Nvidia confirms Intel won't back USB 3.0 until 2011

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Nvidia has confirmed that Intel will not be packaging USB 3.0 support into its chipsets until at least 2011. Motherboard manufacturers have been, and will continue to use discrete USB 3.0 controllers from third-party companies, but at an extra cost. That being the case, we should continue to see motherboards and devices equipped with the latest USB spec, but a mass adoption is unlikely at this point in time.

Nvidia spokesman Brian Burke has expressed his company's disappointment with Intel. Burke also took the opportunity to say that Nvidia's chipsets have always been full of innovative features, and have been better than Intel's own chipsets, citing the popular nettop and netbook Nvidia ION chipset as an example of his company's superiority.

"With no competition in chipsets, it seems Intel has decided that innovation is not needed for USB any time soon. With no one to push Intel to innovate, PC enthusiasts are left with Intel chipsets and the features and performance they deliver, or lack there of," said Burke.

The two companies have been at odds over a licensing disagreement earlier this year that forced Nvidia out of the chipset market for Intel's latest CPU platform.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/36821-nvidia-confirms-intel-wont-back-usb-30-until-2011.html

 

[JMMD]

I think Intel may be more focused on Light Peak or they're waiting until they get a more mature implementation of USB 3.0. More info about Light Peak can be found at the link below:

http://techresearch.intel.com/articles/None/1813.htm

 

[Kibaruk]

Hope they do turn around and say they will do this before 2011.

 

[Vrmithrax]

This is fairly typical Intel marketing... Do what you can to eliminate or reduce your competition, then decide for the consumers what hardware they will get, don't give them a choice. It's a smart plan that has worked in the past, but today's consumers are a bit more savvy, and a lot less apt to put up with being bullied into something like LightPeak. Sure, it's a great technology, but USB 3.0 is an industry standardized interface that is going to be widely adopted. I'm willing to bet that a big rash of USB 3.0 products will hit the market hard, suddenly Intel's board sales will droop as better (and cheaper) alternatives that natively support the 3.0 standard are sought after, and then Intel will be scrambling to support 3.0. It will all depend on how fast the USB 3.0 devices hit the marketplace, and how good they are.

 

[LxTrix]

Intel is playing games. Makes you wonder though what if Intel is working on a new data transfer standard?

 

[freedomthinker]

Well said nVidia !

 

[MBK]

Rofl, gotta love that nVidia comment.

As was said, Intel can try and push their own tech all they want, but USB is an industry standard, it will take off as soon as they start support, regardless of what they achieve in the mean time.

I really wish Intel had some motivation to progress though...

 

[Timonius]

lxtrix said:
Intel is playing games. Makes you wonder though what if Intel is working on a new data transfer standard?

yup, something does not add up here. But if they are working on something new it's going to be difficult to compete with usb 3.0, due to availability of usb 3.0 devices by the time they support it. So if they do come up with their own standard then what devices will use it (unless it becomes compatible somehow with an existing standard and it's predecessors)?

 

[Xclusiveitalian]

Intel not looking towards the future apparently, Intel is so rich they can pass opportunitys up like this hurts us in the long run

 

[ken777]

Definitely agree with Nvidia here. When Intel doesn't have enough competition, it gets complacent. If AMD didn't scare Intel with the Athlon 64 a few years back, I doubt that we would have seen the same pace of CPU development that we've had since. Hopefully AMD will get USB 3.0 into their chipsets a lot sooner.

 

[ET3D]

"Nvidia confirms Intel..." Yes, that makes it so trustworthy. In other news, Intel has confirmed that AMD will not have a competitive CPU any time soon and AMD has confirmed that NVIDIA will not have DX11 GPU's on the market in the next few months.

 

[Razerblade]

What is Intel doing?! If the technology is there why wait for 2 years to release it! We're meant to be moving forward not staying where we are!

 

[Puiu]

If intel manages to release it at least in Q4 of 2010 then it's good. USB 3.0 will be an high end part for an year or more and usb 3.0 devices will most likely be expensive until the market gets saturated. The more products the better and the adoption rate will also be faster.

 

[fref]

The technology is there and they are willingly holding it off. Can't the organization behind the USB standard sue them? I've seen companies being sued for much less than that.

 

[DJ83]

Sad times!! I have been waiting for the new USB3 to purchase two laptops for my relatives, guess I'll be waiting a while. Will probably get an add on pci card for my desktop. I hope this costs intel some market share so they learn to stop dictating to the consumer.

 

[Outerspace]

Not very ingenuous move by Intel, but thanks to Nec & Marvell's controllers there is some kind of support on new motherboards like ASUS P7P55D Premium or Gigabyte GA-P55A-UD4. I'm unsure how the laptop makers will respond, but USB 2.0 standard is almost 9 years old, and it's time for a new, faster one.

 

[Ju1iet]

ION is superior, I agree. But it doesn't have SpeedStep support, does it?

 

[pioneerx01]

This is still a new technology. I would not expect this to be "cheap" any time soon. Definitely not by 2011