Motu PCI324 vs PCIX424 vs PCIe424

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warmcanofcoke

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Question one:

Is there a noticeable difference in performance between the Motu PCI-324 and the PCI-424 cards? (for line in or mic. Don't care about MIDI)

Question two:

Does it matter if I get the PCIX-424 or the PCIe-424?
[If I use a mac that has PCIe slots will it use a PCIX card? / Is there a noticeable difference in performance between the Motu PCIX-424 and the PCIe-424 cards?]

PCIX = PCI (normal/original PCI)
PCIe = PCI express (I understand PCIX cards will work in a PCIe slot)

Thanks =)
 
The difference between the PCI cards is the type of connector slot they require.

The PCI, PCIX, and PCIe *are not* interchangeable. A PCIX will not work in a PCIe slot and vice versa. If you look at the cards you'll see that the pinouts are different on all three of them, so you have to match the card to the type of slot your computer has.

I believe that the PCIX and PCIe cards do provide an improvement over the original PCI spec, but that is due to improvements in the PCI buss architecture, and the cards were updated to reflect that.
 
PCI cards can be used in a PCI-X bus(they are backwards compatible). PCI-E is the one that only PCI-E peripherals will work in. As far as what it means for 424, it is just a form factor and any of them have more than enough bandwidth

As far as the 324, stay away. It is a 5V PCI card which will not work in just about any machine made after 1998 and has a long history of problems
 
If you look at the pinouts on PCI, PCIX and PCIe cards you can see they are not the same. There's a slot in the PCIX card that is not present in the older PCI. I don't see how they could be used interchangeably.

I used a PCI-324 card in my old Mac G4, which was built in 2001 and it worked flawlessly. When I went with my current intel Mac I needed to update to the PCIe-424 card, which also works flawlessly.

The primary factor in choosing a PCI card has nothing to do with performance, and everything to do with compatibility with your computer's PCI slot. Make sure you know the type of slot you have and get the appropriate card for it.
 
If you look at the pinouts on PCI, PCIX and PCIe cards you can see they are not the same. There's a slot in the PCIX card that is not present in the older PCI. I don't see how they could be used interchangeably.

I used a PCI-324 card in my old Mac G4, which was built in 2001 and it worked flawlessly. When I went with my current intel Mac I needed to update to the PCIe-424 card, which also works flawlessly.

The primary factor in choosing a PCI card has nothing to do with performance, and everything to do with compatibility with your computer's PCI slot. Make sure you know the type of slot you have and get the appropriate card for it.
 
SonicAlbert said:
If you look at the pinouts on PCI, PCIX and PCIe cards you can see they are not the same. There's a slot in the PCIX card that is not present in the older PCI. I don't see how they could be used interchangeably.

I used a PCI-324 card in my old Mac G4, which was built in 2001 and it worked flawlessly. When I went with my current intel Mac I needed to update to the PCIe-424 card, which also works flawlessly.

The primary factor in choosing a PCI card has nothing to do with performance, and everything to do with compatibility with your computer's PCI slot. Make sure you know the type of slot you have and get the appropriate card for it.
Click to expand...

You just dont use the second slot in PCI-X

http://www.pcmag.com/encyclopedia_term/0,2542,t=PCI-X&i=49003,00.asp

your 324 card was a 5V pci card which was phased out in favor of the 3.3V, thats maybe why it looked different
 
Generally the 324 cards were very choosy in which chipsets etc... they worked well with. There were a lot of people who had major issues with the 324 card. It seems like it either worked really well in some systems and was a complete PITA in others. When I had one I had some systems it worked great in and others it did not. Personally, I will never purchase from MOTU again if given the choice. The card issues were one thing. Their customer support however was so attrocious though that I can not feel good about ever supporting them again.
 
SonicAlbert said:
If you look at the pinouts on PCI, PCIX and PCIe cards you can see they are not the same. There's a slot in the PCIX card that is not present in the older PCI. I don't see how they could be used interchangeably.
Click to expand...

