What does "Up to" mean in chipset specs?

Question

System administration

When choosing a chipset, I ran into the "up to" characteristic in the column for the number of usb ports.
Is there a difference between just a count, like 4, and an Up to 4 value?

Answer 1

H.z.
It does not affect consumer properties.
If you are not a motherboard developer, then you cannot do anything about it.
It depends on what the developers actually soldered on the board.
How many ports they decided to make.
They can sometimes add an additional microcircuit that implements USB to the board, in addition to the main chipset.

Answer 2

The chipset supports up to 12 USB 2.0 connectors.
If you need more, you will have to install hubs (splitters).
How much their motherboard manufacturer will bring out is another story. There are mothers where the connectors to the case are already brought out through a splitter.

Answer 3

the southbridge chip incorporates a USB connection module with 3 usb 3.0 ports and 10 usb 2.0 ports connected to the pins
, the motherboard manufacturer can output the maximum specified number of ports from these pins.
or it may not be output if, for example, there is not enough space on the board or the board does not think about so many ports: a couple of ports for the mouse / keyboard, four more things, for example, 2 usb 3.0 + 2 usb 2.0 for connecting other devices will perform 90% the needs of the average user.