I ordered a am3+ motherboard that has 2 usb 3.0 ports. I do not understand usb technology that much and my question is how do i benefit from this? If i plug in my mouse and keyboard in the 3.0 ports, is it gona be faster? Also I ordered a Western Digital Caviar black which uses SATA3. Does that mean my HD is going to benefit from the USB 3.0 motherbooard?

USB 3.0 has larger bandwidth then 2.0.

It's only going to help with any USB 3.0 devices you plug into it. (mostly just USB drives, video capture devices, and modems)

USB 3.0 has nothing to do with sata3 nor is it going to make your keyboard/mouse any faster.

USB 3.0 and things that can make use of this new standard means faster transfer with more bandwidth. The SATA you speak of is SATA 3gb/s transfer speed standard and has nothing to do with USB 3.O, though you do get exsternal HDD that will use USB 3.0. SATA is method for connecting HDD/SSD and is the bandwidth highway for data from your HDD/SDD to travels to the mobo. You get motherboards that support a 6gb/s transfer rate for HDD that support those rates and you get the 3gb/s transfer rates, which is more common as it's cheaper.

There is also sata 3.0 with 6gb/s. 

Sata 2.0 = 3gb/s

Ofc people just tend to name it sata 3gb/s and sata 6gb/s because using revision names confuse people o.o

Is SATA 3.0 faster than 2.0. In what ways is it faster? Like general speed like loading times?

• Plugging your mouse or keyboard to the USB 3.0 ports won't make a difference. What the USB 3.0 ports are used for is external flash drives or similar peripherals that require a lot of information transfered very fast. Your mouse and keyboard do not utilize all of USB 2.0 potential as it is, but they don't need to either. 

• SATA is a different thing from USB. SATA is used for internal hard disk drives, optical drives, solid state drives, etc., while USB is used for external peripherals (like webcams, mouse, keyboards).  SATA3 has a bandwidth of 6 Gb/s, which is much more than what your Western Digital Caviar Black hard drive will utilize, so don't worry about that. 

It simply means 'data travels faster' so yes, things will load (from the harddrive) faster than sata2, or sata1.

If u have a sata2 drive and plug it into the sata3 no the drive will NOT improve. It will go as fast as it is able(which is sata2)

but if u later get a sata3 drive and plug it into the sata2 connecter, it will transfer data only as fast as the sata2 can handle.

Same anaology works with the usb 1/2/3 - a usb 1 device will work fine when plugged into a usb3, but it will not work better. A usb 3 device would utlize all of the usb3's bandwidth so would preform as best as its able.

I'm sorry man, but you'll get quicker responses and a much better answer to your question if you just google it.

USB and SATA are entirely different types of ports.  SATA is used for internal devices, mainly hard drives, solid state drives, and optical drives.  A SATA cable does not transmit power, but there is a separate SATA power cable that goes from the power supply to the hard drive or whatever to power it.  The two recent versions of SATA are officially called SATA 6 Gb/s and SATA 3 GB/s.  They're also commonly known as SATA 3 and SATA 2, as those are the SATA standard revision numbers.  The group that formulates the SATA standard asks people to call it SATA 6 Gb/s and SATA 3 Gb/s, rather than SATA 3 and SATA 2, but those are longer names, so I think they're fighting a losing battle.

USB is entirely different.  USB ports are commonly built into the motherboard, and sometimes built into the case, though the latter requires a cable to go from the motherboard to the case to hook up the front USB ports.  USB has several versions, and the recent ones are USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.  Unlike SATA, USB can deliver power through the USB port, in addition to data.  This makes USB far more convenient than SATA for external devices.  Thus, USB is commonly used for external devices, such as keyboards, mice, printers, or external hard drives.  Devices that require more power than a USB port can send also require some other power source.  Devices that don't require very much power can get their power through the USB cable.  Keyboards and mice commonly do this.