There are really only two specifications of consequence: PCI and PCI Express (PCIe). PCI-X is just a faster version of PCI that is compatible with all existing 3.3v PCI cards.

As for the extra slot, it's not really extra. It's supposed to be there on all PCI cards, but a few vendors whose names usually rhyme with hem-haw-dio failed to upgrade their cards to be slotted correctly when the standard changed back in... oh, 1988 or so. :D Okay, I'm exaggerating a little, but not that much....

The PCI spec allows two voltages: 5V and 3.3V. All modern motherboards use 3.3V PCI, AFAIK. (The standard changed to support 3.3V in the PCI 2.2 spec, which as best I can tell from a Google search, came out back in 1997.) Those notches identify whether the card works with 5V PCI or 3.3V PCI. If it has one notch, it only works with 5V PCI. If it has the other notch, it only works with 3.3V PCI. If it has both notches, it means the card can tolerate 5V signaling from the motherboard, but still signals at 3.3V.

When the PCI-X standard came out, everybody made a clean break, and thus PCI-X slots have a 3.3V pin, indicating that cards must signal at 3.3V. Most standard PCI motherboards could tolerate 5V signaling, by contrast, so they didn't include that pin (and, oddly enough, continued to include the 5V pin, which they technically shouldn't have included, IIRC, though I suppose maybe it makes the cards more stable to have one plastic alignment pin in the slot).

Now the kicker is that AFAIK, no 5V PCI silicon has been built in many, many years. As a result, any 3.3V PCI card or PCI-X card should (electrically) work in pretty much any modern motherboard. Thus, the usual upgrade to make at least modern PCI cards work in PCI-X slots is to literally take a Dremel or similar and cut the extra notch. :)
 
Thanks for that detailed information! I don't think I'l be cutting any notches in my PCI boards though. (Actually I'm on a an Intel Mac now anyway so it's all PCIe).

xstatic, I own a ton of MOTU gear and I've always found their customer support to be really good. I haven't had to use it very much either. My MOTU hardware and software has always been really really solid, and I have a lot of it (and I mean a lot!).

Don't write them off because of one bad experience. Also, if you were using a PC then that's a different story.
 
Sonic, I am a PC user so my MOTU experience was with a PC> As for their customer support, It took me forever just to get them to address my questions. It wasn't them not contacting me or replying or answering calls, they flat out refused to do anything. When I finally did get them to address my questions they were stumped. Their solution to the problem was to ask me to ship them my whole PC and my Motu 2408 so they could evaluate it. The wanted me to pay the shipping both ways and told me it would be a 6 to 8 week turnaround. To me that whole thing seemed insane. The worst part is that the problems did not exist with one person there, but with several people. I could not beleive that they expected me to do all of this. I found that for me it was both cheaper and easier to make the switch to RME and I have never for a second regretted it.

I do understand that my experience with MOTU tech support was just concerning this one issue and that other people may not have had these problems, but I found that their collective solution was about as bad as it gets. I feel I have no choice but to make my judgement based on this. I have never in my life run up against customer service as bad as I experienced with MOTU.
 
When did you have this issue with the 2408?

They started off as a Mac-only company and then later added PC support. It sounds like you might have jumped onboard pretty early into their PC days. They really were learning as they went.

That's actually pretty amazing they asked for your whole computer rig. On the one hand it indicates that they were willing to troubleshoot your setup and learn how to fix it. On the other hand it does show they really didn't know fully what was going on.

I've heard their PC support is much better these days.

As far as Mac support, they've been fine. Plus, since they originally were centered on the Mac they know it a lot better. I've owned a bunch of their midi interfaces over the years, plus their audio interfaces (both PCI and firewire). Not to mention their early video gear, and lots of their software.

They certainly have annoyed me from time to time, especially when dropping software apps from time to time. But overall I have to say their gear is the engine my studio runs on.

But I know you are not the only person to feel the way you do about them.
 
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