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Gigabyte announces PCIe USB 3.2 expansion card

The world's first PCIe USB 3.2 expansion card has arrived courtesy of Gigabyte, but details are scarce regarding official price points.

Gigabyte USB PCI Card

Gigabyte has announced the arrival of a PCIe card to add full compatibility with USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 devices to existing PCs. The device, simply called the Gigabyte USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 Expansion Card, is based upon the ASMedia ASM3242 host controller which has been used on some AMD TRX40 motherboards and provides one USB-C port on a rear PCI slot of your PC.

The device installs in a 4x PCIe 3 slot, which provides all the power it needs for the single USB port. USB expansion cards with a larger number of ports typically need additional power so it will be interesting to see if and how this technology scales up in the future. It is worth bearing in mind that, as good as USB 3.2 Gen 2×2 is, external devices like SSDs that use it are backward compatible with USB 3 PC ports and the increase in speed, even from this apparent mismatch, is considerable.

No official pricing has been confirmed as the initial run released was only a hundred units and already snapped up, but Gigabyte has confirmed there will be more.