ASUS has announced that it is bringing USB 3.1 support to a wide range of X99, Z97 and B85 Express chipset based motherboards and has also launched two ASUS USB 3.1 add-on cards based on PCI-Express interface.

Both ASUS new motherboards with built-in USB 3.1 as well as ASUS USB 3.1 add-on cards will deliver next-generation 10Gbit/s data transfer speeds and are fully backwardly compatible with previous USB standards.

To start shipping in the middle of this month, the new ASUS motherboards and the add-on card will benefit from ASUS' USB 3.1 Boost technology, reaching sequential read/write performance of up to 854.6 / 863.9 MB/s, which is much faster than competing USB 3.1 products, according to ASUS.

Based on ASMedia USB 3.1 controller, ASUS will add dual USB 3.1 Type-A ports to a wide range of motherboards based on Intel's X99, Z97 and the B85 Express chipset. These motherboards will have a "/USB 3.1" suffix and the full list includes the X99-Pro/USB 3.1, X99-A/USB 3.1 (Transfer Express), X99-A/USB 3.1, X99-E WS/USB 3.1, Z97-Deluxe/USB 3.1, Z97-Pro (Wi-Fi ac)/USB 3.1, Z97-A/USB 3.1, Z97-E/USB 3.1, Z97-K/USB3.1, Sabertooth Z97 Mark 1/USB 3.1, B85M-G Plus/USB 3.1 and the B85-Plus/USB 3.1.

In addition to a full line of motherboards with dual Type-A USB 3.1 ports, ASUS will also launch an easy-fit ASUS USB 3.1 Card, which will be available in two versions, with dual Type-A ports or a single reversible Type-C USB 3.1 port. These will be based on a PCI-Express interface and be compatible with all ASUS X99 and Z97 chipset-based motherboards immediately as well as more ASUS motherboards via BIOS and driver update.






The ASUS USB 3.1 Type-A Card will be also bundled with two new motherboard bundles, the Rampage V Extreme/U3.1 and the X99-Deluxe/U3.1.






The price of new ASUS motherboards with USB 3.1 port should not be a lot different compared to existing similar ASUS motherboards while the USB 3.1 Card add-on cards will have an MSRP of US $39.





Source: ASUS.com.