Both SATA and USB are backward compatible.  If you have a SATA 3 device and plug it into a SATA 2 port, it will work.  Likewise, a SATA 2 device in a SATA 3 port will also work.  In either case, it will be limited to SATA 2 functionality.  The difference between SATA 2 and SATA 3 is that the former caps bandwidth at 300 MB/s, while the latter caps it at 600 MB/s.  Solid state drives based on the Marvell and second generation SandForce controllers are able to take advantage of the extra bandwidth, but no other devices that I'm aware of see any benefit from SATA 3 yet.

Hard drives have moved to SATA 3, but the SATA version of a hard drive doesn't matter in itself, as hard drives aren't anywhere near fast enough to saturate SATA 2 bandwidth.  I guess hard drive manufacturers figured that they're going to have to move eventually, so there was no real reason to wait to make the switch.  It gives their marketing department another bullet point to try to convince clueless people to buy their hard drives.  The reason you'd prefer to have a SATA 3 hard drive rather than a SATA 2 hard drive from the same line is that the SATA 3 drive is newer.  The SATA 3 doesn't matter in itself, but whatever other improvements Western Digital, Seagate, or whoever has made in the last few years might, and an older SATA 2 drive won't have those improvements.  That's only a consideration if buying new, and not a reason to run out and replace a SATA 2 drive.

The difference between USB 3.0 and USB 2.0 is much larger.  USB 3.0 offers 500 MB/s of bandwidth, while USB 2.0 only offers 50 MB/s.  Also, USB 3.0 requires the port to be able to deliver 4.5 W of power, while USB 2.0 only requires 2.5 W of power.  For a keyboard or mouse, neither of these changes matter in the slighest.  For an external hard drive, they're both a big deal, as many hard drives can go much faster than 50 MB/s in sequential transfer speeds.  Only a USB 3.0 hard drive can take advantage of USB 3.0 speeds in a USB 3.0 port, however.

The USB specification does not say that the USB port cannot deliver more than the rated power.  Gigabyte advertises that a number of their motherboards can deliver triple the rated power through a USB port.  This makes it possible to use a longer USB cable for an external hard drive and still get the proper power there, even after some is lost through the cable.  With an ordinary USB 2.0 port, this sometimes leads to the external hard drive malfunctioning.

AMD chipsets have moved to all SATA 3 ports, so modern AMD motherboards offer only SATA 3 ports and not SATA 2.  This means that you don't have to worry about which SATA port to plug which cable into, as they're all the same.  You can pick whichever one is most convenient without having to worry about functionality.  Intel's Cougar Point chipsets have two SATA 3 ports and four SATA 2 ports, which is a mess.  That ended up burning Intel badly when the SATA 2 ports were found to be defective, prompting a recall that is estimated to cost Intel $1 billion.  Older motherboards and some Cougar Point motherboards have an extra SATA 3 chip that will provide additional SATA 3 ports, beyond what the southbridge contains, which makes an even bigger mess.

Some Llano chipsets (for desktops, Socket FM1) have USB 3.0 in the chipset, but other chipsets don't.  All recent motherboards have a number of USB 2.0 ports built into the chipset.  Many motherboards have an additional USB 3.0 chip, so that they can provide USB 3.0 built into the motherboard, even if the southbridge doesn't offer it.  The USB 3.0 chip typically claims one or more PCI Express lanes from the chipset, in order to allow the USB 3.0 chip to communicate with the southbridge.  This works, but it's more steps, more latency, and more things that can go wrong, so you'd rather have USB 3.0 in the chipset.

If you have a USB 3.0 external device, then plug it into a USB 3.0 port.  There's a decent case for doing this with external USB 2.0 hard drives, too, to make sure that they have plenty of power available.  Any other external USB devices should probably be plugged into a USB 2.0 port, not USB 3.0.  This especially includes keyboards and mice.  Having to run it through an extra chip to use USB 3.0 should theoretically add extra latency, yielding worse performance, though that's too small of a difference to "feel" and might be too small to measure with synthetic benchmarks, even.  More importantly, you'd rather have fewer things that can go wrong and cause a malfunction, and you'd rather not siphon off PCI Express lanes, as in some motherboards, this means that expansion slots can't be used, or at least, don't get the full bandwidth.

