ACTIONpack Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I just don't understand why motherboard makers still make USB 2.0 ports only. Most today will have both 3.0 and 2.0 but why even have 2.0 if 3.0 is compatible with 2.0 and 1.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xahid Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I don't know, maybe USB V.3 chips are expensive ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
+Mirumir Subscriber¹ Posted November 27, 2013 Subscriber¹ Share Posted November 27, 2013 A manufacturer can diversify their product line up this way and charge progressively more as they put more USB 3.0 ports inside. It's all marketing and profit maximization. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Phouchg Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 Ivy Bridge and Haswell natively supports only *two* and *six* USB 3.0 ports, respectively. FM2 has four, I don't know about FM2+. The rest, if any, currently are third party controllers (which, I might add, used to be just short of completely abysmal until very recently). And IB-E and AMD FX, both top platforms, don't have any native support at all. The_Observer 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Torolol Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I need at least 4 USB ports, minimum. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted November 27, 2013 Member Share Posted November 27, 2013 Various reasons other than the just to screw people over reason. Manufacturers either have to design their own IP cores or license off the shelf IP cores for USB 3.0 (and everything else for that matter). This isn't some magically free thing in terms of development or monetary costs. It is also significant R&D work. It requires boards to meet new specifications which means new designs instead of dropping in tried and true existing designs. Then even after all of the fabrication work is done, it requires continuous driver work and support. As with any new technology you are guaranteed that the first iteration of HW support will be pretty lackluster and that there will be shotty driver support to go with it. It typically takes a few iterations before they really get the hw & sw support working well for things. Consider boards with a combination of usb 2.0 and 3.0 ports for instance. In such a case there are very good reasons to keep both: (1) backwards compatibility in the case of shotty driver support or faulty hardware support -- you never abandon the known working components until you are sure you have worked out ALL Of the issues with the new components -- this is just smart business practice -- as you don't want your customers boycotting you when suddenly your board don't work with x,y,z device because you messed something up, (2) It is easier to meet specs in your board design if you only put a few 3.0 ports on there and keep the rest as 2.0. Engineers for instance might just extend an existing board design with a few usb 3.0 ports because it is much simpler than a complete redesign and they can get it out the door faster. Finally it can even come down to an issue of licensing costs. It is going to cost much less to use existing USB 2.0 IP cores in your products than USB 3.0 IP cores everywhere. It makes little practical sense to pay to use the IP cores in everything if the market isn't demanding that and if consumers don't care about it. Instead you pay to use the cores in the segments of the market that demand them and no where else. goretsky and +Thayios 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted November 27, 2013 Member Share Posted November 27, 2013 Ivy Bridge and Haswell natively supports only *two* and *six* USB 3.0 ports, respectively. FM2 has four, I don't know about FM2+. The rest, if any, currently are third party controllers (which, I might add, used to be just short of completely abysmal until very recently). And IB-E and AMD FX, both top platforms, don't have any native support at all. Even Intel had resorted to throwing third party IP cores on their boards because of that. And boy are they wishy-washy. The drivers use to bluescreen my PC on various occasions. No-way I'd plug USB 2.0 devices into them given that -- might as well us the 2.0 ports and controller instead and get some reliability. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tsupersonic Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 My motherboard came with 2 USB 2.0 (rear IO) as well as a vertical port on the motherboard (I put a bluetooth dongle), and 2 headers for 4 more USB 2.0 ports. Aside from all that, there are a plethora of USB 3.0 ports: 4 (rear IO), 4 more via 2 headers. That's 15 USB ports, way more than I need. All the devices I have (always) plugged in don't take advantage of USB 3 anyways: webcam, Xbox controller, keyboard, mouse. Had they not included the USB 2.0 ports, I would only have 8 USB ports, so it makes it more feature rich + cost Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Method Man Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 Most USB devices have no need for anything faster than USB 2.0. Keyboards, Mice, Headsets, Printers, Gamepads, etc. don't need USB 3.0. The only devices that really benefit from 3.0 are flash drives and 802.11ac adapters. Skyfrog and Raa 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted November 27, 2013 Member Share Posted November 27, 2013 Most USB devices have no need for anything faster than USB 2.0. Keyboards, Mice, Headsets, Printers, Gamepads, etc. don't need USB 3.0. The only devices that really benefit from 3.0 are flash drives and 802.11ac adapters. External HDDs get better transfer rates with usb 3.0. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted November 27, 2013 Veteran Share Posted November 27, 2013 External HDDs get better transfer rates with usb 3.0. I would personally rather esata +Warwagon and goretsky 2 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGeorge Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I just wish someone would make a high quality USB 3.0 expansion card. Most are made by no name companies. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leesmithg Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I have a new mobo and there is only 1 x u.s.b. port. Makes no difference as my u.s.b. 3 drive works better on a u.s.b. port. