14 DAY TRIAL // Since they first came out, the SATA 6Gbps and USB 3.0 interfaces have been best known for two things in particular. One was their significant increase in performance when it came to data-transfer capabilities and the other was their equally significant scarcity. To enable consumers to upgrade their motherboards to the new technologies, companies have released several PCI Express adapter cards. More recently, ASRock was revealed to also be developing its own models.
The SATA 6Gbps achieves data-transfer rates twice as fast as those of the SATA II interface. This enables the storage solution to operate faster, increasing the overall system performance. The USB 3.0 delivers similar improvements over the USB 2.0, only the speed is improved by ten times instead of just two. ASRock is gearing up to launch a PCI Express adapter card for each of these two interfaces.
The USB 3.0 card is based on NEC's µPD720200 USB 3.0 host controller. It is equipped with two USB ports, each of which is capable of transfers of up to 5.0 Gbps, compared with the USB 2.0 480 Mbps. The adapter uses the PCI Express 2.0 x1 interface and is compatible with Microsoft Windows 7, Windows 7 64-bit, Windows Vista, Vista 64-bit, Windows XP and XP 64-bit.
The SATA 6Gbps PCI Express adapter has a compatibility largely similar to that of the USB 3.0 device, but, besides two SATA3 connectors, it also boasts an eSATA3 port (shared with a SATA connector). Unlike the USB 3.0 card, however, this product does not support Windows XP. The SATA 6Gbps PCI Express adapter card is built with the Marvell 88SE9123 chip.
Besides selling the products on their own, the company will also be bundling the SATA 6Gbps adapter with some of its motherboards. Details may be found on the company's website. Unfortunately, there is no clear word on the pricing of the two products, nor on how much longer consumers have to wait before they can get their hands on one.