USB 3.0 PCIe Card, Full Height (Kit)

USB 3.0 PCIe Card, Full Height – expansion card with two USB 3.0 connectors.

USB 3.0 (aka SuperSpeed USB) is a major update to USB 2.0 that promises higher performance with better power management. It was first introduced on September 17, 2007 at the Intel Developer Forum. Transfer rates can go up to 4.8 Gbits/s as opposed to USB 2.0's 480 Mbits/s. It is achieved through the SuperSpeed technology which allows multiple streams of data transfer.

USB 2.0 has 4 wires: two data lines, power and ground. USB 3.0 uses an additional 5 wires - two transmit lines, two receive lines and an additional ground - for a total 9. The extra wires constitute an additional bus that works in parallel with the HighSpeed USB 2.0 port.

USB 3.0 is similar to earlier version of USB in that it is a cable bus supporting data exchange between a host computer and a wide range simultaneously accessible peripherals. USB 3.0 utilizes a dual-bus architecture that provides backward compatibility with USB 2.0. It provides for simultaneously operation of SuperSpeed and non-SuperSpeed (USB 2.0 speeds) information exchanges.