Aaron Spink (aaronspink@notearthlink.net) on 9/28/10 wrote:
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>USB 3.0? Useful for pretty much no one.

Backup to external HDD: 1TB of data at 30MB/s is 9h vs. 2h for 150MB/s (possible for HDD). Any external storage benefits from USB3.0, including flash, hdd, and blu-ray, media players, photos/videos from camera.

USB3.0 pendrive might give average user (still with HDD) a speedup via ReadyBoost better than let's say a higher model CPU (USB2 @ 30MB/s max has limit of ~7.5k 4kB IOPS!) .

But also think about high-res, 120Hz, stereoscopic webcams and many other multimedia devices.

For professionals: Connection to high-res medical imaging equipment. Connection to multiple gigabit networks via external USB cards. Or even things like faster color image printing on laser printers with large buffers if connected directly, faster scanning.

Besides USB is supposed to be enabler for future usages, not a thing that stucks us at what's usefull now. You are supposed to use this new computer for 3-5 years, in the middle of this period USB 2.0 will be obsolete in a sense of handicapping peripherials avialable then.

Remember you want enthusiasts to connect lot's of "usefull to no one" gadgets to computers. If people really start thinking of usefullness of computers then they would really start selling badly.

In case of laptops USB3 is a form of maximalization of usability of physical space, allows you to get highest maximum external bandwith connection per small form factor.

>SATA-3? Useful for pretty much no one.

SSD users.

>PCI-E slots? Useful for pretty much no one.

Basically the only way to connect anything fast not already on motherboard to a computer.

The only way to get GPGPU functionality on Sandy Bridge platforms (AMD will soon have APUs with it integrated).

Having more PCI-Express slots may also be an economic issue, as dual/triple midrange GPUs are usually cheaper than a single high-end one.

>iSCSI boot is a bios issue. And useful for pretty much no one.
>

It would be much better if office computers booted from remote servers/arrays with HA (RAIDs, snapshots etc.), where all their storage would be located while having only some kind of tiny, high-IOPS (and SATA3) Flash SSD for cache.

This would also be a speed booster, as PCs have high peak IOPS requirements, while for most time staying almost idle. This supports argument for pooling the storage for high peak IOPS performance.

iSCSI is also nice as it can use multiple physical links, without a need to use complicated network configuration (link aggregation etc.). Unlimited disk performance for desktop users and also gives HA.

I also think home computers could benefit for such setup, but only in homes that use multiple computers.

>Integrated graphics? Useful to the vast majority of the >market.

Graphics itself is necessary for users. Not "integrated graphics". Desktop users would be much better with discrete graphics - it's faster, doesn't steal RAM capacity or bandwith, and also allows for more connectivity, like current 3-display outputs AMD products.

IGPs are useful for notebook users mainly because of low power usage.

>The vast majority of home users have a couple peripherals for which USB2 is likely
>more than fast enough. And that's it.

The electronic industry needs to make a reason for them to buy more. And Intel needs to assure computer stays at the center of interconnect of them.

>What deficiencies? USB3 is by far just a gimmick at this point with minimal support.
>SATA3? not likely. more PCI-E? what for the <1% of the <1% of the <1% of the
>market who actually buy high end GPUS and then want to use multiple of them? And for who 2 isn't multiple enough?

To be fair - a faster CPU is the least useful of all these mentioned features. At home I most frequently use sub-2GHz dual core machine, despite having >2GHz quad core with 8GB RAM on the same KVM. I've bought my parents a quad core to replace broken single core, and they didn't notice any difference in performance (HDD stayed the same though - maybe here lies the reason for percieved better performance of new computers over older ones?)

USB3 is most usefull of these features (even the name - "Universal[...]" suggests this.