Asus USB 3.0 Motherboard Not Yet Finalized

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The Inquirer is reporting that Asus has canceled the world's first USB 3.0 motherboard--the P6X58--despite the announcement of its upcoming arrival last week. The company apparently offered no "interesting" reason for the discontinuation, adding only that it's working on other things. Whether other things are USB 3.0 related products or not, we don't know.

However, it was originally speculated that Asus decided not to release the Premium motherboard due to problems with Marvell's SATA 6GB, one of the P6X58's major selling points. It may also have been an issue relating to USB 3.0 performance, and that Asus decided to hold off on the technology until a later date.

The motherboard, supporting Intel's Core i7 processor, was slated to provide two USB 3.0 ports, six DDR3 slots, 3 PCI-Express slots, and a SATA 3.0 interface capable of 6 Gb/sec. transfer speeds. When originally announced, Asus did not provide a release date or pricing information. Currently, no USB 3.0-capable products are on the market.

We fired over an email to Asus to find out why the company pulled the motherboard. While we can't disclose comments made off the record, we were told that more information will be passed along by the end of the day. As it stands now, it may be that this particular board wasn't meant for mass production in the first place. What we can indicate though is that Asus is working on a better model.

Kevin Parrish
21 Comments Comment from the forums
  • ravenware
    Asus USB 3.0 Motherboard Not Yet Finalized

    Well hurry it up man we have porn to transfer to externals, we need more speed!
    Reply
  • cekasone
    I've been holding off on an i7 upgrade for this very reason. I want a board with USB 3.0 and Sata3. Even though today's devices can't use the amount of bandwidth these guys support, I still would like to have a motherboard with the latest specifications.
    Reply
  • IronRyan21
    cekasoneI've been holding off on an i7 upgrade for this very reason. I want a board with USB 3.0 and Sata3. Even though today's devices can't use the amount of bandwidth these guys support, I still would like to have a motherboard with the latest specifications.
    ^Same here. I dont want to be stuck with USB 2.0 for a couple of years down the road, while every1 else is enjoying it.
    Reply
  • xsamitt
    I agree Cekasone.....I am waiting for the same reason.
    Reply
  • Airrax
    I think it is stupid to have both the USB 3.0 and 2.0 on the same board, same with SATA 2 and 3. Each of the new formats are backwards compatible, so why not spend the couple extra bucks (and charge a few more dollars) to have all the ports the new format?
    Reply
  • weilin
    Simple, Space on a circuit board is at a premium, and Intel Chipset doesn't natively support USB3 or SATA6GB/s. Thus, to get all USB3 and SATA6GB/s you would have to install 3rd party controllers for every port. That costs a lot and renders much of the intel chipset useless. Its just not worth it. Also, where are you going to put all those USB controllers? They have to be on the PCB somewhere. When the Intel chipset natively supports the new standards, you will see boards with full adoption, until then, its just gonna be a few headers here and there. (replace all words "intel" with "AMD/ATI" and you get their side of the story too)
    Reply
  • The could probably make some extra space for USB 3.0 and SATA 3.0 by dropping PCI, PATA, Floppy, Serial, Parallel, FireWire, PS/2 and any headers for the same.

    You know, the stuff that were useless 5-6 years ago but we're still paying for in new products.
    Reply
  • The one thing I still want out of those is one PCI (it's just too freaking everywhere) and the PS/2 keyboard. When building systems and messing with dual booting USB keyboards are not seen and you therefore cannot interact with anything. I keep having to steal the PS/2 keyboard on my comp to do stuff then putting it back.

    Also while not as important as those I use the one PATA left for my optical drives. Why bother buying SATA optical drives? They wont be faster.
    Reply
  • eklipz330
    why don't they just get rid of usb completely? eSata 3.0 will be so much faster....
    Reply
  • apache_lives
    weilinSimple, Space on a circuit board is at a premium, and Intel Chipset doesn't natively support USB3 or SATA6GB/s. Thus, to get all USB3 and SATA6GB/s you would have to install 3rd party controllers for every port. That costs a lot and renders much of the intel chipset useless. Its just not worth it. Also, where are you going to put all those USB controllers? They have to be on the PCB somewhere. When the Intel chipset natively supports the new standards, you will see boards with full adoption, until then, its just gonna be a few headers here and there. (replace all words "intel" with "AMD/ATI" and you get their side of the story too)
    Or they could ditch the IDE ports like on all newer boards - having to use a chip to do it etc

    USB3 to most home users is useless - theres nothing that uses it! They dont know or care that that 2 minute transfer is a USB limitation.
    Reply