adding a USB 3.0 PCIE

Guys, I have a not so old CPU and I am getting frustrated with the transfer speed (since the mother board only supports USB 2.0) and I was planning to upgrade my motherboard to I could take advantage of the 3.0 transfer speed. While shopping for a compatible motherboard, I happened to see this PCIE add-on (see attached file). I asked the technician if he as any idea on what speed will I be getting (2.0 or 3.0) and he has no idea since they just received that part and has not tested it yet.

In your expert opinion, will I be getting the full 3.0 speed or still the same 2.0 with this attached on my motherboard (Asus P8H61-M)?

The card should give you USB 3.0 transfer speeds. Another consideration, though, is what type of HDDs or SSDs do you have installed. For example, if you have a SATA III HDD or SSD, but only SATA II on the motherboard, you would be better off moving up to a SATA III motherboard with USB 3.0 to increase your HDD or SSD transfer speed as well. Also something to consider if you plan on upgrading a SATA II HDD to something faster in the future.

NavyLCDR said:

The card should give you USB 3.0 transfer speeds. Another consideration, though, is what type of HDDs or SSDs do you have installed. For example, if you have a SATA III HDD or SSD, but only SATA II on the motherboard, you would be better off moving up to a SATA III motherboard with USB 3.0 to increase your HDD or SSD transfer speed as well. Also something to consider if you plan on upgrading a SATA II HDD to something faster in the future.

I'm not too familiar with the technical terms used but can you clarify if my motherboard only supports SATA II or III? Or are you referring to the speed of my external HDD?

Those boards need drivers too and on the box on the picture it shows being compatible up to Win XP x64 only.

I think you might have misread the picture. It shows Vista and Win7 also.

jaypels said:

I'm not too familiar with the technical terms used but can you clarify if my motherboard only supports SATA II or III? Or are you referring to the speed of my external HDD?

SATA II or III refers to the hard drive interface itself. The SATA controller for your external hard drive will be inside the enclosure containing the hard drive and convert the USB signal to that going into the hard drive. It will also be the controller on your motherboard inside that connects to the internal hard drives or SSDs. Just like your USB hard drive where both the hard drive enclosure and the motherboard must be USB 3.0, both the controller on the motherboard and the hard drive itself must support SATA III to get SATA III speeds. But I am talking about two almost completely unrelated interfaces here.

I only mention it because you are obviously looking for an upgrade to improve transfer speeds and just think it might be wise to look further down the road and ask yourself if only the USB 3.0 upgrade is going to last you for the long term or are you going to want to upgrade all of your hard drive/SSD transfer speeds. Granted, it's only $20 for the USB 3.0 card so if you do decide to go all the way and upgrade your internal hard drive transfer speeds you won't have wasted too much. I have a USB 3.0 PCIe card sitting in my basement, it worked fairly well with Windows 10. It's in my basement now because I first wanted the upgrade to USB 3.0. Then I got an SSD for inside the computer. Oh....the SSD is SATA III capable but my motherboard is only SATA II...well with the upgrade to a SATA III motherboard it also had USB 3.0 built-in (unrelated to each other) so no use for the PCIe card anymore!

topgundcp said:

If you have an extra 5 1/4 bay. It's better to use a dash board which includes: Card reader, USB3, Sata/eSata port and power and it works in Windows 10. This is what I use for all my PC's:
Amazon.com: Nextrox® 5.25 Accessories

NOTE: Be careful using AMAZON. The price fluctuates as I only paid $29.99 for it.

topgundcp - what do the USB 3.0 ports on that dashboard plug into? For example, the USB 3.0 ports on the front of my case plug into a USB 3.0 header on my motherboard. In the photos on Amazon it looks like the dashboard has a cable connector that plugs into a USB 3.0 header on the motherboard.

Cool! Thank you for clearing that up! Now that you labeled it, I do see it is a USB 2.0 connector and not USB 3.0.