PCI vs Firewire

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Myriad_Rocker

Myriad_Rocker

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What advantages does Firewire have over PCI?
What advantages does PCI have over Firewire?
What are the disadvantages of each?
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
What advantages does Firewire have over PCI?
What advantages does PCI have over Firewire?
What are the disadvantages of each?
Click to expand...

I'll start with the basics:

Firewire= don't have to open the computer to install, has all the electronics outside the computer.

PCI= faster tranfer put-though (capable of more tracks) less strain on the cpu (so I've heard)
 
I knew that about firewire.

So PCI is faster. That's what I thought but I wanted to make sure.
 
hmmm interesting thread

i hope it goes a little more in depth
 
How much of a difference is there in speed, or more importantly, when would the lag of a Firewire card start to become a problem?
 
Well, if the Firewire card has a significant enough amount of DSP actually built in to the card, as some of them do, then -- although I'm not 100% certain or knowlegable about this stuff -- but wouldn't the speed and track count capability go way up and the latency down significantly (since you're using the firewire interface's DSP rather than the computer's) ?
 
Myriad_Rocker said:
I knew that about firewire.

So PCI is faster. That's what I thought but I wanted to make sure.
Click to expand...

PCI is also going away. The industry is midway through ditching PCI. Apple announced new machines Wednesday with PCI Express, which isn't compatible with PCI cards. Lots of PC vendors have PCIe hardware out there, too (some with PCI/PCI-X slots in addition, but not all).

Unless you're planning on keeping your current machine until after you replace your audio card, PCI is a bad idea.
 
dgatwood said:
PCI is also going away. The industry is midway through ditching PCI. Apple announced new machines Wednesday with PCI Express, which isn't compatible with PCI cards. Lots of PC vendors have PCIe hardware out there, too (some with PCI/PCI-X slots in addition, but not all).

Unless you're planning on keeping your current machine until after you replace your audio card, PCI is a bad idea.
Click to expand...


The PCI-X technology you speak is used in servers doesn't that mean it will be another 5 or 6 years before the technology is actually cheap enough for regular consumers?
 
bigwillz24 said:
The PCI-X technology you speak is used in servers doesn't that mean it will be another 5 or 6 years before the technology is actually cheap enough for regular consumers?
Click to expand...

PCI-X is not the same thing as PCIe. PCI-X is mostly used in servers (and prior PowerMac G5s), and is backwards compatible with PCI. PCIe, by contrast, is very much available on the desktop today.
 
chessrock said:
Well, if the Firewire card has a significant enough amount of DSP actually built in to the card, as some of them do, then -- although I'm not 100% certain or knowlegable about this stuff -- but wouldn't the speed and track count capability go way up and the latency down significantly (since you're using the firewire interface's DSP rather than the computer's) ?
Click to expand...


Interesting. Could someone elaborate on this?
 
Granted, Firewire is slower. But only marginally. I really can't notice the difference.

But here's a point not many people will think of...for me, PCI is inconvenient because every time I want to change my configuration or move my computer, I have to scurry around the back and unplug the leads. With Firewire, it's on the top of my desk so I can just do everything from my computer chair. Overall, Firewire is the solution I prefer.
 
Firewire eats up CPU cycles, because the firewire controller you use is a simply PHY (physical layer interface) that has no intelligent processor of its own. The main reason (for me) why PCI can sometimes be a better bet is b/c companies frequently create PCI cards that have built-in processors that reduce the workload of your CPU.

In theory, PCI has more throughput (133MBps=1064Mbps) vs 400Mbps for firewire. Note: MBps = megaBYTES per second, Mbps = megaBITS per second.

Going by specs, it seems PCI would actually be the clear cut winner, but unfortunately (due to corner-cutting by motherboard and chipset manufacturers), the PCI bus is subject to 'flooding' when system components are integrated into the PCI bus.

Example: Your motherboard has 2 LAN ports. Usually, one is integrated into the chipset and has no effect on PCI devices and (ideally) has low CPU utilization. The other LAN port is implemented via a PHY and is tacked onto your PCI bus and suffers from driver-based CPU utilization.

This is just one example. Sometimes, motherboard manufacturers will ironically place firewire controllers onto the PCI bus as well as a LAN port, RAID controller, among others. Take this into account and suddenly (due to interface overhead), your PCI bus only has 60 MB/s of usable bandwidth.

Long story short, be careful of your particular motherboards implementation of 'integrated' devices. They are often not as 'integrated' as you may think. Better motherboard/chipset combos overcome this by integrating more devices onto the chipset itself and not to the PCI bus. Also, some motherboard manufacturers choose to create multiple PCI buses from the chipset, which proves to be quite beneficial (ASUS frequently does this).
 
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