PCI or PCI-e for firewire?

i_got_a_mohawk · #1 04-15-2008, 09:21 AM

Question in the title really.

Sticking together a new PC, and had a PCI firewire card (TI chipset) lined up. And was thinking, there will be a PCI-e x1 slot free on the motherboard.

Can you get PCI-e firewire cards using the TI chipset, and will they be any better, latency wise?

hunta · #2 04-15-2008, 02:19 PM

I don't think there would be much difference really. There definitely aren't many PCI-e FW cards out there, the only one I see that has TI firewire is this SIIG card for $70.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=1931512

You can get a TI PCI card for $35 or less. (link + price fixed)

shiftrider66 · #3 04-15-2008, 02:22 PM

PCI-e would be a faster bandwidth

new board didnt include Firewire???

Tristan · #4 04-15-2008, 02:25 PM

when i was looking into this presonus strongly recommended PCI over PCI-e.

see what the manufacturer of your interface recommends.

i_got_a_mohawk · #5 04-15-2008, 03:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by hunta

I don't think there would be much difference really. There definitely aren't many PCI-e FW cards out there, the only one I see that has TI firewire is this SIIG card for $70.

http://www.mwave.com/mwave/skusearch...=done&nextloc=

You can get a TI PCI card for $30 or less.

The only TI cards I can find over here are £30 or really cheap (ebay, from china, i dont trust). But i guess bottlenecks wouldnt be caused by the PCI socket.

(and that link popped up a PCI-e serial port

)

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan

when i was looking into this presonus strongly recommended PCI over PCI-e.

see what the manufacturer of your interface recommends.

Interesting, did they say why at all? Its a presonus Firepod im using.

Tristan · #6 04-15-2008, 04:09 PM

I forget... I tried tracking down where I read that with no luck... in any case the output from your firepod will be a trickle compared to the speeds of the PCI interface.

In any case I use a LaCie PCI FW400 card with a VIA chipset and it works likea charm.

You defintely want a TI or VIA chipset card FW400 non-combo card...

nonfatmatt · #7 04-17-2008, 06:02 PM

PCIe 1x has the same bandwidth as normal PCI, so it's the same as going with a regular pci chipset. Definitely if you can go with TI, I had a VIA card and got nothing but pops and clicks from my interface. TI chipsets are what all firewire audio interfaces are primarily tested against.

i_got_a_mohawk · #8 04-17-2008, 07:16 PM

Hmm, from what I had read, PCI is limited to 133 Mb/s but PCI-e (x1) is 250 Mb/s (and if you have PCI-e 2 (x1) it is closer to 500 Mb/s .

BillMason · #9 04-17-2008, 07:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tristan

when i was looking into this presonus strongly recommended PCI over PCI-e.

see what the manufacturer of your interface recommends.

Working in the computer industry, the only reason I can imagine why any company would recommend PCI over PCI-E would be if they didn't have a PCI-E card themselves, and their competitor did. PCI-E is rapidly becoming the industry standard.

nonfatmatt · #10 04-17-2008, 07:27 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BillMason

Working in the computer industry, the only reason I can imagine why any company would recommend PCI over PCI-E would be if they didn't have a PCI-E card themselves, and their competitor did. PCI-E is rapidly becoming the industry standard.

Presonus doesn't make any of the cards, only the interface, which is firewire.

Thought I'd add too that I got my TI card on eBay for 3 bucks, they have no resale value.

Captain_Arrrg · #11 04-17-2008, 07:39 PM

How many lane is the PCI-E slot you're using? I'm fairly sure it'll be x1 instead of x16 etc. In which case all I can tell you definitively about it's limitations is that it doesn't transfer data as well as a PCI slot, but that is with sound cards. A firewire card, I don't know....

BillMason · #12 04-17-2008, 07:42 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by nonfatmatt

Presonus doesn't make any of the cards, only the interface, which is firewire.

Thought I'd add too that I got my TI card on eBay for 3 bucks, they have no resale value.

Their recommendation might depend on your motherboard, though, no? I would assume any motherboard that has support for both will give I/O priority to PCI-E, due to the gaming market's preference for video performance.

bullshark · #13 04-17-2008, 08:12 PM

Firewire 400 bandwidth is 50 MBs.
Firewire 800 bandwidth is 100 MBs.

So, PCI, with a bandwidth of 127 MBs, is plenty capable of handling either. I would choose based on availability and price for myself.

projectMalamute · #14 04-17-2008, 09:28 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bullshark

Firewire 400 bandwidth is 50 MBs.
Firewire 800 bandwidth is 100 MBs.

So, PCI, with a bandwidth of 127 MBs, is plenty capable of handling either. I would choose based on availability and price for myself.

Lets say you are recording 24 channels of audio, at a sample rate of 192K, 24 bit samples. I'm guessing this is well beyond anything you plan on doing anytime soon, but for the sake of argument.

Total bandwidth required to move that data from the interface is less than 15MB/sec.

The PCI bus is not going to be the bottleneck for you.

hunta · #15 04-18-2008, 09:17 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bullshark

Firewire 400 bandwidth is 50 MBs.
Firewire 800 bandwidth is 100 MBs.

So, PCI, with a bandwidth of 127 MBs, is plenty capable of handling either. I would choose based on availability and price for myself.

+1

Quote:

Originally Posted by projectMalamute

Lets say you are recording 24 channels of audio, at a sample rate of 192K, 24 bit samples. I'm guessing this is well beyond anything you plan on doing anytime soon, but for the sake of argument.

Total bandwidth required to move that data from the interface is less than 15MB/sec.

The PCI bus is not going to be the bottleneck for you.

+1

Quote:

and that link popped up a PCI-e serial port

lol, so it does. fixed.
http://www.mwave.com/mwave/viewspec....iteria=1931512