I tried a cheap and expensive Thunderbolt 4 cable

I test cheap and expensive thunderbolt 4 cables.

#macbook #applesilicon #thunderbolt4
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#macbook #applesilicon #thunderbolt4

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[AZisk]

I recently re-tried this test using a 40Gbps enclosure and the Samsung 990pro, which gave me pretty high speeds of about 2800Mbsp. Both cables worked fine and gave same results in speed. Let me know if you want to see that in a follow up video.

[diogoalmeidavisuals]

The display test came down to if a picture was displayed or not, no input lag, display tearing, high resolution or framerates support...
The power test was performed on a charged device that wasn't demanding a high power draw from the charger.
And the data speed test used a drive with speeds not even close to the capabilities of thunderbolt.
This could just be a regular USB-C cable and nowhere in the test would you be able to detect if that is the case

[sparc]

You only tested part of the Thunderbolt spec… The USB-C part and only part of it as well. I respect you a lot but this review doesn’t make sense and actually is pure nonsense. Please look into the technical details relating to Thunderbolt to understand what it is, then consider redoing the video.

[fooboomoo]

I think the power draw test would have been more conclusive if your MacBook had a low charge on the battery

[TheIrisCZ]

From my experience, these cheap cables work just fine as long as you don't need to really fully utilize them. When connecting for example external GPU, you will find out, that many of the cables will just straight away fail and stop working (you have to unplug and plug everything back in) or they provide subpar connection resulting in bugs and unexpected behavior.

I am definatelly not a fan of Apple pricing, but to be honest, the Apple Thunderbolt 4 cable is the only one which give me literally zero issues while using eGPU, fast external SSDs, 2.5Gbps Ethernet, a couple of 3.1 USB-Cs and two displays.

So yeah, for 95 % of the people, the cheap cables are the way to go. But for heavy duty use, go with the from a reputable brand.

[maxvamp]

@Alex, as high frequencies run through a cable, especially longer cables, the higher frequencies tend to roll off. Think about it like this. You are listening to analog signals over a cable connected to your stereo. You use a 6 foot cable, and you can hear in your music, say Rhapsody on Blue, all of the horns bright and clear. You unplug that and you plug in a 250 cable, and you notice that the horns are not bright, they are almost dull sounding, maybe a little muffled. The other instruments, such as the drums, or harp or obo sound fine. With the very high frequencies capable of TB3/4 ( they cap at the same rate, with a very short cable, the capacitance of the cable isn't a factor, so if you want to drive a TB dock driving 2 6k monitors over one TB cable from the doc to the laptop, and it is a cheap short one, then you are likely to have no problem. However, if you take that same doc, and the same 2 6k monitors, and drive them over a 3 meter cable, the quality of the cable, the shielding, and even the insulator the wire is wrapped in, become immensely important. Since the tolerances of the materials are tighter, they are more expensive, mostly to guarantee longevity at a minimum performance. I noticed that the apple cable is stupid expensive, but it also the longest of all that were measured, and I am positive they are able to run at the full bandwidth of TB4, for many years. What you are paying for is quality of materials at extreme conditions, and longevity of said materials.
Its funny that how we use cables today is extremely different than when I worked in Video Engineering with high def video decades ago, but how they charge for cables that handle extreme frequencies, hasn't. This was the simplest explanation, but I thought I would give a hint on why its so. If you were to get a longer cheap cable from AliExpress, and drive it hard ( video plus data likely being the hardest ), you may see effects on your screen. Especially at high refresh rates.

[JoeTourist]

The reason Aliexpress vendors can't give accurate shipping times is because they use China Post, which is super cheap. Also, they can't predict how long the destination country's customs service will take to clear the item (or wave it through), since China Post doesn't use a broker like the regular couriers do. So, it may take a month, or it may take 10 days to receive your goods...

[piereligio_ds]

I think the best way for testing bandwidth of these cables, is to use high refresh rate 4k or qHD monitors and check they're using the maximum hz supported by the monitor.

EDIT: no it's not (read replies here), but it's a useful test for checking the cable video output claimed specs

[BrianSFischer]

If you're looking for a fast SSD for testing. The combo I use for production is the ORICO-M2V01-C4-GY enclosure and the Samsung 2TB 970 Evo Plus. I get 2794 MB/s Write and 2638 MB/s Read when connecter to an M2 MacBook Air. I hope this if helpful.

[Alex-jvye]

Would have liked to see a longer cable tested. These cheap cables are generally problematic when they are pushing the capabilities of the spec.

[UrbanGuitarLegend]

I have the exact same Thunderbolt 3 dock from OWC. I have been using that dock for the past 3 or 4 years with my late 2013 Macbook Pro. Now I switch to the LG Gram Pro 16 inch and am using the dock with it.

[hailstorm]

It's not about actual speed (it will be the same if cable is up to spec at all), it's about features. Apple's 2m cable is pretty special in that it has retimers for ALL of tb3, usb3, usb4. Normally cheap tb cables only do tb3 if they are over 2 meters (only usb 2 speeds if you are not using thunderbolt). Basically Apple cable is the ultimate usb-c cable. It can do everything at once, while with other ones you have to carefully check it it will support your usecases.

[Techning]

I think when it comes to high refresh monitors it becomes interesting. I had a lot of problems in the past with Displayport cables and also Thunderbolt cables. Some of them just don't reach for example 3840x1600 @ 144 Hz.

[june]

Hey man, im not happy with your test, the thunderbolt 4 cable from Apple is a thunderbolt 4 cable, but to really test 3rd party cheap or non cheap you gotta use a thunderbolt interface (Monitor, external SSD enclosure, Thunderbolt bridge Mac in TDM or just a virtual bridge, Docks). What I saw here was a test with USB-C rev4 basically but not the thunderbolt protocol, unless that external ssd was thunderbolt 3/4 but im pretty sure its just usb-c 3.2/3.1 g2 . If you made another vid doing this kinda, test then could you please forward it. BTW I am big fan of your vids, i picked up python and mac siliconing with a recently bought m3 max 16 48 40c thanks to all your vids as inspiration. I am such a beginner with the LLM stuff but im trying to get there.

[seattledude]

4:31 I totally believe AliExpress's prediction that you like these, LMAO :)

[felynmy]

As someone who's living in South East Asia, I used Orico thunderbolt 4 cable and it works great with my WavLink TB3 dock!

[majdshka]

From about 6 years dealing with USB type-c including thunderbolt 4, cheap cables will degrade superfast if you use it on a daily basis.

If you want to get a thunderbolt 3 or 4 cable that is more than 1 meter, make sure you got it with active chip not with passive chip. (learned that the hard way :D)

[andre-le-bone-aparte]

@08:30 Yes... Working with a Developer setup with a Mac Mini and and an external Seagate Firecuda 520 2TB SSD PCIe Gen4X4 NVMe as the boot drive via Thunderbolt 4. Versus upgrading the MacMini with an over priced ssd. Getting around 2500mb read and write as the external boot drive compared to the internal Mac Mini nvme which is around 3100mb read and write.

[BCE-]

Thanks Alex. Great video. Although AliExpress didn't mention it directly in their emails, I think they were trying to hint that if you buy and wear a wig from them while using this cable the performance of the cable would increase dramatically. Pink wigs are preferred and work best from what I've heard.

[andrecastro]

Great video! really liked the style of this review