Has anyone thought of fitting a PCI-USB3 card?

netadict · 05 Jun 2013

I have one USB3 port on my laptop, a few days ago I bought my first USB3 flash drive, which was a lot faster than I expected so I thought of upgrading my desktop with USB3 ports.

bobafetthotmail · 06 Jun 2013

Placing a USB3 card on a PCI slot is pointless, as the PCI bandwith is not anywhere near enough for that.

All USB3 cards I've seen around are PCI-e, and the best slot is a second generation PCI-e x1. Seems like your PC has a PCI-e x1 slot, probably first gen. If that is the case , transfer speeds will be a bit less than what they are in your laptop (or maybe not if the flash drive was slower than that).
Also note that even if the card has more than 1 USB3 port, they all share the same PCI-e slot, and yours being a first gen (slower), transfer speed will decrease if you are moving files from two (or more) devices at the same time. It's a bit like a USB3 hub.

Watch this video to see how they look and how you can install one correctly. The molex or power connector should be connected if you plan to use USB3 hard drives with it as well, as PCI-e power may not be enough for it.

netadict · 07 Jun 2013

OK so the only way to get a real USB3 port running at proper USB3 speeds is to buy a new PC with built in USB3 ports

jimbo45 · 07 Jun 2013

Hi there
USB3 cards even on 2nd gen machines don't give anything like the expected speed -- IMO they are a waste of money -- you sometimes get BETTER performance just plugging the USB3 device into a USB slot (ensure it's USB2 though not the older USB legacy stuff). By Better I mean that you get faster than the normal USB2 devices because the USB3 device can use the full speed of the USB2 slot whereas you won't get 100% speed from a USB2 device.

However the speed will still be considerably below any normal USB3 device.

As the previous poster says get a laptop or Mobo with NATIVE USB3 ports if you think you need USB3.

Actually a decent USB3 Hub on a USB3 port works passably well -- and using say old USB2 devices on it you can get full USB2 speeds from your old devices -- faster than by plugging in to a native USB2 port !!! since the USB3 device will allow the USB2 device to transfer at its maximum speed.

Cheers
jimbo

smarteyeball · 07 Jun 2013

One of my patriot drives came with a PCI-E USB 3.0 card.

Hands down faster than USB 2.0

I saw pretty close to full tilt with USB 3.0 devices.

netadict · 07 Jun 2013

I have the feeling that I will bump into the following problem one day: I buy a USB3 device and connect it to a USB3 port but I don't get the advertised speed because the port is an honest USB3 port able to deal with the speeds but the device connected to the USB3 port ( portavle hard disk or whatever) can't handle the speed! So I guess it's important to buy known brands that have a reputation to worry about, in cases like this.

Thank you all for your money saving tips, I was about to go and buy a USB3-PCI card as soon as they come out in this county.