Originally posted by AtmaDarkwolf

It simply means 'data travels faster' so yes, things will load (from the harddrive) faster than sata2, or sata1.

It takes the same tens of microseconds to transfer the data regardless of which SATA standard is used.  Think of it as the difference between a two lane road and a four lane road.  If you're the only car on the road, the extra lanes don't let you drive any faster.  It's only if there are tons of other cars that would cause a traffic jam on the two lane road that the extra lanes can help.

Originally posted by Goerilla

Is SATA 3.0 faster than 2.0. In what ways is it faster? Like general speed like loading times?

to a point yes... but is also depends on what you mean by loading times.

Sure the faster hard drive, will help games load a little faster, but really your GPU, Processor, and RAM also play a part in how fast a game loads.

Originally posted by tkoreaper

I'm sorry man, but you'll get quicker responses and a much better answer to your question if you just google it.

^this

SO true!

Hmm so thats how it works, i see. Also how do i check if my motherboard supports SATA 3.0. On the specs it says Serial ATA 6Gb/s headers : 6.

So does this mean I have 6 ports that can connect my hard drive to a 6 Gb/s headers?

and i can take full advantage of it right?

I guess that's true but I like to have a discussion because I get to ask personal questions and the discussion can also lead to anywhere where I have a question. People like Quizzical provide abundunt information and its more easier to understand because it's someone talking to you not just an explaination. xP

Originally posted by tkoreaper

I'm sorry man, but you'll get quicker responses and a much better answer to your question if you just google it.

I guess that's true but I like to have a discussion because I get to ask personal questions and the discussion can also lead to anywhere where I have a question. People like Quizzical provide abundunt information and its more easier to understand because it's someone talking to you not just an explaination. xP

Originally posted by Goerilla

Hmm so thats how it works, i see. Also how do i check if my motherboard supports SATA 3.0. On the specs it says Serial ATA 6Gb/s headers : 6.

So does this mean I have 6 ports that can connect my hard drive to a 6 Gb/s headers?

SATA 3 is the same thing as SATA 6 Gb/s.  The former is a colloquial name (though it's kind of a reference to SATA revision 3.0); the latter is the official name that the official organization that designs the protocol wants everyone to use.  SATA stands for Serial ATA, as opposed to the older PATA, which is Parallel ATA.  ATA, in turn, stands for AT Attachment.  AT is, in turn, Advanced Technology.  So one could argue that SATA really stands for Serial Advanced Technology Attachment, but it never seems to be called that.  I guess that's the problem with building up an acronym by repeatedly adding one letter to an older acronym.  USB, on the other hand, is Universal Serial Bus, and had that name right from the start.

Yes, that should mean you have six SATA 3 ports available on your motherboard, and you can connect your hard drive to any of them.  There are six SATA 3 ports in AMD's SB850 and SB950 southbridges, so it's cheap for motherboard manufacturers to put up to six SATA ports on the motherboard, but more than six is harder, not to mention pointless.  Some motherboards don't use everything in the chipset, but only give you four or five SATA ports.

the only devices currently capable of actually exceeding USB2 are external hardrives right now.  in the future, there may be USB3 webcam's that would actually benefit from USB3 but I havent read any company upping the 1080p webcam capture rate. 

so, basiclly, USB3 is only good for external harddrives atm. 

practical speed tests shows that USB3 is between 2x to 5x as fast as USB2  the 3gb/s spec is only theoretical which doesn't figure in the overhead involved with the USB3 protocal.

I understand somewhat of USB and Harddrive kinda cleared it up. Thanks everyone. Building my first rig this week and I'm going to come here if i have ANY questions lol just a heads up xP

Originally posted by Goerilla

I understand somewhat of USB and Harddrive kinda cleared it up. Thanks everyone. Building my first rig this week and I'm going to come here if i have ANY questions lol just a heads up xP

In that case, you should probably say what hardware you're getting, so that you don't get random junk and then wonder why it performs like random junk.  Or perhaps less egregiously, end up paying $200 more than you could have paid for identical hardware elsewhere.