Posted by baranul 3 days ago
I miss MiniUSB. MiniUSB was always good to me.
You can say the cable can do whatever you want on the E-Marker, its not the source of truth.
The problem is, to actually benchmark everything, voltage drop, resistance, actual bandwidth (especially at Thunderbolt 5 speeds) requires a lot of hardware.
Using a USB-C Test Controller ($13,000), connected to a Pro Keysight Infiniium oscilloscope ($258,809) is the proper way to test it. https://www.keysight.com/au/en/product/N7018A/type-c-test-co...
Oscilloscope is needed for things like frequency response.
but most consumer care only the power loss and bandwidth only.
This is the one I use and I quite like it. I've had it for a little over a year and a half. I used it to sort (or trash) all my cables and to test new incoming cables.
Anyway, it's definitely better than having nothing, and tests resistance as well. I tossed a couple low value/duplicate/high resistance cables because I've got too many just lying around causing clutter. Also helped 'confirm' my good (e.g. TB4+) cables that weren't labeled clearly are indeed good cables - granted, this is only as dependable as the marker chip the manufacturer added.
It's only $14.
It even offers test pads you can use to test the cable with a much more expensive multimeter.
The same principles that worked for auditors tracking risk compliance in the 2000's now work for humans tracking AI-output risk compliance in 2026
To actually test for the bandwidth those are hell expensive.
Now people starting test for the chip, those scammers will install more fake chip ...