Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0 & SATA 6Gbps Now Available
Jansen Ng
Forget Intel, mobo makers will go on their own
Technology enthusiasts are the first to adopt faster interfaces. Interface speeds increase every couple of years, and it is no surprise that an upgrade cycle usually follows. No one wants to get stuck with an older interface, especially if they are planning to keep their motherboard for several years.
USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA are both getting speed increases this year in an unusual two-for-one special. USB 3.0 introduces the SuperSpeed mode, which provides raw throughput of 4.8 Gbps versus the measly 480 Mbps of USB 2.0. The USB interface uses 8b10 encoding, so with overhead USB 3.0 will top out at 400 MB/s. This standard will quickly be adopted by USB flash drives and digital cameras due to the large amounts of data involved.
The case for 6 Gbps SATA isn't as strong, unless you're into Solid State Drives. While Seagate has shipped the world's first hard drive to support the new standard, it uses magnetic storage and is only able to use the extra bandwidth when reading from cache. However, SSDs have been bandwidth limited since early this year, and SSDs supporting the new interface should have transfer speeds over 500 MB/s.
ASUS and Gigabyte were both showing off motherboards supporting USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA during the Computex trade show in June. They both announced several motherboards last week, and the boards are available in volume. All of these boards use NEC's USB 3.0 host interface controller introduced in June.
ASUS is now shipping the P7P55D-E Premium using Intel's P55 chipset and the P6X58D Premium using the X58 chipset. The P55 chipset only supports the first generation of PCIe with single lane bandwidth of 250 MB/s, so ASUS uses a PLX8613 bridge chip and four PCIe lanes to optimize the throughput potential of the new interfaces.
The company is also making its U3S6 expansion card available for all P7P55D series motherboards. It will plug into a PCIe x4 or x8 connector and add two USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA ports.
Gigabyte is also shipping seven motherboards in its P55A series supporting the new technologies. They have decided against using a bridge chip, but their implementation means you will be unable to use a second PCIe x16 slot for CrossFire or SLI.
Meanwhile, problems at Intel have delayed new chipsets that will use these new technologies until the beginning of 2011. Solutions from motherboard manufacturers will have to do for now.
Jansen Ng
Forget Intel, mobo makers will go on their own
Technology enthusiasts are the first to adopt faster interfaces. Interface speeds increase every couple of years, and it is no surprise that an upgrade cycle usually follows. No one wants to get stuck with an older interface, especially if they are planning to keep their motherboard for several years.
USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA are both getting speed increases this year in an unusual two-for-one special. USB 3.0 introduces the SuperSpeed mode, which provides raw throughput of 4.8 Gbps versus the measly 480 Mbps of USB 2.0. The USB interface uses 8b10 encoding, so with overhead USB 3.0 will top out at 400 MB/s. This standard will quickly be adopted by USB flash drives and digital cameras due to the large amounts of data involved.
The case for 6 Gbps SATA isn't as strong, unless you're into Solid State Drives. While Seagate has shipped the world's first hard drive to support the new standard, it uses magnetic storage and is only able to use the extra bandwidth when reading from cache. However, SSDs have been bandwidth limited since early this year, and SSDs supporting the new interface should have transfer speeds over 500 MB/s.
ASUS and Gigabyte were both showing off motherboards supporting USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA during the Computex trade show in June. They both announced several motherboards last week, and the boards are available in volume. All of these boards use NEC's USB 3.0 host interface controller introduced in June.
ASUS is now shipping the P7P55D-E Premium using Intel's P55 chipset and the P6X58D Premium using the X58 chipset. The P55 chipset only supports the first generation of PCIe with single lane bandwidth of 250 MB/s, so ASUS uses a PLX8613 bridge chip and four PCIe lanes to optimize the throughput potential of the new interfaces.
The company is also making its U3S6 expansion card available for all P7P55D series motherboards. It will plug into a PCIe x4 or x8 connector and add two USB 3.0 and 6 Gbps SATA ports.
Gigabyte is also shipping seven motherboards in its P55A series supporting the new technologies. They have decided against using a bridge chip, but their implementation means you will be unable to use a second PCIe x16 slot for CrossFire or SLI.
Meanwhile, problems at Intel have delayed new chipsets that will use these new technologies until the beginning of 2011. Solutions from motherboard manufacturers will have to do for now.
Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
Asus puts together a nice product. Definitely worth considering if you are looking to build a new system.
But there's no sense crying over every mistake,
you just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake.
you just keep on trying 'till you run out of cake.
- HaGGardSmurf
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Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
Just a heads up the P7P55D-E has a VIA chipset.
Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
You sure on that, from all i've seen it's running a Intel P55 chipset.HaGGardSmurf wrote:Just a heads up the P7P55D-E has a VIA chipset.
Equipped with the Intel® P55 Express chipset, the P7P55D-E / P7P55D Series supports the latest LGA 1156 socket for Intel® Core™ i7/Core™ i5 Processors
Source: http://www.asus.com/News.aspx?N_ID=oyMjcbYR98UtjHD0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
- HaGGardSmurf
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Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
I was looking on some tech website, and there is a VIA chip on the bottom left of the board, and I read something about the VIA, but it was pretty late at night :O
(Bottem right of the pic on the asus page)
(Bottem right of the pic on the asus page)
Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
Ah yeah, the VIA6308P, it's the IEE1394 controller chip.
- HaGGardSmurf
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Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
Sigh, I wish they made this mobo as a socket AM3.
Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
The 6GB/s SATA and USB 3 is a PCI-E addon card, will work on ANY Dual PCI-E board
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Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
what mobo is the 1 in the picture cuz im buiding a DREAM MACHINE
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- HaGGardSmurf
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Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
xx0warrig0xx wrote:what mobo is the 1 in the picture cuz im buiding a DREAM MACHINE
Thats the one pictured.Klutsh wrote:Equipped with the Intel® P55 Express chipset, the P7P55D-E / P7P55D Series supports the latest LGA 1156 socket for Intel® Core™ i7/Core™ i5 Processors
Source: http://www.asus.com/News.aspx?N_ID=oyMjcbYR98UtjHD0" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
(I guess I will be buying the PCI-E card for the comp im building )
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Re: Motherboards Supporting USB 3.0
ze end of IDE is coming oh well its my dedicated 360 flash/hack/mod/and backup
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