IEEE 1394 Firewire, USB, PCI, and the future of PC/Mac Recording

pisces7378

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What new technology to you guys think will be taking the torch in the next 2-3 years for audio interface/sound cards? My stand is that USB and the newer versions thereof are not ever going to take home the brass ring. It seems like PCI has had it#s day in the sun already. IEEE1394 (Firewire) seems to be the new kid on the block. I mean, it is already quite old stuff, but the home recording world seems to be hoping aboard. With the MOTU 896 and so fourth.

My question is... Which is the fastest? Best? Cheapest? And over all most appealing technology?

I am trying to buy a 24 input audio interface/soundcard system I was looking at the MOTU 24i. But now I have heard that since PCI is old, they are going to obsolete that guy and focus on Firewire and new tech.
Forgive me for my ignorance... but is Firewire faster than PCI? It seems to me that since most Firewire cards slip into PCI slots of PCs that PCI must be at least as fast as Firewire... otherwise why use this shit? But in a data transfer technology... the speed is only as fast as the weakest link... and if the Firewire can transfer 200,000 Gigabytes (or whatever) in .5 seconds. But PCI can only pull off 10 Megabytes per .5 seconds, then when you use a Firewire card stuck into a PCI slot... the 10Megabytes per .5 seconds is what is actually making it into your PC. Could somoene explain that one?

I need as much information and suggestions as possible. The MOTU seems like a damn dream for me. 24 Analog inputs. No bullshit. Rack mounted. I will be using the Mackie 32 Channel 8 bus Recording Consoule with pre-amps and phantom power etc... so I don't need that. No added expensive Digital inputs, Tascam, ADAT Optical, etc. I/Os. Just 24 analog ins for accepting the outs from my Mackie mixer.
But now people are saying that PCIs are going out the door and that stuff like Firewire is moving in and that MOTU is going to chift their focus blah blah blah. But none of the Firewire gear is coming with the thunderous 24 inputs. 8 or maybe 10 if you are lucky. Not to mention, the 896 Firewire thing from MOTU costs more than the damn 24i with 1/3 the input count. I'd have to buy 3 of them... JESUS! Not to mention the fact that my PC probably would never have 3 Firewire inputs. So there is no room to grow like with the MOTU PCI card systems.

What should I be thinking guys. Help a man out here.

Thanks Fellas,

Mike
 
But PCI can only pull off 10 Megabytes per .5 seconds...
Where did you get that figure from? You know you can get SCSI controllers that support transfer speed up to 160MB/sec. Firewire is not going to surpass PCI anytime soon, if ever. Additionally, I think there's a new PCI spec coming down the pipe which should give higher transfer speeds.
Not to mention the fact that my PC probably would never have 3 Firewire inputs.
Couldn't you just add another Firewire card?
 
PCI - 133Mb/sec and above and is not shared between all IDE devices

Firewire - 50Mb/sec and bandwidth is shared between all connected Firewire devices.

USB - 1.5Mb/sec and bandwidth is shared among all connected devices

USB 2.0 - 50Mb/sec but not as efficient as Firewire just released

Firewire 2.0 - 100Mb/sec not available yet
 
There are future revisions to the Firewire and USB specs planned that will make them much faster. Expect that 50 MB/s number to be quadrupled in the future. The faster future firewire and USB connections will have to be incorporated into the system chipset to gain a speed advantage.

Also, in the future, there will be a new PCI spec that will significantly speed things up. IMO, there might be a short period of time where the firewire or USB specs are faster than PCI, simply because it is much easier for manufacturers and working groups to rev ancillary products. Getting the PCI spec revved requires a lot more overhead, since it affects far more of the pc industry.
 
brzilion, could you elaborate one point a bit:

do you mean each device in a PCI slot has it's own 133mb/s to use?

How do IRQ's figure in all this?
 
I remember looking at a site a while ago that said that PCI had a 1gig transfer speed. I had a link to it a while ago, I'll do some more searching. AP, I don't know the answer to your question on whether this is shared or not, or IRQ stuff. I think the 133 MB/sec comes from hard drives, not the card. So yes, you may have a 1gig transfer rate on your pci card, but you'll be limited by your hard drive in the end. If this is what you meant brzilian, I apologize

I remember, reading that firewire is projecting into the 3.6 GB/sec in the future. This is just projection though. However, I think it's safe to assume that firewire will be doing 100 mb/sec in the next couple of years. USB 2.0 will be doing 60 mb/ sec shortly too.

