The best you’ll do on most modern desktop computers for USB 3.0 ports today is one or two at most. Yet many PCs don’t even come with a USB 3.0 port. To take advantage of the massive SuperSpeed USB external storage and flash drives out there, desktop PC users don’t necessarily have to be looking to buy a brand-new rig to get additional USB 3.0 ports. Many motherboards have an x4 PCI Express slot tucked away inside that goes unused. HighPoint has a 4-port USB 3.0 PCI Express 2.0 card that pops into that forlorn slot and that provides a much needed USB 3.0 upgrade for a desktop PC.
The only downside to cards like this for some users is that the computer has to be opened up, which could void warranties. The HighPoint RocketU has 4 discrete ASMedia ASM1024U controllers integrated giving each port full 5Gbps bandwidth. That means each port has access to the highest potential USB 3.0 speeds. Theoretically, this particular card offers a total of 20Gbps of data throughput. It has out-of-the-box support for both Windows and Linux; Mac Pro users looking for Snow Leopard or Lion support will have to check out the Mac version of the RocketU card. During everyday use, Everything USB found the ports are a bit too close together for multiple flash drives to use at once, but the card is still impressive. Read all the details in the full review.
