Rampage IV GENE: The World's First Certified USB 3.0 Motherboard

The ASUS Rampage IV GENE has been awarded as the world's first Intel X79 motherboard formally certified as USB 3.0 ready by the USB International Forum  (USB-IF).

Quoted from ASUS’ statement regarding the Rampage IV GENE:

"In addition to its many advantages, the Rampage IV GENE has also secured the honor of being the first Intel® X79-based motherboard formally authorized and certified USB 3.0-ready by the USB Implementers Forum. Certification speaks of the extensive testing and compatibility assurance ASUS puts into every board from early development to shipping." 

This announcement is in addition the features already embedded in ASUS’X79 series – including ROG – that includes an in-house development called USB 3.0 Boost which overclocks USB 3.0 performance for standard BOT devices.

In addition to this, newer "UASP" support has also been added for USB 3.0 hardware that supports it. USB International Forum . Current USB 3.0 is based on a technology called "BOT" which only handles a single command package at a time, while the "UASP" mode allows multiple simultaneous commands to be issued at once. This reduces wait times, maximizes bandwidth utilization, and therefore enables faster and more efficient transfers. The downside is that to enable UASP it requires the recipient device to be compatible, which means new USB 3.0 peripherals. Thankfully UASP is backward compatible to BOT and ASUS X79 boards – including ROG - support both.