Asus Launching USB 3.0 PCI-E Card for $30

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razor512

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It is good that actual hardware improvements are happening but I wouldn't go for it just yet as most likely bugs are still being worked out and performance improvements are also still happening. Best to give it time as we don't know how these cards or the early hardware will perform when a wide range of USB 3.0 devices are used or what problems will surface.
 

dhowie

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If this allows drives to boot from it, this will allow nearly anyone to build a semi future proof machine! I just wonder if you are utilizing both sata ports and both usb 3.0 if it will bottleneck. It's to my understanding that the 4x slot will only allow for about 5/6 of full sata 6GBS, and then throw in some USB 3.0 threads to clogg it up. Let's get some benchmarks!
 
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Any info on overclocking the PICE bus gives trouble?

Also, they could test it by connecting 2 pc's together and transferring a file from one to the other!
 
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[citation][nom]IronRyan21[/nom]Now I cant wait for USB 3.0 Devices to show up, im tired of the slow transfers from my USB flash drive to PC[/citation]

It would be interesting indeed, to find compatible USB sticks to run the OS from!
It would have been nicer if Asus could have created the connection in RAID.
Plugging this card in your pc, with a dual 8GB USB stick, and running the OS from that supposed to be blazing fast!
 

koga73

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the one thing its missing is a usb 9pin connector on the board. Because of this, I cant hook up my front usb ports to 3.0, i have to reach around the BACK of the computer to get 3.0. I'll wait
 

claudeb

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yeah from my rough calcs. you need x6 and you will have 2Gbits left over. for x4, you are 6Gbits short.

x4 = 16Gbits, 2 X usb3 = 10Gbits, 2 X Sata6Gbits = 12Gbits

This doesnt really bother me though
 

Niva

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Claudeb, the chances of operating all 4 connected ports at maximum bandwidth are extremely low.

It's a big deal to me if this card will operate in linux though, I'll buy one for sure if it does.
 

ereuter71

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It is odd that they do not specify PCIe 2.0. My guess is that it is only PCIe 1.0, which means 250 MB/s per lane, so 1000 MB/s total bus bandwidth. Since each SATA 3.0 port specs at 600 MB/s, and each USB 3 port specs at nearly 600 MB/s, it looks like there is NOT enough bandwidth to support all 4 ports at once. But with only two ports operating at a time, and considering overhead (I'd be surprised is USB 3 can exceed 400 MB/s), it may be good enough.
 

lvlouro

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[citation][nom]Razor512[/nom]It is good that actual hardware improvements are happening but I wouldn't go for it just yet as most likely bugs are still being worked out and performance improvements are also still happening. Best to give it time as we don't know how these cards or the early hardware will perform when a wide range of USB 3.0 devices are used or what problems will surface.[/citation]

Be it as it may, to me it seems really impressive that a company is selling such a recent tech at this prices. And not any company, ASUS

they could easily be changing double that and still sell (as some companies do) but as I've seem there is no ASUS tax :)
 

intesx

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[citation][nom]koga73[/nom]the one thing its missing is a usb 9pin connector on the board. Because of this, I cant hook up my front usb ports to 3.0, i have to reach around the BACK of the computer to get 3.0. I'll wait[/citation]

USB 3.0 won't use 9-pin headers so that shoots your plan anyway. Each USB 3.0 port will utilize 8 pins by itself. To hook up 2 front panel USB 3.0 ports you would need a 15 or 16-pin header.
 
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