USB 3.0

Kirth Gersen · 6 Nov 2009 at 12:45

Just about to take the plunge for a P55 board, when I saw that OC have this on preorder. Given the new board will last about 2 years before the next upgrade, it would be a shame to buy and miss out on 10x data transfer speeds. What are people's thoughts? When will the boards be available? When will USB products become available to take advantage?

Random Guy · 6 Nov 2009 at 13:11

The other question would be: how much of a price premium can I expect to pay for USB 3.0 products?

Vir · 6 Nov 2009 at 13:19

And... do you need new USB3.0 products?

HEADRAT · 6 Nov 2009 at 13:38

I certainly wouldn't drop ££££ on an upgrade and not want SATA III or USB3.0.

MeatLoaf · 6 Nov 2009 at 13:38

Personally if you can get a mobo with it built in you may as well. Those gigabyte boards are only a few quid more than the standard usb2 boards. Its a shame tho that they only have 2 usb3 ports, the rest are usb2

Vir · 6 Nov 2009 at 13:42

MeatLoaf said:
Personally if you can get a mobo with it built in you may as well. Those gigabyte boards are only a few quid more than the standard usb2 boards. Its a shame tho that they only have 2 usb3 ports, the rest are usb2

+1 I totally agree.

Kirth Gersen · 6 Nov 2009 at 13:48

MeatLoaf said:
Personally if you can get a mobo with it built in you may as well. Those gigabyte boards are only a few quid more than the standard usb2 boards. Its a shame tho that they only have 2 usb3 ports, the rest are usb2

True, but would you use more than 2 for data transfer duties? USB 2.0 is fine for running keyboards, mice, web cams etc. For £5-£10 more, I think I'll take the plunge. Any idea when they will be in stock?

Gazb · 6 Nov 2009 at 14:54

Something you might be interested in.

This I found over at techreport, appears that the implementation of SATA 6Gb/s and USB3.0 on the upcoming motherboards has some major drawbacks and intel appear to have said (needs confirmed though) that they may not include USB3.0 support in their southbridges until 2011.

I noticed this in the spec sheet for the GA-P55A-UD4:

Expansion Slots:
1. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x16 (PCIEX16)
2. 1 x PCI Express x16 slot, running at x8 (PCIEX8) (The PCIEX16 and
PCIEX8 slots conforms to PCI Express 2.0 standard.)
3. 3 x PCI Express x1 slots
4. 2 x PCI slots
* When set Turbo SATA3 / USB3.0 (Marvell 9128 /NEC USB 3.0 Controller) to enable in BIOS setup, 1st PCIex16 slot will run at x8 bandwidth and 2nd PCIex16 slot will be disabled.

From the manual, Turbo means it sets the PCIe speed of the controller to PCIe 2.0, which is what you need to actually use the full capability of SATA3/USB3. Non-turbo mode sets it to PCIe 1.0 speed, which limits it to SATA2 speeds.

That means you can't have true SATA3/USB3 and Crossfire at the same time.

Kirth Gersen · 6 Nov 2009 at 15:26

Thanks. I won't be using Crossfire, but it is a warning shot about going leading edge on things.

siege2 · 6 Nov 2009 at 20:03

When set Turbo SATA3 / USB3.0 (Marvell 9128 /NEC USB 3.0 Controller) to enable in BIOS setup, 1st PCIex16 slot will run at x8 bandwidth

Oh my not very good for gamers

Gazb · 6 Nov 2009 at 22:23

siege2 said:
When set Turbo SATA3 / USB3.0 (Marvell 9128 /NEC USB 3.0 Controller) to enable in BIOS setup, 1st PCIex16 slot will run at x8 bandwidth

Oh my not very good for gamers

Yeah, makes me think that waiting for Intel to integrate it into their southbridge controller or just adding an SATA 6Gb/s USB3.0 add-in card like the one Asus are releasing would be a better idea.

siege2 · 7 Nov 2009 at 08:32

bit like my m/b pci express slots 1 & 2 are full 16* , then plug a third gpu into slot 3 then slot 2 becomes 8*, therefore gaming on sli is no good with a third gpu in the slot.

tbw third gpu was going to be for display, cpu, programs etc main 2 gpus is still SLI.

adrichardson81 · 7 Nov 2009 at 10:39

To be honest the real selling feature isn't SATA/USB 3, it's that you're guaranteed not to have a Foxconn socket

I'm holding out for the P55A-UD5 - same slot layout as the UD6, so you actuallly have a usable 1x/4x slot with a 3 slot graphics card (unless you use the 8x slot :rolleyes:

)

clocka · 7 Nov 2009 at 12:49

Wouldn't mind a date for these either, wonder if MS will release usb3 drivers before these ship or if we will have to install NEC usb3 drivers instead.