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord Method Man Posted November 27, 2013 Share Posted November 27, 2013 I just wish someone would make a high quality USB 3.0 expansion card. Most are made by no name companies. Just make sure to check the chipset manufacturer. As long as its an NEC/Renesas and not Etron trash it should be okay. I ordered one from Monoprice and it hasnt given me any problems. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted November 27, 2013 Member Share Posted November 27, 2013 I would personally rather esata Why exactly? Both have sufficiently high theoretical maximums that no mechanical drive is going to reach those speeds and USB 3.0 has backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 ports which are ubiquitous. I'm not really sure there is any advantage to esata*. I imagine esata is going to die the same death as firewire (and thunderbolt probably will also). Not being ubiquitous relegates you to niche markets at the end of the day -- you never really die but you live in twilight. *Assuming you don't have broken USB 3.0 support that is. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patseguin Global Moderator Posted November 28, 2013 Global Moderator Share Posted November 28, 2013 That's a good question. I build my systems and I too have wondered why they bother with both USB 2 and 3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
goretsky Supervisor Posted December 2, 2013 Supervisor Share Posted December 2, 2013 Hello, eSATA has lower CPU utilization, since it does not have to go through a SATA to USB protocol conversion. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky snaphat (Myles Landwehr) 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted December 2, 2013 Member Share Posted December 2, 2013 Hello, eSATA has lower CPU utilization, since it does not have to go through a SATA to USB protocol conversion. Regards, Aryeh Goretsky That is a fair point I never even thought about. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted December 2, 2013 Veteran Share Posted December 2, 2013 Why exactly? Both have sufficiently high theoretical maximums that no mechanical drive is going to reach those speeds and USB 3.0 has backwards compatibility with USB 2.0 ports which are ubiquitous. I'm not really sure there is any advantage to esata*. I imagine esata is going to die the same death as firewire (and thunderbolt probably will also). Not being ubiquitous relegates you to niche markets at the end of the day -- you never really die but you live in twilight. *Assuming you don't have broken USB 3.0 support that is. Esata is about as direct as you can get. It will go up in speed as your sata goes up in speed. In some cases it is just a converter cable to convert sata to esata. The down side is that cable/port is all data, no power to run the drive. As ssd drives bring us closer to the limits of the ports, I want it as fast as I can get it and esata is a bit faster. I do like the convenience of usb powered drives. Besides with the right controller, you can do a hardware raid off of one esta port and the right enclosure, try doing that with usb. They do make devices like lacie and drobo that support multiple disks and connect via usb, they also have a built in os to handle the drives, formatting, and partitioning. The esata does this with much less expensive enclosures and is much more direct than dealing with a lacie or drobo. goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Raa Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 Some USB3 controllers (even integrated ones) don't play nice either in BIOS/EFI, or pre OS load, rendering them useless when trying to install Windows, for example. snaphat (Myles Landwehr) 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Observer Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 I would personally rather esata USB3 is far better that eSata imho, main reason is that i can power my USB3 2.5" drive on the one cable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CrossCheck Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 what i wanna know is why is there still an antiquated PS2 port. geez some boards still have a standard pci slot. snaphat (Myles Landwehr) 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snaphat (Myles Landwehr) Member Posted December 2, 2013 Member Share Posted December 2, 2013 Esata is about as direct as you can get. It will go up in speed as your sata goes up in speed. In some cases it is just a converter cable to convert sata to esata. The down side is that cable/port is all data, no power to run the drive. As ssd drives bring us closer to the limits of the ports, I want it as fast as I can get it and esata is a bit faster. I do like the convenience of usb powered drives. Besides with the right controller, you can do a hardware raid off of one esta port and the right enclosure, try doing that with usb. They do make devices like lacie and drobo that support multiple disks and connect via usb, they also have a built in os to handle the drives, formatting, and partitioning. The esata does this with much less expensive enclosures and is much more direct than dealing with a lacie or drobo. I suppose it is a fair point that if you hit the limit that esata will be faster here. Did you see the SATA 3.2 revisions? I saw them the other day (I forget where). I'm wondering where they leave esata. I didn't know that esata enclosures were less expensive; money is always a good reason to go for those instead ;-) goretsky 1 Share Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The_Observer Posted December 2, 2013 Share Posted December 2, 2013 what i wanna know is why is there still an antiquated PS2 port. geez some boards still have a standard pci slot. LOl this is true, and what about serial ports and PS2 ports, time to drop them all and move on! Lets live in the future dam it! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sc302 Veteran Posted December 2, 2013 Veteran Share Posted December 2, 2013 USB3 is far better that eSata imho, main reason is that i can power my USB3 2.5" drive on the one cable.As I said that is the one advantage I like. Great for memsticks and pocket drives. I end up using more usb2 than usb 3. The 3 ports are usually in a very inconvenient spot which requires me crawling on the ground to reach when going from computer to computer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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