Asus Launches USB4 Add-In-Card: Two 40 Gbps Ports for Desktops
by Anton Shilov on January 24, 2024 9:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
- Asus
- USB4
Asus has introduced a USB4 PCIe add-in-card for the company's desktop motherboards, allowing users to add two USB4 ports to their systems. The card can be used to connect up to four devices and a display to each of its ports, and can even be used to charge laptops that support USB charging.
The Asus USB4 PCIe Gen4 Card is based on ASMedia's ASM4242 controller and supports two USB4 ports at 40 Gbps data rates, with up to 60W USB Power Delivery. The board also has two DisplayPort inputs to in order to route graphics through the card as well in order to make full use of the versatility offered by USB4 and the Type-C cable. Alternatively, one can connect the card to the motherboard TB3/TB4 header and use integrated GPU to handle displays connected using USB-C cables.
One of the main advantages that the ports of Asus USB4 PCIe Gen4 card have over USB4 ports found on some motherboards is that it supports 60W Quick Charge 4+ to devices, which enables to charge laptops or connect devices that demand more than 15W of power (but less than 60W).
There is a catch about the Asus USB4 PCIe Gen4 card though: it is only compatible with Asus motherboards and needs a motherboard with a Thunderbolt or USB4 header (which is mostly designed to use integrated GPU). The company says that many of its AM5 and Intel 700-based motherboards have an appropriate header, so the device can be used on most of its current-generation boards.
The card operates on a PCIe 4.0 x4 interface, providing 7.877 GB/s of bandwidth to the ASMedia controller. The card also features a six-pin auxiliary PCIe connector to supply the additional power needed for the card's high-powered ports.
Asus has yet to reveal recommended price and availability date of its USB4 expansion card. Given that this is not the industry's first card of this kind, expect it to be competitively priced in comparison to existing Thunderbolt 3/4 expansion cards, which have been on the market for a while.
Source: Asus
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
22 Comments
View All Comments
bananaforscale - Thursday, January 25, 2024 - link
Look closer, there's a PCIe power connector.beginning - Tuesday, January 30, 2024 - link
It's 60W per portPeachNCream - Thursday, January 25, 2024 - link
Kludge-add an expansion card to solve the non-problem of making your keyboard and mouse reside on a faster USB port.erotomania - Friday, January 26, 2024 - link
Nice attitude but no reader here is dumb enough to do that. This thing ain't cheap, or pretty in your system.PeachNCream - Saturday, January 27, 2024 - link
It's dangerous to speak in absolutes.mindless1 - Sunday, January 28, 2024 - link
Yes, let's just stick to using abacus because much prettier than PC components.I do agree on the non-cheap part. There's only so much upgrading to an existing system that makes sense and the moment they throw a shroud over it, you know it's going to be costly.
frbeckenbauer - Wednesday, January 31, 2024 - link
What is the technical reason for the extra cables? Is USB fundamentally so broken now that you can't just put a controller on a PCIe bus and have it work?meacupla - Wednesday, January 31, 2024 - link
Those are for the internal USB4/TB ports found on Asus mobos.Which is why this card is only compatible with Asus mobos.
Skeptical123 - Wednesday, February 14, 2024 - link
"What is the technical reason for the extra cables" The article notes why."Is USB fundamentally so broken now that you can't just put a controller on a PCIe bus and have it work?" not really at least in that sense because "USB4 by itself does not provide any generic data transfer mechanism or device classes like USB 3.x, but serves mostly as a way to tunnel other protocols like USB 3.2, DisplayPort, and optionally PCIe." - wiki
So this card needs DisplayPort signal/lanes which can either be provided by the integrated gpu on the cpu by the header on the motherboard or by an external gpu with the ports on the back of the card. There is not a way to send these DP lanes over PCIe.
Rοb - Sunday, February 4, 2024 - link
This doesn't seem competitive with MSI's USB4 PD100W released years ago, and supplying an additional 49W (by using a power connector) and isn't locked to one motherboard.