USB 3.0 Preview @ [H]

Most modern drives should be faster on usb 3 just because data can be sent full duplex instead of the half as it was in usb 2. Performance should basically be the same as if it was a sata connection.

Same as SATA? Not a chance. Not until USB starts adding DMA instead of doing everything the slow way by dumping everything on the CPU via interrupts.

SATA is fast because it uses its own DMA-enabled processor. Firewire is fast because it uses its own DMA-enabled processor. Soundcards are latency-free because they use DMA-enabled processors.

Until USB decides to join the world of DMA, it's more like the red-headed stepchild of transfer technologies. Cheap, but also unreliable for anything more than hooking up a keyboard, mouse and syncing an iPod.
 
Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. The only thing that this will affect is portable hard drives. Let's face it, even USB v1.0 is perfect for devices like mice, keyboards, webcams, Internet dongles, Bluetooth dongles and even magicjacks. 99.9% of the time there will be no difference between one and the other unless you drop a PANTLOAD of money on a USB v3.0 hard drive. The eSATA ones are expensive as it is, wait and see what the USB v3.0 drives will cost. I wouldn't have it as a criterion for purchasing a motherboard. If I want USB v3.0 later, I'll add a card. It's just not worth it right now.
 
You don't have to wonder just look at the speed of an ESATA drive and minus about 15% of the performance :D
 
Honestly, I don't see what the big deal is. The only thing that this will affect is portable hard drives. Let's face it, even USB v1.0 is perfect for devices like mice, keyboards, webcams, Internet dongles, Bluetooth dongles and even magicjacks. 99.9% of the time there will be no difference between one and the other unless you drop a PANTLOAD of money on a USB v3.0 hard drive. The eSATA ones are expensive as it is, wait and see what the USB v3.0 drives will cost. I wouldn't have it as a criterion for purchasing a motherboard. If I want USB v3.0 later, I'll add a card. It's just not worth it right now.


Think again about your statement...


Hard drives (Portable and Internal), SSD's, Camera's, Printers, Thumb drives, DVD's :p
 
maybe now Logitech can make a new G19 keyboard with one USB cable instead of the current one with an additional power cable.
 
I have a Zotac H55ITX-A-E motherboard. It has a mini-PCIe slot which conforms to the PCI-SIG's PCIe Base Specification 2.1. I purchased a mini-PCIe USB 3.0 card:
http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/Peripheral/PCI Express mini card/MPX-7202.HTM

and am using it on this motherboard. My case is a LianLi PC-Q08 which has two front USB 3.0 ports. When in Windows, the ports work as they should. However, when I go to the boot selection screen after POST, none of my bootable USB flash drives appear when connected to either of the USB 3.0 ports.

They do appear when connected to any of the USB 2.0 ports on the motherboard though.

Does USB 3.0 not support booting from USB flash drives? I have checked my BIOS and have set it to be able to boot from USB flash drives.

Also, when any USB flash drive is connected to any of the USB 2.0 ports on the motherboard, they're listed as hard drives in the BIOS, but when connected to either of the USB 3.0 ports, they're not listed at all.

Anyone know why this is happening?


Also, Windows 7 Ultimate x64 didn't have USB 3.0 drivers built in. Anyone know where I can download the latest USB 3.0 drivers? The card I have uses a NEC D720200F1 USB 3.0 chip.
 
I have a Zotac H55ITX-A-E motherboard. It has a mini-PCIe slot which conforms to the PCI-SIG's PCIe Base Specification 2.1. I purchased a mini-PCIe USB 3.0 card:
http://www.commell.com.tw/Product/Peripheral/PCI Express mini card/MPX-7202.HTM

and am using it on this motherboard. My case is a LianLi PC-Q08 which has two front USB 3.0 ports. When in Windows, the ports work as they should. However, when I go to the boot selection screen after POST, none of my bootable USB flash drives appear when connected to either of the USB 3.0 ports.

They do appear when connected to any of the USB 2.0 ports on the motherboard though.

Does USB 3.0 not support booting from USB flash drives? I have checked my BIOS and have set it to be able to boot from USB flash drives.

