ASUS plans USB 3.0 across whole line
updated 11:15 am EDT, Fri March 26, 2010
ASUS to release range of USB 3.0 products
ASUS this week let it be known that it will soon release a whole range of products with integrated USB 3.0 connections. This lineup will include 15 mainboards, its N-series of multimedia notebooks, the Eee Box 1510U and 1210U desktop PCs as well as the Eee PC 1018, 1015 and 1016 netbooks. More products, including digital media players, are also due in the future. The company has also developed a PCIe x4 bridge chip that will allow owners of older ASUS mainboards to add USB 3.0 support.
The ASUS P6X58D Premium mainboard is the first to earn official certification by the USB Implementation Forum (USB-IF) for meeting the new SuperSpeed USB compliance requirements. ASUS was also the first to bring out a mainboard with integrated USB 3.0 connections, the P7P55D/P7P55D-E. Other new motherboards range from entry-level to flagship, and support Intel P55, X58, 3450, H75, H55, G41 and P43 chipsets, as well as AMD's 880, 870, 770, 785G, 780 and 790FX chipsets.
USB 3.0 has a maximum transfer speed of 4.8 Gbps, which is ten times faster than USB 2.0's 480Mbps. As an example, ASUS says a 6GB file can be transferred in just 20 seconds using a USB 3.0 interface.
