Transfer up to 5GB in a sec with USB 3.0 launching next week

USB 3 faced some serious issues in finalizing the specifications at the start, especially due to the differences between the big players Intel, AMD and NVIDIA; the final specs will result in a new standard, which will be ten times faster than USB 2.0. SuperSpeed USB will support maximum physical-layer throughput of 5 Gbps and application layer data rates of up to 350 Mbytes/second. The spec aims to speed transfers for high definition video and other uses where today’s 480 Mbit/second USB 2.0 can be sluggish. Initial test showed that it was possible to transfer a 25 GB file in just 70 seconds over USB 3.0 connection. This is lightning fast, when compared to USB 2.0, in which case it took an agonizingly slow 14 minutes, while it took a torturous 9.3 hours on USB 1.0.

The USB 3.0 speed, therefore comes out to be nearly 4.8 Gbps. Some other improvements in this new standard include better power management and the option of an optical interface. As for price, it is estimated to be too early to provide realistic cost or power estimates for USB 3.0 chips.
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