What is USB 3.0 ?

What is USB 3.0 ? Actually it is a replacement of  USB 2.0  that has been long awaited. Almost a decade USB 2.0 was  a standard interface on  PCs and notebooks. Actually USB was developed in 1996 as connector between computer and peripheral while it was using parallel and serial connector.

Successful  of USB 2.0. Data are transferred  with speed up to 480 MBit/second. We just need plug and play when we operate the PC. And caused the integrated electricity, many peripheral such as USB flashdisk or webcam don’t need a power supply by itself.

One of the weakness: now 480 MBit/second ( practically , seldom up to 300 MBit/second ) not support anymore. Because that,  in 2007 Intel promised USB 3.0 that done in November 2008.

Then USB 3.0 solves the problems : Data are transferred with 5 GBit/second in speed – 10 times faster than USB 2.0. This technic now also available for transfer data serial, that also used on other serial interface such as PCI-Express and SATA.

Well, beside above the details about the USB 3.0 :  To achieve faster speed, everything is increased : in protocol is written speed of SuperSpeed with data transfer up to 5 GBit/second. For that plug pin is added: If USB 2.0 is enough with 4 pins then for USB 3.0 is needed 5 other pins. With all those things, everything must be matched, there are couples to receive and send, also one for power supply and mass.

Now many manufactures have produced motherboard with USB 3.0 interface such as Asus P7P55D-E Pro (about 150 Euro) and Gigabyte (Seri P55A & 790XTA, 100 Euro ). However, new  mainboard also need newest  – CPU or RAM – hardware components .

Well , that’s all the explanation of what is USB 3.0 ? if you have more budget maybe you can upgrade your system then using it, but if you don’t really need it, USB 2.0 still powerful.