AMD's Fusion Chipsets to Support USB 3.0

By Jane McEntegart
published

AMD has said that upcoming chipsets will feature support for USB 3.0, otherwise known as SuperSpeed USB.

USB 3.0 has been seen on motherboards for quite a while now, but USB-IF this week announced that the A75 and A70M Fusion chipsets from Advanced Micro Devices will be the first certified 'Superspeed USB' chipsets. USB 3.0 offers transfer rates of up to 5Gbps, quite an upgrade from the speeds offered by the ten-year-old USB 2.0.

“The integration of SuperSpeed USB into AMD’s Fusion Controller Hubs demonstrates AMD’s commitment to providing the industry’s latest, most innovative connectivity technologies,” said Chris Cloran, AMD Corporate Vice-President and General Manager, Client Group. “AMD Fusion Controller Hubs will provide competitive performance while consuming low power with active USB 3.0 traffic for high definition video and fast connectivity with the latest SuperSpeed USB devices.”

The announcement makes AMD the first company to integrate a USB 3.0 controller into its silicon. Rival Intel has yet to take the same step of integrating USB 3.0 into its own chipsets and, according to The Register, doesn’t have plans to do so until 2012. This almost definitely has something to do with Intel’s new baby, the Thunderbolt standard (previously known as Light Peak). Thunderbolt was unveiled at the same time as the new MacBook Pros, which support the interface, and though Intel has said it can exist alongside USB 3.0, the company definitely seems to have a favorite at the moment.

Jane McEntegart
33 Comments Comment from the forums
  • oneblackened
    Wait a second, doesn't the 800 series of SB's already support that?
    Reply
  • No, they have USB 3 support through the NEC controller.
    Reply
  • memadmax
    wow, yay....

    There's a reason why usb 2.0 has been around for forever: It's enough.

    Is there a reason for 3.0, besides running 5 or more studio quality cameras for your own personal TV station in your basement?
    Reply
  • sephirothmk
    I dunno about you, but transferring with 30mb/s on my external hard drive isn't enough when I'm copying over 100gb of data....
    Reply
  • memadmaxwow, yay....There's a reason why usb 2.0 has been around for forever: It's enough.Is there a reason for 3.0, besides running 5 or more studio quality cameras for your own personal TV station in your basement?
    Since when was 10x faster speed not "good enough"? The only reason USB 3 hasn't been widely adopted yet it is relatively new and USB 2's ubiquity is unchallenged so far. If everyone thought like you, we would still be at 640KB of memory for our DOS systems.
    Reply
  • memadmax
    That 30 meg a sec is prolly just your hard drive/controller or something else cause 2.0 does twice that.
    Reply
  • alikum
    oneblackenedWait a second, doesn't the 800 series of SB's already support that?I think it's not integrated. You get that from MB manufacturers.
    Reply
  • Pawessum16
    memadmaxwow, yay....There's a reason why usb 2.0 has been around for forever: It's enough.Is there a reason for 3.0, besides running 5 or more studio quality cameras for your own personal TV station in your basement?????????USB 2.0 bottlenecks external drives pretty bad (even my 500gb 5400rpm USB drive, and I cringe when I'm in a situation where I can't use eSata to connect my 7200rpm drive). So yes, there is a reason for USB 3.0
    Reply
  • _Cubase_
    memadmaxwow, yay....There's a reason why usb 2.0 has been around for forever: It's enough.Is there a reason for 3.0, besides running 5 or more studio quality cameras for your own personal TV station in your basement?
    Everybody should cut this guy some slack... It took him a long time to dial-up and get on-line to write that comment.
    Reply
  • SteelCity1981
    Thunderbolt is prob going go the way of Firewire. Most of your avg pc users are more concernd about comtability over anything else, which is why USB is not going to get knocked off its thrown for a long time. USB has been out now for a little over a decade with millions upon millions of products that support USB and becuse of that. It has become apart of the everyday pc users lives and one of the the reason why it's still around and Firewire is all but dead is because of its wide range of compatibilty over the years.
    Reply