“What was once an unverifiable rumor from an anonymous source has now, sadly, become a confirmed fact. Intel won’t be integrating USB 3.0 support into its chipsets until at least 2011. Motherboard makers such as ASUS can still opt to add discrete 3.0 controllers at an extra cost, but Intel — already accused of dragging its heels on the standard’s development — won’t be. NVIDIA spokesman Brian Burke has expressed, in no uncertain terms, his company’s disappointment with Intel, while also claiming that chipsets by NVIDIA are more feature-rich and just plain better than Intel’s own efforts. We’ll add this to our ever- growing collection of things NVIDIA doesn’t like about Intel, but we also hope that the immature outburst doesn’t obscure the real issue. NVIDIA is correct in noting that Intel needs competition in the chipset space, and the new interconnect’s dependence on Intel’s whims demonstrates the market-altering powers that reside in Santa Clara, CA. Unless another chipmaker gets serious about competing with Intel, we could face plenty more of these seemingly arbitrary delays in tech rollouts.”Here is some more Tech News from around the web:
- Anand’s Thoughts on the Kindle 2 and Marvell Making Affordable eBook Readers
- Functioning X-men “Pyro” costume flamethrower appliance @ MAKE:Blog
- The Web may have won, but Gopher tunnels on @ Ars Technica
- First DirectCompute Benchmark Released @ NGOHQ
- Building A Benchmarking Test Farm With Phoromatic @ Phoronix
- Augmented Reality: State of the Art VR Technology Today @ Digital Trends
- Canon PowerShot S90 Review @ Digital Trends
- Win a copy of Shattered Horizon @ Elite Bastards
- Win a Zotac GTX 295 in Dabs launch celebration @ HEXUS
- Our November Thanksgiving giveaway @ Ars Technica
- Giveaway: Win a Lynnfield Core i7 System @ AnandTech
Intel’s Universal Serial Blindspot
It would seem that Intel chipsets will not be natively supporting USB 3.0 until sometime in 2011, according to a confirmed rumour you can read about on Engadget. nVIDIA has stepped out of the chipset business, only supporting their current platforms, so you can count them out as well. ALi, SiS and VIA have pretty much backed out of the enthusiast market; which leaves AMD to fill the needs of USB 3.0 fans that want native support. There are no licensing issues so you can expect to see support for the new high speed USB interface on Intel based boards, with support coming from 3rd party chips added to the motherboard. You will also be able to pick up PCIe cards, to allow support on any board as well. It seems possible that Intel’s reluctance stems from their LightPeak technology which Ryan saw at the IDF. USB 3.0’s maximum theoretical bandwidth tops out at 5,000mbit/s while LightPeak claims 10,000mbit/s and may scale 10 times higher, so this might not be a terrible idea on their part