Intel's Panther Point to Bring USB 3.0 Support

News
By Marcus Yam
published

Get your blue USB plugs ready.

Intel hasn't been full-steam-ahead on its backing of USB 3.0, which has led some to wonder when the company would integrate native support for the standard in its chipsets.

According to a slide obtained by Engadget, it appears that USB 3.0 support could be coming in with the Panther Point chipset.

Engadget didn't specify any further details outside of what can be gleamed from the slide above, so it's just going to be the waiting game for those with Superspeed devices.

Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam
Marcus Yam served as Tom's Hardware News Director during 2008-2014. He entered tech media in the late 90s and fondly remembers the days when an overclocked Celeron 300A and Voodoo2 SLI comprised a gaming rig with the ultimate street cred.
34 Comments Comment from the forums
  • campb292
    Isn't that still another year away? The Sandy processors are great, but they are gimped by the lame chipset. 3rd party USB3? 2 SATA Gb/s ports? WHAT? Get moving INTEL!
    Reply
  • ansar
    I'm guessing they want to push their Thunderbolt more than usb 3.0.
    Reply
  • dgingeri
    campb292Isn't that still another year away? The Sandy processors are great, but they are gimped by the lame chipset. 3rd party USB3? 2 SATA Gb/s ports? WHAT? Get moving INTEL!
    get moving?? Remember the P4 fiasco? AMD couldn't compete with the Athlon FX series, so Intel stalled the whole industry for 3 years. in 3 years we got a whopping %30 increase in processor speed. it took them another 2 years after the Athlon 64 came out to bring up something to really compete.

    Now AMD doesn't have anything to compete again, and they're slowing down again. If Bulldozer doesn't compete with Ivybridge in performance, they'll continue to stall, and we'll have another 5-7 years before we see any significant performance increase while Intel rules the roost. If AMD dies, we'll never see improvement in processor performance in the desktop.

    Yes, AMD should have had Bulldozer out by now, but because of Intel's damage from their anti-competitive practices, AMD hasn't had the money to get the engineering staff to get the product ready.
    Reply
  • Ogdin
    dgingeriget moving?? Remember the P4 fiasco? AMD couldn't compete with the Athlon FX series, so Intel stalled the whole industry for 3 years. in 3 years we got a whopping %30 increase in processor speed. it took them another 2 years after the Athlon 64 came out to bring up something to really compete. Now AMD doesn't have anything to compete again, and they're slowing down again. If Bulldozer doesn't compete with Ivybridge in performance, they'll continue to stall, and we'll have another 5-7 years before we see any significant performance increase while Intel rules the roost. If AMD dies, we'll never see improvement in processor performance in the desktop. Yes, AMD should have had Bulldozer out by now, but because of Intel's damage from their anti-competitive practices, AMD hasn't had the money to get the engineering staff to get the product ready.
    Better watch out,all that feverish typing might dislodge your tinfoil hat.
    Reply
  • LuckyDucky7
    "News Flash: Intel Gets With The Times (even though they're a technology company to begin with)".

    First of all, AMD's already ahead of Intel on this. They've already baked USB 3.0 into their Fusion chipsets (they're hitting the stores in about 3 months IIRC).

    Intel, on the other hand, is so eager to drag its butt on issues like upgradeability, that it has cost itself about a billion dollars. Not on USB 3.0, but on its unwillingness to incorporate new technology into its products and not rely on "good enough".

    Remember the issue that SATA II ports degrade in performance over time? If they had gone full-on SATA III when they had the chance they wouldn't have had this problem. They cost themselves a billion dollars because of their unwillingness to go completely to the new technology.

    So who cares? It's already here, and Intel is once again behind the game.
    Reply
  • haplo602
    dgingeriget moving?? Remember the P4 fiasco? AMD couldn't compete with the Athlon FX series, so Intel stalled the whole industry for 3 years. in 3 years we got a whopping %30 increase in processor speed. it took them another 2 years after the Athlon 64 came out to bring up something to really compete. Now AMD doesn't have anything to compete again, and they're slowing down again. If Bulldozer doesn't compete with Ivybridge in performance, they'll continue to stall, and we'll have another 5-7 years before we see any significant performance increase while Intel rules the roost. If AMD dies, we'll never see improvement in processor performance in the desktop. Yes, AMD should have had Bulldozer out by now, but because of Intel's damage from their anti-competitive practices, AMD hasn't had the money to get the engineering staff to get the product ready.
    and what's so performance demanding that you complain about the current status ? for 95% of people an athlon II x3 is plenty. why should Intel bother ? except server market there's nothing much to improve that's realy needed.
    Reply
  • pelov
    haplo602and what's so performance demanding that you complain about the current status ? for 95% of people an athlon II x3 is plenty. why should Intel bother ? except server market there's nothing much to improve that's realy needed.
    I like to play my console ports with dual 6990's and i7 2600's at 5ghz.
    Reply
  • johnh2005
    OgdinBetter watch out,all that feverish typing might dislodge your tinfoil hat.
    +1 That gave me a great chuckle. If you could have only seen the vision in my head...
    Reply
  • geekapproved
    Groundbreaking!
    Reply
  • geekapproved
    I can see it now:

    "Need help with Panther Point build".
    Reply