Also, when any USB flash drive is connected to any of the USB 2.0 ports on the motherboard, they're listed as hard drives in the BIOS, but when connected to either of the USB 3.0 ports, they're not listed at all.

Anyone know why this is happening?


Also, Windows 7 Ultimate x64 didn't have USB 3.0 drivers built in. Anyone know where I can download the latest USB 3.0 drivers? The card I have uses a NEC D720200F1 USB 3.0 chip.


USB3 hehehehe...get it, it rhymes..USB 3 is brought to you by.....3rd party controllers..dada!!! Since it is not native, it requires the use of a controller and crapware, but only within win 7will it work....:D:D:D:D Wait for Intel to add USB3 support:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek: to their c/sets and all will be well in USB land....:):):):):)
 
Intel won't be doing a USB3 chipset until next summer, at earliest. Is every non-intel controller garbage and every driver not provided by intel crapware?
 
First post yay!

Intel won't be doing a USB3 chipset until next summer, at earliest. Is every non-intel controller garbage and every driver not provided by intel crapware?

How about fall this year? In the Q3 Intel product matrix thier SmackOver2 board (X58SO2) is described as having twelve USB3.0 ports (six rear and six by three internal headers) and ten SATA 6Gb/s (+eSATA speed not stated).

Looks like a new southbridge while retaining the X58 name.
 
First post yay!



How about fall this year? In the Q3 Intel product matrix thier SmackOver2 board (X58SO2) is described as having twelve USB3.0 ports (six rear and six by three internal headers) and ten SATA 6Gb/s (+eSATA speed not stated).

Looks like a new southbridge while retaining the X58 name.

Is it confirmed that those USB ports are actually native to the southbridge and not using a 3rd party controller?
 
Is it confirmed that those USB ports are actually native to the southbridge and not using a 3rd party controller?

No but the spec does not mention any USB2.0 ports and I am not aware of a third party controller that has that many ports.

Here is a capture from the pdf below; ( not sure if it is ok to link to the image on my own site? mods feel free to let me know if you would like it re hosted somewhere else)

DX58SO2Spec.jpg


EDIT: Hmm just noticed it says Hi-Speed USB 3.0 and not Super-Speed USB 3.0, I would say this was then a typo but the 10 SATA 6Gb/s cannot be a mistake/coincidence surely?
 
I think this has been discussed before, but USB 3 means you can connect an SATA II drive and get a higher transfer rate than connecting the same drive to USB 2, does it not?
 
The only true devise that takes advantage of Sata II, III, and USB 3
is the read side of an SSD. Unless you have a raid card and are runnig
3 or more HHD's in R0. Raid 0 with an SSD sound interesting but the
trim support currently blows.
 
I have an OCZ Vertex 2 that writes as fast as it reads, pretty much, at around 250MB/s.That's pushing the SATA II limit. I'd like to get another one, since they are excellent drives, and run them in RAID 0. But the only benifit I'd get right now, using SATAII would be +50MB/s transfer and more single drive space. IOPs would go up too, but would still hit the SATAII wall. I can run SATA III on my new MB too. I'm just wondering is the tech is mature enough to do two SSDs in RAID 0. 500 MB/s transfer speeds would be finally getting at some serious speed, but at 30GBs a minute, that's really not that fast considering program and file sizes now--for the user that does CAD, Photography, etc. But then again, 30GB a minutes would transfer two OCZ V2 60GB drives in two minutes--lol.

Actually aft3er I thought about it from writing this, I'm really not too worried about it until SSDs come down in price and offer at least 500Gbs of space.
 
If it's raw speed you want, nothing can beat a RAM drive :)
 
I have an OCZ Vertex 2 that writes as fast as it reads, pretty much, at around 250MB/s.That's pushing the SATA II limit. I'd like to get another one, since they are excellent drives, and run them in RAID 0. But the only benifit I'd get right now, using SATAII would be +50MB/s transfer and more single drive space. IOPs would go up too, but would still hit the SATAII wall. I can run SATA III on my new MB too. I'm just wondering is the tech is mature enough to do two SSDs in RAID 0. 500 MB/s transfer speeds would be finally getting at some serious speed, but at 30GBs a minute, that's really not that fast considering program and file sizes now--for the user that does CAD, Photography, etc. But then again, 30GB a minutes would transfer two OCZ V2 60GB drives in two minutes--lol.

