On the heels of the notice of Gigabyte’s mega-volume announcement, Asus has shot back with its own pedigree and the breadth of their commitment to innovation. The company has definitely been a major player in the adoption of new technologies and new form factors. Gigabyte may hold the title of most, but Asus asserts, and we agree, they have always been first. First motherboard with USB 3.0 certification from the USB-IF, first nettop with USB 3.0, first to integrate USB 3.0 into their full range of products, not a long list, but definitely an impressive reminder of how hard they have been working to make the best product possible.
Asus has always had our loyalty since the early days of consumer PCs. We’ve gladly ordered products that were the first and best in: tweaked motherboards, Dual CPU capability, SLI support, integrated IO systems, small form factor machines, the EEE PC. That list goes on quite a bit longer and reads like a greatest-hits list of personal computing. We expect sharks with lasers to be built in to their next system at this rate. If you have a few days, try a search for Asus on our site, and you can see for yourself how often we find them newsworthy. One thing is for sure, “new” and “hotness” are words that will be associated with Asus for a long time to come.

That’s what the developers of the next-generation Universal Serial Bus technology are counting on when they release the spec for USB 3.0—also known as SuperSpeed USB.

Manufacturers are already gearing up for SuperSpeed USB with NEC being the first to announce the first USB 3.0 host controller, which is about one of the few silicon products that will guarantee instant success in this economy. NEC Electronics expects external hard drives, SSDs, flash drives and of course the computers themselves will be the first to receive the SuperSpeed USB upgrade.

A demo by Seagate at CES 2009 has already shown that even a prototype can reach upwards of 165MB/s which in perspective is almost 5 times faster than the fastest USB hard drive or flash drive. If USB 2.0 chip optimization history is any indication, we are looking at USB 3.0 hitting top speed in two years. Designated µPD720200, the world’s first xHCI-compliant host silicon will also be backward compatible with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0. Samples of the chips will become available in June 2009 at $15 USD, along with free Windows drivers. NEC anticipates monthly production to reach one million units by September of this year, and rapid adoption in second half of 2010.

New time of  USB is coming!