Don’t Be Fooled by the Latest Gimmick in PC Gaming Hardware
If you have an Asrock game motherboard, it is likely that it is delivered with a few “Lightning play ports” at the back for your mouse and your keyboard. A “game” USB port seems fanciful, but does it really do something, or is it just another USB gadget?
What is a USB Lightning play port?
The first association when you hear the words “game” and “USB ports” in the same sentence is that these ports have a higher bandwidth to manage these high -end Hz mice and keyboards. However, this is actually not what the USB play ports serve.
Even at an 8K survey rate, a mouse and a keyboard require only a fraction of the bandwidth (a few Mbit / s) that even a basic USB 2.0 (480 Mbit / s) can provide. In a word, a USB 3.0 or faster port offers no real advantage.
The real advantage that Asrock’s Lightning Ports promise that these two ports use distinct USB controllers. Asrock’s marketing equipment is not going into the details of how it works exactly. However, according to the company diagram, a Lightning port uses the USB controller interface, while the other is based on the PCIE controller interface.
In theory, this allows the mouse and the keyboard to use separate paths to communicate with the CPU, reducing the congestion and the jig of the controller, which is the instability of the latency caused by inconsistent response times.
Controllers can also prioritize input peripherals eager for data such as webcams and external SSDs, so your mouse and keyboard will not suffer from a stuttering or entry lag even during streaming or transfer of bulky files in the background.
I have not found any information on the question of whether other motherboard manufacturers have a similar functionality.
However, in theory, these Lightning gaming ports are not different from the connection of your mouse and your keyboard to USB ports which use different controllers – the one that is directly connected to the CPU, and another which is managed either by the chipset, or by a distinct USB controller chip, which both communicate with the CPU on a PCIE rising link. The only difference is that Asrock guarantees that Lightning play ports use different controllers.
It’s more a marketing gadget than a useful feature
The main theoretical advantage of these special USB ports is a slightly lower input lag, and for competitive players, even a few milliseconds can make all the difference between winning and losing a fight. However, do these ports really resist marketing allegations?
Well, not really. I tried all the combinations of USB ports on my Asrock B650M PG riptide and I could not feel a difference using my monitor at 240 Hz, my 8K survey rate and a hall effect keyboard.
But don’t believe me. Linus Tech TIPS has carried out several click-to-photon latency tests using the Asrock Riptide X570 with an 8K mouse and a 4K keyboard and measured a zero difference between the Lightning play ports and the other USB ports on the motherboard. Whether it is a USB 2.0 port, two Lightning gaming ports or a mixture of 3.2 Gen 1 USB and Lightning, all the tests have led to a click-photo latency of ~ 49 ms.
Indeed, regular USB ports are already perfectly capable of managing keyboard and mouse inputs, especially when there are no other USB devices consuming a bandwidth. Having the mouse and the keyboard on separate controllers is very little likely to make a significant difference in most scenarios.
In addition, your operating system works with your device drivers to automatically treat HID traffic (human interface) in high priority. In simple terms, your mouse and keyboard are already at the top of the food chain for the USB device, so they should operate without interruption.
Use them if you have them
We can assume in complete safety that Lightning play ports are hardly more than a marketing gadget that will make you feel good to connect your mouse and your keyboard to the motherboard. Whether priority or traffic latency, there is simply no practical and provable advantage in using these ports for your peripherals.
If your motherboard does not have a special USB game port, it is not necessary to get out and buy one that has it, thinking that it will actually provide an advantage.
However, even if the difference is not measurable, it is always worth connecting your mouse and your keyboard to these ports if your motherboard has. It is great that Asrock label the USB ports that are on separate controllers so that you can devote them to your most important devices.
Even if the USB game ports rarely make a difference in practice, it is always reassuring to know that your mouse and your keyboard will obtain priority from USB devices with large bandwidth in extremely rare cases where a pilot bug or instability of the system prevents the operating system from prioritizing HID devices. This is why I will continue to use them, and you should also if your motherboard has.
