At the beginning of the week we announced to you that Intel might have finally decided to adopt USB 3.0 so as not to leave the field open to AMD. The chip-maker may have chosen a solution of convenience. Rather than modifying the already well-advanced design of its own chipsets, Intel may have taken the decision to add an external controller. In a certain way, this new rumour is good news since it increases the likelihood of USB 3.0 adoption and above all speeds it up. Nevertheless, in spite of its simplicity this solution has disadvantages:
- The throughput of the USB 3.0 ports risks being shared and constrained;
- Motherboard manufacturers will have to retrofit a chip;
- USB 3.0 chips have non-negligible power consumption which will impact the battery-life of portables.
In summary, the solution isn't perfect, but it's certainly worthwhile being able to quickly have Macs with a compromise USB 3.0 capability rather than not having any, condemning the owners of those machines to not be able to benefit from this interface throughout the lifetime of their machine.
