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First post, by user33331

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Hello
Why cheap Chinese USB3.0 PCI (original not PCI-E) cards do not really exist ?
- These 2 were the only ones available. Thought that ebay would be filled with China's 5$ cards.
StarTech.com PCIUSB3S22
https://www.ebay.com/itm/StarTech-com-PCIUSB3 … swAAOSwCtJaMGp2
ADDONICS AD2U3PCI
https://www.ebay.com/itm/ADDONICS-AD2U3PCI-2P … 0AAAOSwZOVZsadu

Reply 1 of 12, by dr_st

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Probably because USB 3.0 over PCI is bogus. PCI overall bandwith is about 1Gbps and is shared between all devices. Your USB3 device will not get anything remotely sufficient to utilize its capabilities; it may hardly be worth it over USB2.

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Reply 2 of 12, by user33331

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My new case 2018 came with 2x front USB 3.0 slots and the motherboard is from 2005 so it does not have the correct plug.
Is there a way to use those USB 3.0s as regular USB 2.0 ?

Example photo of the USB 3.0 20-pin connector:
ULT-Best-USB-3-0-Front-Panel-DIY-Floppy-Drive-USB3-0-Motherboard-20pin-to-Type.jpg

Reply 4 of 12, by uzurpator

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dr_st wrote:

Probably because USB 3.0 over PCI is bogus. PCI overall bandwith is about 1Gbps and is shared between all devices. Your USB3 device will not get anything remotely sufficient to utilize its capabilities; it may hardly be worth it over USB2.

That is obviously true, but bandwidth is not all. There is also a case for more power delivered through the plug. And even in the bandwidth case - PCI 32bit is still twice as fast as USB 2.0, so plenty of devices would benefit from it.

I'm with OP here. I have a board with three PCI-X slots and nothing sensible to put there - there are no affordable PCI-X to PCI-E riser cards, nor there are USB 3.0 in any pci variety.

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Reply 5 of 12, by Auzner

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Those adapters are the perfect solution. They just ignore the extra 3.0 pins and terminate properly so the panel ports are effectively 2.0.

The fastest practical external IO for an older system would be a gigabit nic. PCI and PCI-X cards are common enough. Realistically, nobody is buying USB3 high bandwidth devices to interface to a 10 year old computer. Its onboard busses probably won't get to even feed it fast enough. Theoretical max doesn't matter if the chipset or storage or memory can't keep up.

Reply 6 of 12, by dr_st

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uzurpator wrote:

That is obviously true, but bandwidth is not all. There is also a case for more power delivered through the plug.

You can deliver the same power through USB 2.0, it's just not within the official spec, but it can work, if both sides agree on it. In practice, devices will either be fine with the low-power of standard USB 2.0 or will have external power anyways.

uzurpator wrote:

And even in the bandwidth case - PCI 32bit is still twice as fast as USB 2.0, so plenty of devices would benefit from it.

Theoretically; you probably would not get it in practice, because PCI bandwidth is shared between everything (including your hard drives and your NICs). However, USB 2.0 also does not reach its own theoretical maximum for sure. There would probably be an improvement, I agree with you there, but I guess it just wouldn't be big enough for people to care.

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Reply 7 of 12, by uzurpator

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dr_st wrote:

You can deliver the same power through USB 2.0, it's just not within the official spec, but it can work, if both sides agree on it. In practice, devices will either be fine with the low-power of standard USB 2.0 or will have external power anyways.

Well. In practice 2.0 2.5" hdd enclosures require two plugs while 3.0 just use one. So from pure practicality of it, having 3.0 is more convinient. I'd want it just for that reason.

Theoretically; you probably would not get it in practice, because PCI bandwidth is shared between everything (including your hard drives and your NICs). However, USB 2.0 also does not reach its own theoretical maximum for sure. There would probably be an improvement, I agree with you there, but I guess it just wouldn't be big enough for people to care.

From the retro - computing POV 3.0 USB overkills just about any device it might want to transfer to anyways. Hard drives today are hardly capable of sustained 100+ MB/s transfers. However, I can imagine a use case for a fast external drive even if it is capped to PCI speed. I once was compiling stuff off an USB connected drive. 3.0 would make that much faster.

I think tho, that chinese don't make those PCI 3.0 cards because they are busy building crypto mining gear and modern pcs rarely have PCI slots anyways.

Die ewigkeit ist hier und jetzt.

Reply 8 of 12, by cyclone3d

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There just isn't enough of a market for that type of card. You could always get a pci to pcie bridge card such as this:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/STARTECH-COM-PCI1PEX … rd/352268742486
and then use a cheap pcie usb 3.0 card.

Every once in a while cheap Chinese cards like that show up, but I haven't seen any in a while so not sure if they are being made any more.

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Reply 9 of 12, by user33331

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"PCI 32bit is still twice as fast as USB 2.0"
So is this PCI(regular) USB 2.0 faster than motherboards own USB 2.0 ?
https://www.ebay.com/itm/4-Port-PCI-E-to-USB- … 9QAAOSwceNZVKtn

I'll buy that USB3.0 20-pin to USB2.0 adapter wire:
- I have two connectors JUSB1/JUSB2 in the motherboard.

Reply 10 of 12, by dr_st

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user33331 wrote:

"PCI 32bit is still twice as fast as USB 2.0"
So is this PCI(regular) USB 2.0 faster than motherboards own USB 2.0 ?

No. What he meant is that the bandwidth PCI is more than double the theoretical bandwidth of USB2, so if you could dedicate that entire bandwidth to USB3, you would get a noticeable boost. In practice, it's impossible to dedicate the full PCI bandwidth to USB3, since it's shared with almost everything else.

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Reply 11 of 12, by uzurpator

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user33331 wrote:

So is this PCI(regular) USB 2.0 faster than motherboards own USB 2.0 ?

No. Speed of a chain of buses is always capped at the speed of the slowest bus in that chain. So, this card USB is as fast as usb 2.0 is. Board USB ports are usually connected via PCI or PCIe interfaces, so they should be as fast as USB can be.

I have two connectors JUSB1/JUSB2 in the motherboard.

Connecting USB 2.0 ports to those will save you a PCI slot 😀

Die ewigkeit ist hier und jetzt.