ASUS is known for their plethora of world firsts. They have done more of these than, dare I say it, any other company that I’ve seen and today they have announced one more. Oh, and this one is ever so brilliant. It is the world first USB 3.0 certification for 8 series motherboards.
The TUF Gryphon Z87, H87-Plus and the B85-Plus motherboards with the 4th generation Intel Core processors will be the first ones to receive the USB 3.0 SuperSpeed certification. This is essential to ensuring that the devices are compatible with the USB 3.0 standard and only ASUS is able to offer this assurance for motherboards as of today. Nice, right?
The certification process is no easy feat. The motherboards in question had to pass through around 190 exacting tests that were set by the US Implementers Forum and include things like: signal quality checks, stress tests and sustained transmission speed. The full SuperSpeed data-transfer rate is around ten times faster than USB 2.0 and is up to 5Gbit/s. Impressive stuff. All the motherboards approved by this certification process had to also show that they had compatibility with existing USB devices and that they could work perfectly with 39 different products and device types.
This is essential to ensuring that the backward compatibility ethos of USB remains intact and users are not left with devices that no longer work when investing in new technology. The devices that they use in these tests include video cameras, mice, headsets, printers and USB drives.
The motherboards selected by ASUS to receive this certification were not exactly the ones they just happened to have lying around. Oh no, here you have the utterly awesome ASUS TUF Gryphon Z87 that’s a military grade micro-ATX motherboard that can handle extremely tough environments. Even if you keep it enrobed in a fluffy blanket on a soft pillow this is still a totally cool piece of kit. One day, when I grow up, I want to have an entire case filled with military grade components. Just so I can survive the zombie apocalypse without worrying whether my PC will break under the weight of all those brains.
So, if you happen to be thinking of getting a new motherboard you can’t really go far wrong with the H87-Plus, Gryphon, and B85-Plus motherboards as they boast the very best and very latest in technology.
Tamsin