PCI-E X1 to 2 Ports 19 Pin USB 3.0 Header PCI Express to Dual 20 Pin USB 3.0 Card

Card was instantly recognized on my Linux Mint machine (running Wilma). Delivery was super fast!

I was recently performing a case swap / refurbishment on a system, giving an old gaming desktop a second life as a rack mounted server. Unfortunately, in the process of disassembling the old system, I was unable to get the USB 3 header to release the front panel USB 3 cable. I tried everything I could think of for about 20 minutes. I know they are notoriously difficult to remove in some cases, but usually come loose with a couple minutes of wiggling at most. Anway, the USB 3 header on the motherboard was unfortunately destroyed during this process. This was a problem for me because I needed a USB 3 header when I installed the motherboard in the new case to attach to the front panel USB 3 ports. That's where this product comes in. I simply installed it in a spare PCI Express 1x slot and plugged it into the front panel USB 3 cable. Everything works great, no drivers to install, truly plug-and-play (Linux Ubuntu 18.04.6 LTS). Performs as expected.

It works, I was able to add my additional case usb 3.0 ports, as my mobo only had 1 usb 3.0 header.Like a lot of other reviews, I too thought it was unusually tough to insert the cable into the pci card and when I went to pull it out and realign, the whole 1 plug (not both) came apart and was still attached to the cord (from the case side). After examining it closer though, it appears it may actually be a designed sleeve/adapter because as I was hoping it would still work and very, very, carefully pushing it back on as I could not to any degree get the part to come off the case end, I noticed it was like putting legos together, as you push 2 together at the right angle you cant see the line separating them? This did the same thing, the line disappeared when I slowly reattached it as if it was designed that way, because when it "came apart" it didnt look cracked, cut, frayed, or anything. I then tested it, and it worked.Came with cd drivers, (didnt need them, worked with windows 10 pro, no problem, and windows 10 didnt actually install any drivers, just worked), also came with different size case plates if you have a mini case or something. *If it didnt work, my next step was to get pliers to get the piece off and use the 2nd plug as the pci card has 2 usb 3.0 headers and I only needed 1, but I didnt need to attempt this.

It was a simple install and works great on my son's older system. His motherboard is USB compatible, but it doesn't have an headers for USB 3...only USB 2, so this was exactly what I was looking for. It has been in his system for a little over a month and it has been working great with no issues. He is an artist and uses a lot of USB accessories for drawing digitally, so i wanted to add a USB front panel. The only ones I could find were USB 3, so I had to get this card to use the device. The only complaint that i would have is the lack of documentation...not that I really needed it, but someone with less computer savvy might have issues because of that. It's extremely plug and play, but I would have liked to see more useful documentation. I would definitely buy this again if I needed more USB headers for another computer!!

I was very frustrated that no reviewer had managed to test this card to see if it delivers the speeds it claims to deliver. So, I bought a 400MB/s rated USB3.1 flash drive and tested and proved its speed. This setup was using the direct connection to the USB 3.2 Gen1 motherboard connector. As you can see, the sequential read speeds meet the rates 400MB/s for the drive. I then installed the card and moved the USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports to the PCI-e card and repeated the tests using Crystal Disk Mark as shown in the attached images. I lost about 30 MB/s speed in sequential reads going through this PCI-e card compared to the motherboard. The rest of the speed parameters were not affected. I optimized my Asus z690 bios and Windows 10 device manager to optimize the drive for performance. The 30MB/s loss, though surprising, is still good since I get high data rates on my four USB 3.2 Gen 1 ports on my front panel. Now the mobo USB 3.2 Gen 1 header is empty ... future additional USB ports maybe, though I already have plenty of USB 5GBps/10Gbps in the rear. Overall, the card delivers. In summary, do the following ...1. Use Windows newest (June 2022 driver date as of this writing) and optimized drivers for the PCI card. They load up automatically. DO NOT USE NEC's DRIVERS THAT COME WITH THE CD ROM FROM 2012! Too slow at 250 MB/s versus the 370MB/s I'm getting... and windows will complain to you about using old drivers anyways.2. Optimize the USB devices in device manager for best performance.3. Optimize your bios for best performance. In my case, I told the bios that the PCI card is a Gen 3 card although its really Gen 2 (switched setting from AUTO to Gen 3). This helped me increase my speeds from ~ 350 MB/s to 370 MB/s. Not sure why this worked but it extracted the best possible speeds from the PCI card...again not sure why this worked.PCI card is highly recommended, though its pricier than others ... Hope this helps & God bless!EDIT (9/12/2022):------I tested other similar PCI-e cards (from Febsmart, Phoenix) offered here on Amazon and this card bested them overall. No doubt, if you are running or expecting high data transfer rates (e.g 400MB/s), you'll loose speed with all these PCI-e cards as they ALL use the NEC 72020 chip, which supports up to 4 USB 3.1 ports). Duals use the 72010 chip, which supports up to 2 USB 3.1 ports. It seems to be the only chip on the market that expands USB 3.1 Gen 1 ports.I believe the data transfer limit of these cards is ~ 350MB/s. Its up to you to determine if this is a deal breaker or more than enough for you.

This allowed me to replace a cannibalized header I previously removed from an older computer when I built my new one. I had taken the older part from my prior computer because my newer computer needed one extra header for a new card reader I had purchased and the one that was on the motherboard was already taken up by the new case. Later, when I attempted to sell off my older computer, I needed some parts to get it back up and running as a new computer, I bought this as an inexpensive solution to my problem. Works like it should regarding adding a USB 3.0 header for a card reader that was in my old computer case.