USB 3.0 To The Front Panel: ASRock Leads The Way
Table of contents
- 1. Keeping Up With The Dells
- 2. Socket AM3: 890FX Deluxe4
- 3. 890FX Deluxe4 BIOS, Overclocking And Accessories
- 4. LGA 1156: ASRock P55 Extreme4
- 5. P55 Extreme4 BIOS, Overclocking And Accessories
- 6. LGA 1366: ASRock X58 Extreme6
ASRock was the first company to respond to our impassioned pleas for a front-panel USB 3.0 connector. As other companies attempt to catch up, we examine the boards that started it all to see if the implementation maintains full USB 3.0-class performance.
It has been exactly one year since we sent off a series of emails asking motherboard manufacturers to get serious about standardizing front-panel USB 3.0. Our logic was that if nobody could agree on an industry standard, proprietary standards developed by various large-scale system builders would damage the custom-built and small reseller market.
While we received several responses about how it might be difficult to get any new connector standardized quickly by the USB-IF, we would have just as easily settled for any properly-functioning system, regardless of official sanctioning.
ASRock was the first to step up to the plate with a connector that, according to our sources at the firm, was an Intel design still pending approval. Regardless of who developed the connector, ASRock was the first to implement it, and deserves at least that much credit.
The big question we asked was “how well does it work?” To find out, we grabbed three motherboards to represent Socket AM3, LGA 1156, and LGA 1366. Then we threw them on our test bench.
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Thank you ASRock for bringing USB3.0 front header on your motherboards! Now i can expect a much nicer set-up in my case in an upcoming build...
New standards = competition = win for us
Now all they need to do is lead the way with a standardized case connector.
I sure hope the standard connector comes out before this gets out of hand.
Hopefully some other motherboard manufacturers catch on.
Now all they need to do is lead the way with a standardized case connector.
I sure hope the standard connector comes out before this gets out of hand.
You're looking at it, Page 1 photo. Other motherboard manufacturers are already using this same connector as mentioned in the article, so it should only be a matter of a few months before case manufacturers follow suit.
ASRock responds to pleas? Maybe someone could plead for dual-gigabit-ethernet equipped SOC-chipped (atom? i3?) 6x sata2 motherboards, too. It's impossible to build your one-machine-to-rule them all firewall-server-htpc in a small form factor currently!
Yeah i remember reading reports that Intel dithed USB 3.0 about 6 months ago in favor of the mb and new CPU research (P66, 67). Surprisingly they sold this tech or the design to ASROCK. Im sure they will eventually come around to implimenting this for ALL future motherboards.
So would old cases be able to use this since it is just a connector?
Yeah i remember reading reports that Intel dithed USB 3.0 about 6 months ago in favor of the mb and new CPU research (P66, 67). Surprisingly they sold this tech or the design to ASROCK. Im sure they will eventually come around to implimenting this for ALL future motherboards. So would old cases be able to use this since it is just a connector?
Revised cases could use it, if they had the new cable and connector. Remember that USB 2.0 and USB 3.0 are not cross-compatible, they use separate signal pins and share only power and ground with each other.
They should have kept the board like the 890gx extreme 3 without all the legacy rubbish like floppy or pata, when looking at the boar layouts in comparison this extreme 4 just looks messy
They should have kept the board like the 890gx extreme 3 without all the legacy rubbish like floppy or pata, when looking at the boar layouts in comparison this extreme 4 just looks messy
ASRock still markets in places where Windows XP prevails. That means that the floppy header is still more valuable than most of us would like to believe.
Thicker color lines in the legend so we can see what color they are, please.
What I take from this article is the fact that Inhell hobbles all the good features that AMD doesnt! And people wonder why I always recomend AMD? GET REAL.....get AMD for the performance you deserve! (this add brought to you by..........nobody, I just really like AMD)
While I wouldn't go quite as far as Deadstick50, I did take from this article that P55 is just not the way to go; not if you expect any kind of future-resistance, i.e. to take full advantage of high speed USB 3.0 peripherals.
Yeah, but look at Intels implementation of PCI-E, its chanelled wrong and limited in scope...i stand by what i said.
If nothing else, I'm glad ASRock did this so other manufacturers will be forced to include front USB3. Manufacturers have been very slow to offer this, and it's nice to see someone begin to step up.
It's not "Intel," it's the chipset and/or CPU; consider that X58 offers full speed and full functionality. A lesser AMD chipset (like 870) would chop out some lanes and/or features too.
I got the x58 extreme 6 when it came out on Newegg and loving it so far, just wish it had more on-board USB 2.0 connectors.
It's not "Intel," it's the chipset and/or CPU; consider that X58 offers full speed and full functionality. A lesser AMD chipset (like 870) would chop out some lanes and/or features too.
Yeah, like the second graphics card slot. Wait, that's another 16 lanes that can be used even if some were removed resulting in similar other stuff as the higher mobos. Sorry the fact that intel limited that entire platform to that low is insane and ridiculous.