ASUS will launch an entire lineup of products that incorporate USB 3.0, the company announced today.
Designed specifically to handle tomorrow's hardware and applications that demand the highest possible throughput between a variety of peripheral devices and host platforms, USB 3.0 (SuperSpeed USB) heralds a new age of faster connectivity to benefit consumers. Not only does USB 3.0 provide 10 times the speed of USB 2.0, but it improves upon USB 2.0 by offering improved power management, isochronous transfers, and additional power for devices that means quicker device charging or the elimination of power supplies for devices that can now be charged via the USB 3.0 port.
ASUS is already offering USB 3.0 on a motherboard model and continues to expand USB 3.0 offerings across its entire lineup of motherboards. To ensure backward compatibility and protect previous investments, ASUS developed a standalone PCI Express x4 solution offering USB 3.0 and SATA 6G operation on previously-released motherboard models.
The PCI Express x4 PLX bridge chip has been designed from the ground up to enable USB 3.0 performance levels without compromise. Other motherboards can require the user to make a choice between true USB 3.0 operation or sacrificing overall system performance including disabling features such as multi-GPU operation.
The P6X58D Premium motherboard by ASUS is also the first to be officially certified by the USB Implementation Forum (USB-IF) as achieving the standard's newly-formulated SuperSpeed USB compliance requirements.
ASUS now offers USB 3.0 on a wide range of products beyond just motherboards. This includes current notebook offerings featuring the N series along with recently announced updates to the Eee PC range of netbooks, all-in-one PCs and digital media players.