Which USB3 to use

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simnerd

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Jan 3, 2017
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On my Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 motherboard I have potentially 3 choices for connecting peripherals via USB3:
1. Either of the 2 ports mounted on the motherboard
2. Ports from the "onboard USB3 Connectors" 20(?) pin output socket that feed USB3 sockets at the front of the PC
3. A USB3 powered expansion card fitted to a PCIE slot

Does anyone know what the advantages and disadvantages of each option might be please?
 
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atljsf

atljsf

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the disadvantage of the front usb port is that sometimes a hard disk connected this way will have connection issues thanks to the longer cable, coming form the mainboard to the front of the case

the portson the back of the mainboard are free, doesn't have a long cable to allow for conectivity issues

the extra card is nice to have but usually requires a molex or a sata cable to power them and it also requires a pci express slot, that sometimes is not available, apart from the fact that you have to pay for the card, the first ones mentioned are already there, you already paid for them

in my rank of preffered ports is 1 the ports in the back of the pc, on the mainboard

2 the ports in the front of the case

3 the extra card

for aa clean pc with a windows the third one could be helpfull but will not be pretty
 
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Herc08

Herc08

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If you are thinking about a 3.0 hub, that can work. I have a 7-port Anker one, and tested it out, and I had 3 devices pulling data at a 300MB/s. Granted this was based off my SSD.

That's another thing. If you have a spinning hard drive, speeds will be slower than if you had an SSD.
 
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boosted1g

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1) Pro: Direct Connection to USB BUS
Con: Ports shares max bandwidth
2) Pro: Convenient if accessing back of PC is difficult to get to
Con: Longer cable, more points of failure, The ports share the max bandwidth
3) Pro: If getting a high end USB3 card (using 4x PCI-E lanes) then it can handle 5gbps on EACH port
Con: Costs $$ and uses PCI-E slot (if getting a 4s lane card then would have to use one of the limited x16 slots)
 
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simnerd

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Thanks everyone who has responded so far. The reason I am asking is that I fitted a TS-PDU3 expansion card to a 4xPCI-E slot on the motherboard (with a 4 pin power connector) to provide a higher power 5v supply to 2 of my peripherals but it conflicts with my GTX 1080 graphics card and stops the Bios running so i've had to remove it. I could buy another, better expansion card and try that but before trying that option I though I might get a separate, powered, USB hub to provide me with the powered USB3 ports I need but was wondering which port to use for it. By the sounds of it, the rear direct connection is best.
I'm running:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-X79-UD3 (BIOS: AM F11 05/07/2012)
OS Windows 7 Professional
RAM: 16GB
PSU: Corsair HX 1050
 
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atljsf

atljsf

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weird you had that problem with the card and the gpu

yes, try another card, if that is not a option and you already used all the usb 3 on the back of the pc you only other real option is use the front ones for things that doesn't require too much power like usb sticks, gamepads and simple stuff or buy a powered usb hub and connect it on the back of the pc, but has to be powered, so you can use more devices in it
 
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simnerd

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Yes, I upgraded from a GTX 680 tova GTX 1080 but when it wouldn't even boot up I eventually realised that it was the expansion card. Once I had removed that the new GPU worked fine. Problem is I now don't have enough USB3 ports with sufficient power. I think I'll try the powered USB3 hub - any recommendations or have you not used one?
 
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