-Sal
 
here's the link that talks about the 1 gig/sec speed for PCI slots. Look at the chart on the bottom.

http://www.quatech.com/Application_Objects/FAQs/comm-over-pcmcia.htm

Also look at the pcmcia transfer rates. If you are using a firewire adapter via one of these, you are being screwed on bandwidth.

Also, I remember hearing that the MOTU 896 card only uses about 12.5 mb/sec using firewire anyway (1/4 of firewire bandwidth). The hottest transfer rates aren't even needed with this card. I'm guessing that firewire would be able to safely handle 24 inputs too.
 
In my opinion, unless the basic framework of the personal computer changes drastically, true hardware card-based solutions are a LONG way from becoming obsolete. It simply takes much less time for the CPU to communicate with something connected directly to the motherboard, than an external device. I believe that FireWire audio solutions are still fairly high-latency, although that may change with the new FireWire spec. I also know that a lot of new motherboards are coming equipped with 64-bit PCI slots, but I haven't actually heard about any cards being released in a 64-bit PCI format. So I haven't really been able to find anything about it, except for brief mentions in motherboard reviews ("The Intel 43289023BX has 1 AGP slot, 2 32-bit PCI slots, 2 64-bit PCI slots...").
 
I think you'd need a 64-bit cpu and a 64-bit OS to take advantage of 64-bit hardware. AMD and MS have stated they are working together to get AMD's 64-bit Hammer chips compatible with the 64-bit version of XP, so once those puppies hit the market, we should start seeing 64-bit PCI cards.
 
Originally posted by SalJustSal



Also look at the pcmcia transfer rates. If you are using a firewire adapter via one of these, you are being screwed on bandwidth.






Not entirely true! If you read closely that number (20MBytes/s) is for the older 16-bit cards. The newer 32-bit ones should achieve 133MBytes/s, which in any reasonable audio application is quite sufficient. And a lot faster than Firewire.



By the way I know which transfer medium I vote for. But I won't say yet, because I'm fiddling with the idea of designing a product myself... :) I'm just not sure how I'm gonna motivate myself to do circuit design instead of music when not at work! :D
 
brzilian said:
PCI - 133Mb/sec and above and is not shared between all IDE devices

Firewire - 50Mb/sec and bandwidth is shared between all connected Firewire devices.

USB - 1.5Mb/sec and bandwidth is shared among all connected devices

USB 2.0 - 50Mb/sec but not as efficient as Firewire just released

Firewire 2.0 - 100Mb/sec not available yet

Actually, I think you mean MB. Mb means Megabits, MB is megabytes.

Sorry, small difference in typing, big difference in meaning. (It's the TCOM/IT education coming out of me again).

PCI is 133 megabytes, Firewire is 480 megabits, or only 50 megabytes per sec.
 
I meant Megabytes.

I usually write Mbits and Mbytes when discerning between the two. I got lazy on this post, so SHOOT ME!!;)
 
Not entirely true! If you read closely that number (20MBytes/s) is for the older 16-bit cards. The newer 32-bit ones should achieve 133MBytes/s, which in any reasonable audio application is quite sufficient. And a lot faster than Firewire.

You are very much correct BasPer, that is the older 16-bit medium. Thanks for the correction. A firewire/pcmcia converter should suffer little degradation in speed then.

-Sal
 
Forget that 1G/s PCI, standard PCI is 33MHz/32bit giving the 133MB/s figure. Next in line and getting more and more available now is 33MHz/64bit (266MB/s) and 66MHz/64bit (533MB/s) PCI slots. The cards using these slots are typicaly Gigabit ethernet stuff and high-end SCSI/Raid controllers.

Next in line will be PCI-X. This spec will start at to 100MHz/64bit with higher clocks to 133MHz possible (this is the 1GB pci quadratech is talking about). But it will require different connectors and not allow as many cards sharing a bus. Most in the industry predict that pci-x will be the last of the parallel busses.

In all these busses (pci, usb, ieee1394) bandwith is shared between devices. Do not over estimate the needed bandwith for audio, your 24 I/O at 24/96 need only 18.5MB/s when sending 24bits as 4bytes. All except usb1 could do it. This does not say anything about latency.
 
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