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.