ASMedia cuts pricing of its USB 3.1 controller

Intel recently cut the pricing of its USB 3.1 chip controller from $10 to $6 and now ASMedia follows suit by dropping the pricing of its USB 3.1 product to under $3. There's a big distinction between the two chips though, the Intel solution offers a bandwidth of up to 40Gbps while the ASMedia solution can support transmissions only as high as 10Gbps.

Most motherboard makers originally adopted the ASMedia solution due to the chip pricing but now demand is shifting towards the Intel solution due to the higher performance. ASMedia hopes the price cut can help it to maintain marketshare.

Intel's solution was originally adopted mainly by Gigabyte's motherboard products, but seeing the price becoming more friendly now, Asustek Computer and Micro-Star International (MSI) have also started to purchase the solution from Intel.

Currently, motherboard players' 100 series motherboard products are using either Intel's or ASMedia's USB 3.1 solutions and adopting either Type-A or Type-C layout.

Most motherboard players such as Asustek, ASRock, MSI, Biostar and Elitegroup Computer Systems (ECS) had originally adopted ASMedia's solutions for their products because of cheap pricing, while Intel's high-price Thunderbolt 3-based USB 3.1 solutions were mainly supported by Gigabyte.