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asrock usb 3.1 card/ A+C bandwith
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WTF9090 View Drop Down
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    Posted: 12 Jun 2015 at 12:16am
Hello asrock,

I have an question about your asrock usb 3.1 card/ A+C with a pci-express x4 interface connector..
You may know that the Z97 platform have a limited bandwith on pci-express lanes..

I really like to know if this asrock usb 3.1 card/ A+C really needs the full bandwith of this pci-e x4 connector or is it just Pci-e 2x lanes based controller card? And is it fully compatible with asus motherboards?

I asking this because iam in a situation that my asus z97 pro gamer motherboard shares 2x pci-express lanes (both pci-express 1x slots) with the M.2 X2 10Gb/sec slot and the last PCi-express 16x slot on the bottom of the board..

If iam going to use the M.2 slot or put one of my pci-e 1x slot a card inside. The bottom slot would switching back to pci-e 2x 2.0 instead.. So i really like to know if i can use this USB 3.1 card on the bottom slot.

Do you also know when this 3.1 card would be available in stores? Will be this in july or after the summer.


Edited by WTF9090 - 12 Jun 2015 at 12:17am
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You can see the ASRock USB 3.1/A+C AIC product page here:

http://www.asrock.com/mb/spec/card.asp?Model=USB%203.1/A%2bC

This card is physically a PCIe x4 interface connection as you know. Electrically, this card is x2, so uses two PCIe lanes, and is compatible with PCI Express 1.1, 2.0 and 3.0 specifications.

Regarding compatibility with a non-ASRock board, I am not 100% sure that this card will be compatible. Since this card must comply with USB standards, which should be used by any mother board manufacture, IMO it should work in any modern mother board.

Availability of this card depends upon where you live in the world. This card is being sold by an online retailer in the USA now, as you can see here:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16813998030

A review of this card on the page above said it worked fine in a non-ASRock board.
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What do you plug into this card?  I cannot find even ONE USB 3.1 flash drive.  Or I would buy TODAY.
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Xaltar View Drop Down
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So far as I can tell, nothing yet but

Here is a list of upcoming USB 3.1 devices due to release in the next few months. 
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I actually considered adding one of these to the build i've just done, in the end i didn't bother, simply for that reason above - there are no devices available right now that i would have to get, and there will be a number of cards hitting the market soon, form the likes of Startech, and the price will come down, whilst the choices go up :)

Also the uses my machine was planned for i saw no need to get on.

It did surprised me that there was no supplementary power connector on it, i was expecting it to need one, rather than trying to draw everything through the PCIe socket, and that might have assisted in powered sockets when thePC was off as well.

Another thing to consider, as with all these cards, is the throughput bandwidth wise, i've seen a number of these types of things, such as USB 3.0 and Firewire cards that give additional internal as well as external sockets, but when you add up the combined abilities of said sockets, you find the interface they are connected to can't sustein them at full speed when used together !
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Originally posted by Gunslinger Gunslinger wrote:

I actually considered adding one of these to the build i've just done, in the end i didn't bother, simply for that reason above - there are no devices available right now that i would have to get, and there will be a number of cards hitting the market soon, form the likes of Startech, and the price will come down, whilst the choices go up :)

Also the uses my machine was planned for i saw no need to get on.

It did surprised me that there was no supplementary power connector on it, i was expecting it to need one, rather than trying to draw everything through the PCIe socket, and that might have assisted in powered sockets when thePC was off as well.

Another thing to consider, as with all these cards, is the throughput bandwidth wise, i've seen a number of these types of things, such as USB 3.0 and Firewire cards that give additional internal as well as external sockets, but when you add up the combined abilities of said sockets, you find the interface they are connected to can't sustein them at full speed when used together !


You made some good points here in general, although they all don't apply to this USB 3.1 AIC.

PCIe x4 cards are limited to 25W of power by the PCIe standard. This card is rated at a charge current of three Amps or 15W at 5V. Assuming the card will use 25W, only one device can be charged at 15W. That is, if the device being charged will even draw that much current.

Bandwidth issues can appear as you described, but as we have seen over and over in the specs of any type of storage or storage related devices, the magic words "Up to...". Which does not mean, as this is read by many people as "It will provide...".

The 5Gb/s or 10Gb/s of one PCIe 2.0 or 3.0 lane is the raw throughput of bits under the best circumstances. In actual use, data transfer has protocol overhead that reduces the amount of data transmitted. Plus these specs are in bits, not bytes.

Add in cards like these are limited by the PCIe lanes provided by the board's chipset and CPU, as well as how many of those lanes are in use by other interfaces. If AIC cards like this were built as x8, users would complain they use PCIe lanes they rather allocate to their GPU.

The two USB 3.1 ports on this card will still be limited by the two PCIe lanes that they use. But usually the main limitation is the bandwidth of the storage devices connected to these ports. Most USB 3.0 flash drives have relatively poor write speeds. What we don't remember is USB flash drives are basically TLC NAND flash devices similar to SSDs but using the USB interface (no AHCI or NCQ as in SATA) and no TRIM, unlike SSDs. The poor write speeds of USB flash drives are inherent to the limitations of the USB interface and realities of NAND flash memory.
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Yeah, each card of these type is likely to be subtly different, as you say that good old "up to...." catch all phrase is always present in such performance claims these days, and because they stick it on everything, people become conditioned to sort of ignore it, i know i have been guilty of this at times Tongue

The line you have about 5Gb/s or 10Gb/s, yeah, quite right, things are never as transparent as they seem, i think the best example i can use to describe what i was explaining (poorly!) is a USB 3.0 card, designed for those with no internal usb 3 header, or those that want an extra pair of sockets, said card comes with a standard motherboard header socket, which can accommodate up to 2 usb 3.0 sockets, they then put 2 usb 3.0 Type A sockets, on the rear mounting bracket of the card.... and connect it via a PCIe x1 socket Wacko now i'm not great at maths, and the bits vs bytes etc etc etc can always trip me up, but even i know that single lane socket isn't going to support those sockets all being used at the same time, without throttling somewhere!


I thought the ASRock card was Electrically wired as x2 not x4 ? or is that purely for the data throughput, and the power delivered is the same ?

as for the Lane allocation... i'm not a gamer, so i see things from the other side of the fence so to speak, too much emphasis on games, and allocating too many resources to GPU's Pinch (i better run away and hide after saying that before i get stoned to death lol)


You do bring up a good point regarding the devices, early devices are not likely to use the full capabilities of the interface, second generation is likely to be better, first gen devices will likely be modified to suit this new format, rather than designed with it in mind


EDIT: on an entertaining note, while trying to edit this for typos, i make a load of those, i hit the wrong button..... it seems you can not thank yourself for your post Embarrassed LOL


Edited by Gunslinger - 28 Jun 2015 at 7:46pm
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Originally posted by Gunslinger Gunslinger wrote:

as for the Lane allocation... i'm not a gamer, so i see things from the other side of the fence so to speak, too much emphasis on games, and allocating too many resources to GPU's Pinch (i better run away and hide after saying that before i get stoned to death lol)

EDIT: on an entertaining note, while trying to edit this for typos, i make a load of those, i hit the wrong button..... it seems you can not thank yourself for your post Embarrassed LOL

ROFL so true, gamers tend to be the vocal majority these days.

Don't worry about the thank yourself miss-hap, it happens to us all at some point or other LOL 
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