FM2A88X Extreme 4+ USB question

Hello friends. How are you?

I am a happy customer of this motherboard with an AMD A107890k.

I have a stupid question about USB3 ports, and I have it since many time ago.

The specs says: 4 USB3 (Eltron EJ188) and 2 USB (AMD A88X Bolton D4).

This is in the back.

What is the difference between both? which one is better?
Why does it have different chips controlling the USB?

Thank you


Edited by hgonzale - 24 Aug 2016 at 10:49pm

hgonzale wrote: Hello friends. How are you? I am a happy customer of this motherboard with an AMD A107890k. I have a stupid question about USB3 ports, and I have it since many time ago. The specs says: 4 USB3 (Eltron EJ188) and 2 USB (AMD A88X Bolton D4). This is in the back. What is the difference between both? which one is better? Why does it have different chips controlling the USB? Thank you

Your thread's title "FM2A88X USB question" does not really tell us what mother board you have. There are eight ASRock mother boards with "FM2A88X" in their name.

Etron was the first company to provide a USB 3.0 chip that could be used on mother boards. But that does not mean it is better or worse that AMD's or other manufacture's USB 3.0 support.

"Better" could mean several things, faster, more stable, no issues, continued driver support, etc. The only way to know if the AMD or Etron USB 3.0 support is better for your use is to test it yourself.

The chipset on the motherboard only supplies a set number of ports, the same is true of any additional controller. Every port requires resources from the system and these are not limitless. The more ports a controller provides the more it costs. There is also the option to use port splitters etc but again this adds cost to the product. The restrictions therefore are 2 fold, limitations in the controllers themselves (resource requirements) and cost of implementation.

The A88X FCH has four USB 3.0 ports. Seeings it's impossible to add another FCH be thankful MB manufacturers do add a third party USB 3.0 controller.