ybS2okj said:
Has anyione come across any new systems (either from DELL or HP) that
already has new USB 3.0 ports?
Apparently, it is 10 times faster than USB 2.0 so it worth an upgrade!
They're selling a USB3 card here for the PCI Express bus. The picture
shows the chip used is a NEC D720200F1.
http://usb3.com/
Using the chip number, I found a page with a price. Only $37.
The catch is, to run the thing such that you'd get the full
500MB/sec, you need a PCI Express x1 slot with PCI Express revision 2
(500MB/sec) transfer rate. Most motherboards have x1 slots running
at 250MB/sec. The card should still work if stuffed in such a slot,
so for $37, such a card is still a good deal. The card looks like it
is made by NEC themselves.
http://www.usbgeek.com/prod_detail.php?prod_id=1263
The product comes with a USB3 driver CD.
The thing is, to get that NEC chip to work at full rate, on a Dell/HP
or other retail computer, someone is going to have to make sure the
NEC chip is properly fed. Apparently, some ATI chipset has PCI Express Rev 2
lanes on the Southbridge. And if you were to plug the card into many
motherboard's extra video card slot, that would be another way to get
a Rev 2 lane for the chip to use.
Again, not a reason to run out and buy a new computer.
My new motherboard (did an upgrade on my homebrew box last week),
has two x16 rev 2 slots. One with a video card in it. If I wanted, I
could stick that $37 card in the other video card slot and have
500MB/sec USB3. Still don't know why I'd bother though. We'll have
to wait a while, for some worthy peripherals to use it (wait for price
drop etc...). For the time being, ESATA is still a fine option, and
good for storage applications.
Paul
