Gigabyte "Aggressively Adopting USB 3.0" on Several Motherboard Models
Gigabyte is apparently taking this whole USB 3.0 thing pretty seriously and is stoked that two of its P55-based motherboards -- GA-P55A-UD7 and GA-P55A-UD5 -- have passed official certification by the USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF).
But the SuperSpeed buck doesn't stop there. Gigabyte says it is "aggressively adopting USB 3.0" on all of nearly its platforms, including the Intel X58, P55, H57, P45, and P43 chipsets, as well as AMD 790FX, 790X, 770, and 785G chipsets.
"We are investing heavily in developing the USB 3.0 ecosystem and are overjoyed to see that the majority of motherboards listed on the SuperSpeed USB Compliance Web page are from GIGABYTE," said Henry Kao, Senior Vice President, Motherboard Business Unit, GIGABYTE Technology Co. Ltd. "As the Windows® 7 upgrade cycle progresses, we are finding that onboard USB 3.0 is a powerful deal clincher as consumers look to future-proof their new purchases with the very latest technologies and specifications. As such, the timing for the introduction of USB 3.0 could not be better, and we are excited about working with the USB-IF to ramp up SuperSpeed adoption and explore the new possibilities that it has to offer."
Gigabyte is getting a bit of help from NEC, which is providing the uPD720200 host controller for all of the company's USB 3.0 compliant boards. In addition, a handful of models also feature 3x USB power boost, which you can read more about here.

Image Credit: Gigabyte
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DBsantos77
March 03, 2010 at 5:54pm
Horray for Gigabyte, this means that if I want to use a 3.0 box, I won't need to upgrade mobos.
-Santos
Gigabyte 785GX Micro Atx
AMD Phenom II 720 (Quad @ 3.6 Ghz 1.47v.)
6 GB DDR3 1333
Corsair 500w
Arctic Cooling Freezer Pro Rev.2
HIS HD 5850 @ 940/1175/1175v
500 GB
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JohnP
March 03, 2010 at 1:16pm
About the only reasons that I can think of is external hard drives and perhaps a faster web cam. Another stretch is to get rid of a wallwart or two . Anyone else come up with a good reason?
Right now I am using a 5 1/4 inch hot swap SATA enclosure from i s t a r u s a from N e w E g g (Take that, you spam blocker!)
USB 3.0? Not for now, thanks.
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AtomicKitten
March 03, 2010 at 12:17pm
Half of us still have older motherboards, even our powerhouses are like 2008 age and do not support USB 3.0 There should be more expansion cards sold since most people in the world are too broke to buy a new computer with a new motherboard with a cost of 300 dollars for the motherboard itself.
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QuakindudeMod
March 03, 2010 at 11:36am
By using the NEC chip, are the Gigabyte boards prone to having the PCIe channel raped whenever a USB3.0 device is plugged in?
So far, most implementations of USB3.0 onto motherboards has seen the PCIe subsystem be reduced to provide the bandwidth needed for USB3.0. I'd like to know if this is the case with the newer Gigabyte boards since I can't seem to find out anything myself.
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