PCI vs USB and CPU stress

[willy4360]

What soundcard will give me low latency and less stress to the CPU?

PCI: EMU0404 or
USB: Edirol UA1A (using USB AUDIO ASIO driver 2.55)

The PC: 1.5 P4 w/1Gb ram running XP Pro SP2 - Cubase 2.2.39

M-Audio Midi controller Keystation 61es (USB)

The question is: Will this PCI card give me low latency without stressing the CPU?

 

[sile2001]

Well, saying "without stressing the CPU" is a tough one, as the total level of stress on the CPU depends a lot on what other things you have running. Now I can tell you that the PCI card will cause less stress than the USB for at least 2 reasons. First, the PCI bus has much higher bandwidth than the USB bus, so data is more readily available and there is less chance of latency. Second, the USB bus involves additional overhead, since instead of the card being straight on the PCI bus, it (effectively) has to go through the USB bus and then be converted onto the PCI bus.

 

[brzilian]

Second, the USB bus involves additional overhead, since instead of the card being straight on the PCI bus, it (effectively) has to go through the USB bus and then be converted onto the PCI bus.

Uh, no.

There is no such thing as USB data being converted onto the PCI bus.

USB's communication's protocol simply requires the CPU's attention more for handshaking.

 

[fraserhutch]

Uh, no.

There is no such thing as USB data being converted onto the PCI bus.

USB's communication's protocol simply requires the CPU's attention more for handshaking.

If you have a usb PCI card this might be a consideration, otherwise what Braz says is da truth.

 

[sile2001]

Uh, no.

There is no such thing as USB data being converted onto the PCI bus.

USB's communication's protocol simply requires the CPU's attention more for handshaking.

Wow.......just wow..... Have you ever even studied this stuff at all?

Allow me to take you on a short tour of your computer. Right-click My Computer and click Properties. Then go to the Hardware tab and click Device Manager. Down at the bottom, expand the entry Universal Serial Bus controllers. There, you should see a couple of devices called something like PCI to USB Open Host Controller. If you take a look at the resource usage for these devices, you will notice that they each require an IRQ. In case you didn't know, an IRQ is an Interrupt Request number, and is (vastly simplified), it's address on the PCI bus.

You're making the wonderful mistake of confusing PCI cards with the PCI bus. Just because a device is not a PCI card doesn't mean it doesn't use the PCI bus. Integrated soundcards? Yup, they use the PCI bus. Integrated video? Yup. Integrated NIC's? Yup. USB Controller? Yup.

The PCI bus is the processor's means of communicating with ALL of the system hardware except the memory, system chipset, and any special busses such as AGP which have a more direct interface with the processor.

Please don't go throwing that crap out unless you really know what you're talking about.

 

[ragyl indonesia]

uhu.. read me !!!!

usb 2.0 hi-speed = 480 Mb/s
firewire = 400 Mb/s
pci = 1300 Mb/s

and the winner is PCI

 

[willy4360]

Hello!
How can I determine if my board can handle PCI 2.1 in Windows XP?. The EMU0404 requires PCI version 2.1. I use a 2 years old Gateway desktop PC with a P4 1.5 and 1Gb ram.