Firewire -- on-board vs. add-on card -- performance the same?

[Newsgroups trimmed a little]

On 2007-10-19, Ivan Marsh wrote:
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:50:19 -0700, Igor wrote:

Do these add-on cards perform as well as an on-board Firewire interface?

No... The interface can only operate as fast as the bus it's plugged into
so assuming the hardwired bus is faster than PCI an add-on card will be
slower... but the performance difference probably won't be noticeable in
any case.

Only in most cases the on-board firewire will be implemented on
the PCI bus anyway. Just because it isn't an expansion card doesn't
mean that it's not PCI.

In any case the point is moot as the PCI bus is higher bandwidth
than firewire. The PCI bus is only going to limit things if you
had a lot of other traffic on the bus, in which case the processor
is likely to be struggling to keep up.

Personally I prefer things like this to be off-board - expansion
cards are much more likely to detail what individual chips they
use so you can assess compatibility for any given OS. Even if you
have those details for the on-board option, you're more likely to
find specific compatibility reports for a card than you are for an
on-board implementation.

--
Andrew Smallshaw

In alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64 Andrew Smallshaw wrote:
[Newsgroups trimmed a little]

On 2007-10-19, Ivan Marsh wrote:
On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 03:50:19 -0700, Igor wrote:

Do these add-on cards perform as well as an on-board Firewire interface?

No... The interface can only operate as fast as the bus it's plugged into
so assuming the hardwired bus is faster than PCI an add-on card will be
slower... but the performance difference probably won't be noticeable in
any case.

Only in most cases the on-board firewire will be implemented on
the PCI bus anyway. Just because it isn't an expansion card doesn't
mean that it's not PCI.

In any case the point is moot as the PCI bus is higher bandwidth
than firewire. The PCI bus is only going to limit things if you
had a lot of other traffic on the bus, in which case the processor
is likely to be struggling to keep up.

PCIe is faster and more efficient than PCI. Maybe there are PCIe Firewire
cards available.

Personally I prefer things like this to be off-board - expansion
cards are much more likely to detail what individual chips they
use so you can assess compatibility for any given OS. Even if you
have those details for the on-board option, you're more likely to
find specific compatibility reports for a card than you are for an
on-board implementation.


--

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 16:36:21 +0000 (UTC), Andrew Smallshaw
wrote:

snip


In any case the point is moot as the PCI bus is higher bandwidth
than firewire. snip

Well, I think that's about as definitive an answer as I'll get. Case
closed!


Personally I prefer things like this to be off-board - expansion
cards are much more likely to detail what individual chips they
use so you can assess compatibility for any given OS. Even if you
have those details for the on-board option, you're more likely to
find specific compatibility reports for a card than you are for an
on-board implementation.

That's a smart buying strategy. It wouldn't have occurred to me to
look at it that way. I think I'll leave the Firewire off the board for
now, especially since a card will likely perform just as well and it
may not even be something I need.

--
"Those of us whose brains did not die in college are
actually stunned by just how stupid academic ideas
are." -- Robert W. Whitaker, http://readbob.com/

On Fri, 19 Oct 2007 15:15:16 -0500, dave
wrote:

snip


PCIe is faster and more efficient than PCI. Maybe there are PCIe Firewire
cards available.


I haven't seen any in the stores/catalogs I've looked through, but
that doesn't mean they're not out there. Even if they're not available
now, I'm sure they won't be long in coming.

That would actually work out well, since the PCI slots that are
disappearing from motherboards are frequently being replaced by PCIe
ones.



--
"Those of us whose brains did not die in college are
actually stunned by just how stupid academic ideas
are." -- Robert W. Whitaker, http://readbob.com/

In article ,
dave wrote:
In alt.comp.hardware.amd.x86-64 Andrew Smallshaw
wrote:
In any case the point is moot as the PCI bus is higher bandwidth
than firewire. The PCI bus is only going to limit things if you
had a lot of other traffic on the bus, in which case the processor
is likely to be struggling to keep up.

PCIe is faster and more efficient than PCI. Maybe there are PCIe Firewire
cards available.

They are available. I have one in my MythTV box. It doesn't deliver any
performance increase, of course, as 400 Mbps is well below the maximum that
PCI or PCIe can deliver. It works as well as the previous PCI FireWire card
did.

(It did free up a PCI slot for another tuner, though...since tuner cards
that work with Linux aren't readily available for PCIe yet, this is a Good
Thing.)

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