Stilly River Sage wrote: ... older ports won't be any faster with the new cables (that I'm aware of) unless I swapped out cards inside or something.

It's worth taking a look inside to see if the motherboard has a spare 'USB 3 header', which is a socket into which you can plug more USB 3 ports. I added a couple* to my 10yo Intel desktop that way - they were USB 3.0 type A (blue) but maybe there are faster or type-C ones now.

* "Dual 2 Ports USB 3.0 A Type Female to Motherboard 20 Pin Female Header Cable"