Actually aft3er I thought about it from writing this, I'm really not too worried about it until SSDs come down in price and offer at least 500Gbs of space.

SATA is limited to 300MB per port, not overall. You can get 500MB/sec with drives in raid using SATA2 controllers, ideally the ICH10 which is by far the best on board controller.
 
But, don't you have to install every time? Explain this please. Thnx.

There are a few types of RAM drive. Some are on the PCIe bus and have backup power to keep the data intact. Others are a virtual drive created in system RAM. The latter is ideal if you need a scratch drive for Photoshop, 3DS and such.
 
OK. I thought I heard of fellows installing there game on the
system ram. So they were talking about PCIe ram?

There are a few types of RAM drive. Some are on the PCIe bus and have backup power to keep the data intact. Others are a virtual drive created in system RAM. The latter is ideal if you need a scratch drive for Photoshop, 3DS and such.
 
OK. I thought I heard of fellows installing there game on the
system ram. So they were talking about PCIe ram?

There is the option of having some app copy certain data into a RAM drive made in system RAM every time you start the system. That'd have an initial bit of lag, but after that would be super fast. When the system is powered down the contents of the RAM drive would then be stored on a HDD or SSD.

PCIe RAM drives seem to be getting a bit more popular now. It's still hard to boot from a PCIe drive, however, as the recent PCIe Flash drives show.
 
Based on the pre-production board I saw at NYAF two weekends ago, there were only 4 USB3.0 ports on the back and 4 SATA 6.0 connectors (I believe there were also some SATA 3.0 ports but were too dark for me to see . Both types of connectors were on 3-party controllers. Everything else was pretty much based on the spec list that was posted. Even though I was able to hold the board to check it out, I wasn't allowed to take a picture. The Intel engineer I spoke to also showed me a board that had a waterblock fab'd by Danger Den that replaces all the heatsink on the board. Perhaps Intel may be considering letting people install water blocks AND still honor the warranty?

Interestingly, the 985X they had in there was OC'd to 4.3(roughly) stable using stock cooler. Memory were 12GB of Corsair Ballistix Tracer 1666 OC'd to just abit over 2000 (active air cooled).
 
I actually have a USB 3.0 input on my new pc but have nothing to try out yet. I hope I can try it out soon to see if it actually works.
 
I wonder why fiber-optic inter-connects aren't being developed....or are they???
Well there is "light peak", information on it is sketchy but it looks like it will turn out to be primerally used for docking apple laptops (and maybe other brands too later).

But copper is good enough to meet most of our current demands for short distance links, less fragile than fiber and cheaper to interface to as well.
 
Last edited:
USB 3.0 is really nice, but the issue is that there aren't enough devices out there to support it yet.
 
Looks like a missing word in this sentence, perhaps close: " We don’t have any devices that can even come to fully leveraging USB 3.0’s possible bandwidth.". Other than that looks pretty solid, definitely going to like getting my hands on this next time I go mobo shopping.
 
There is a ridiculously expensive SSD external USB 3.0 drive call Enyo. It has 260MB/s Read, 200MB/s write.

Here is the link to the drive at OCZ site.
 
USB 3.0 isn't backwards compatible with all devices. The popular MagicJack for instance won't work with USB 3.0. Also several high end USB to digital audio transports don't work with it. So unless the makers of these devices all develop new drivers (firmware?) people won't be happy with their new USB 3.0 only computers. I wonder if an old PCI USB 2.0 addin card would take care of this issue as I am sure many of the small high end audio makers won't be updating firmware or even drivers as it is expensive for small companies.
 
Why won't these devices be backwards compatible? Very curious. Physically the same wires are used for BC, so it has to be in the USB stack then? Lack of BC with USB 2 OHCI/UHCI?
 
I've seen some newer external drives that support USB3 (and 2) - I can see that the speed advantage of an external USB3 drive would be nice for large backups, mine run for hours now on USB2
 
I've seen some newer external drives that support USB3 (and 2) - I can see that the speed advantage of an external USB3 drive would be nice for large backups, mine run for hours now on USB2

What about eSATA? :)
 
Back
Top