• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

Realtek Demos First USB4 Hub Controller at Computex 2023

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,766 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
So far it has been very quiet on the market when it comes to USB4 hubs, with most products being based on Intel Thunderbolt hardware costing Thunderbolt money. Realtek was demoing its RTS5490 "hub router controller" at Computex and it's as far as we're aware, the first USB4 hub IC that has been announced. The RTS5490 supports speeds of up to 40 Gbps and it has one upstreams and four downstreams ports. It's also backwards compatible with Thunderbolt 3 and USB 3.2 Gen 2x2 (20 Gbps), as well as slower USB standards. It also supports the USB PD 3.1 standard and should as such be suitable for docking stations that can deliver up to 240 W to a connected laptop.

It also has native support for DisplayPort 2.1 Alt mode and UHBR20 up to 80 Gbps for DisplayPort signals. The demo board only had an older MST controller, so it would be limited to DP 1.4, but hopefully some company is working on a DP 2.1 MST controller, as this is required to split off the DP signal to the physical ports from USB-C. We were not given any details on when the RTS5490 will be available in the market and pricing will obviously depend on what kind of extra features are being added by the device makers, as it's unlikely that the first products based on it will be simple hubs.



View at TechPowerUp Main Site
 
Joined
Feb 20, 2019
Messages
8,336 (3.91/day)
System Name Bragging Rights
Processor Atom Z3735F 1.33GHz
Motherboard It has no markings but it's green
Cooling No, it's a 2.2W processor
Memory 2GB DDR3L-1333
Video Card(s) Gen7 Intel HD (4EU @ 311MHz)
Storage 32GB eMMC and 128GB Sandisk Extreme U3
Display(s) 10" IPS 1280x800 60Hz
Case Veddha T2
Audio Device(s) Apparently, yes
Power Supply Samsung 18W 5V fast-charger
Mouse MX Anywhere 2
Keyboard Logitech MX Keys (not Cherry MX at all)
VR HMD Samsung Oddyssey, not that I'd plug it into this though....
Software W10 21H1, barely
Benchmark Scores I once clocked a Celeron-300A to 564MHz on an Abit BE6 and it scored over 9000.
Which one of these USB4 controllers is likely to hit the market first - Realtek or Asmedia?
 

TheLostSwede

News Editor
Joined
Nov 11, 2004
Messages
17,766 (2.42/day)
Location
Sweden
System Name Overlord Mk MLI
Processor AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D
Motherboard Gigabyte X670E Aorus Master
Cooling Noctua NH-D15 SE with offsets
Memory 32GB Team T-Create Expert DDR5 6000 MHz @ CL30-34-34-68
Video Card(s) Gainward GeForce RTX 4080 Phantom GS
Storage 1TB Solidigm P44 Pro, 2 TB Corsair MP600 Pro, 2TB Kingston KC3000
Display(s) Acer XV272K LVbmiipruzx 4K@160Hz
Case Fractal Design Torrent Compact
Audio Device(s) Corsair Virtuoso SE
Power Supply be quiet! Pure Power 12 M 850 W
Mouse Logitech G502 Lightspeed
Keyboard Corsair K70 Max
Software Windows 10 Pro
Benchmark Scores https://valid.x86.fr/yfsd9w
Which one of these USB4 controllers is likely to hit the market first - Realtek or Asmedia?
This is just a hub, but Realtek is calling it a "hub router controller" due some reason you'll have to ask them.
For now, the only third party controller is the ASMedia ASM4242, or some older Thunderbolt 3/4 hardware from Intel.
 
Top