, it’s worth taking a moment to explore their capabilities. So let’s dig in: what does the latest generation of the Universal Serial Bus (USB) bring to the table?
A generational bandwidth boost
The headlining feature of USB4 is raw bandwidth. Throughout the last generation of USB ports, the standard went on a mad doubling frenzy, going from 5Gbps all the way up to USB 20Gbps (formerly called USB 3.2 Gen 2×2). With USB4, that figure doubles again, going all the way up to 40 Gbps of bi-directional bandwidth.
Plenty of devices available today let you put those speeds to work. USB4 enables blazing-fast connections to external storage drives, giving you a convenient way to transfer large files between different devices. That bandwidth also lets you daisy-chain many devices together — you’ll be able to connect up to five devices per port.
High-resolution display support
Driving a display over a USB cable is an increasingly popular choice, as you can use a single cable to connect not just a monitor, but multiple devices as well. Through the USB4 ports on your X870E/X870 motherboard, you can connect a display with a maximum resolution of 8K@30Hz as specified in DisplayPort 1.4. Alternatively, you can connect multiple displays to one USB4 port via daisy-chaining.
The versatility of USB4 ports gives you a compelling way to reduce cable clutter and simplify your PC setup. Through one cable, you could connect two displays and three devices, such as a mouse, keyboard, or USB headset, giving you an overall setup that’s neater and tidier.
Ready for your next-gen PC setup
With their astonishing bandwidth and exceptional versatility, USB4 ports give you powerful options for fast file transfers and connecting displays and peripherals — and two of them come standard on our X870 and X870E motherboards. USB4 ports are just one of the many next-gen upgrades you’ll find in our X870E motherboard lineup. Click here to meet our full family of options.