It looks like AMD might beat Intel by introducing USB 3.0 support to the market - AMD announced yesterday that its upcoming A75 and A70M Fusion chipsets will come with native support for USB 3.0. However, Intel also announced yesterday that the "Ivy Bridge" platform, the successor to Sandy Bridge processors will bring support for USB 3.0 in 2012.



While the first USB 3.0 certified products have been available since 2009, the 'Superspeed USB' specification has not found widespread adoption until now as OEMs have had to integrate a third-party USB 3.0 controller to provide this functionality. Intel has had a strong interest in promoting the LightPeak/Thunderbolt standard, which finds its way on this year's Macbook Pros, and maintains that the two standards will complement, not compete against each other. USB 3.0 brings a huge improvement in speed over USB 2.0, 5 gigabits per second over the 480 megabits per second of the former, the specification also increases the power supplied to devices via the USB port.
Via: Cnet, PCmag