Asus and Gigabyte USB 3.0 certification lies

Naughty, naughty, very naughty.

Throughout the creation of a review site, it involves liasing with PR companies and the companies marketing managers and directors. You start to build a rapport and get the latest industry breaking news. Among this, you recieve periodical press releases and sometimes, occassionaly a contradication will arise.

Today happens to be one of those days.

There are certain situations which cause controversy between big companies including rival GPU creators, motherboard manufacturer’s etc… This time, it’s the battle for the USB 3.0 certification from usb.org between the 2 biggest rival motherboard manufacturer’s Asus and Gigabyte.

Upon our daily tasks of publishing press releases and the latest news, we were greeted with this press release titled “GIGABYTE First With USB 3.0 Motherboard Certification” on 4th January 2010. On 5th January 2010 we were greeted with a press release titled “ASUS Leads the Industry with the First USB 3.0 Certified Motherboard“.

A simple check on the usb.org compliance website should clear things up, right? Wrong. By checking on the usb.org compliance website here for superspeed products only, reveals both the Asus and Gigabyte boards.

The two boards in question are the Asus P6X58D PREMIUM and the Gigabyte GA -P55A-UD3 which this reporter has first hand knowledge of the Gigabyte board only being published on the compliance site today (8th January 2010).

So i hear you all shouting at me saying “Andy, what does this mean?”

Simply put, it either means that Asus are lying and technically weren’t first, or Gigabyte are lying and technically weren’t first. Or could it be that usb.org are the perpetrator and both motherboard manufacturer’s were indeed first.

An official statement from Gigabyte reads:

The timing was as follows:

• 31 Dec – we received information by email from USB-IF about our mobo passed their tests
• 04 Jan – we sent news to media about it as far as i know Asus informed that “(…) the P6X58D Premium was officially recognized for achieving USB 3.0 or SuperSpeed USB compliance on January 5, 2010″

An official statement from Asus reads: Thanks for your enquiries regarding USB 3.0 official certification. The ASUS P6X58D Premium is the first to receive USB 3.0 certification from USB-IF. Even though our competitor posted the news earlier than ASUS (January 4th versus January 6th), a check of USB-IF’s certified products list reveals that, as of January 7th, the ASUS P6X58D Premium was the only motherboard listed.

A capture of this is available below:

As you can see from the screenshots above (supplied by Asus), Gigabyte are no where to be found, an update to the usb.org website clearly shows that Gigabyte are listed now. Gigabyte contacted us this morning with this quote:

Our MB has appeared on this website finally:

http://www.usb.org/kcompliance/view/view_item?item_key=7d0b4ddb36b12f78e15a0dbcf6c45ca24c729b40&referring_url=/kcompliance

So the question is, who is telling the truth in this world exclusive story of being the first for USB 3.0 certification? Maybe it was just one big mix up on usb.org’s behalf? We will update you soon.