Originally Posted by frappant

So I've been picking up a lot of USB-C cables over the past year.

Still find need for more.

Do you try to get cables with at least a certain PD wattage rating?

For instance, the standard seems to be 60W PD and there are also 100W PD but those have a price premium. The only device that really needs 100W PD would be my MacBook Pro. But I'm thinking it's just easier to get 100W ones so that I can use all the USB C cables I have on any device, for data or for charging, without trying to remember which ones were rated at which.

Or are the power wattage ratings for cables just conservative and for instance, the 60W cables could charge a MacBook Pro using a 140W charger?

These cables are not labeled in general. For instance the Amazon Basic ones are not advertised for their power rating at all. I do have some Baseus ones which say 100W on the plug and they were pretty good deals, $15 for a pair. But they're no longer available on Amazon.

Then I have a nice one, white and braided that came with my iPhone 15 Pro Max. Who knows what they're rated at but it's not like Apple is saying use them only on the iPhone, not a MacBook Pro or iPad.
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Also, now some vendors are advertising 230 or 240W cables. Not sure which applications would use that much power or what kind of chargers there are for that much power.