Add on firewire card

[kuba]

Is there a particular chipset that is good for add-on firewire cards?

Also, my 2nd question.
My case has a firewire port on top but since my motherboard doesn't have a place for it, is there a firewire card that'll give me 2 extra ports, plus have the pins for my already existing firewire port on the top of my case?

Thanks guys.

 

[JustaGeek]

I don't think that it depends on the chipset - any chipset should be fine.

Try this PCI card:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16815124034

 

[myocardia]

This one is made by the same company, but has two external ports, along with an internal port, and costs ~1/2 as much: SYBA SD-VIA-3F

 

[SerpentRoyal]

1394 is not a must have item, unless your hardware only support firewire. Actual real-world speed is only 10% faster than USB 2.0.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
1394 is not a must have item, unless your hardware only support firewire. Actual real-world speed is only 10% faster than USB 2.0.

I thought it was actually slower.

USB 2.0 up to 480MB/s.

Firewire up to 400 MB/s.

 

[bruceb]

A bit more costly, but then Belkin is a top name

Hi-Speed USB 2.0 and FireWire PCI Card (3-USB 2.0 and 3-FireWire ports)

Part # F5U508v1

It will give you 2 External USB 2.0 Ports, 2 External Firewire Ports
and has internal Headers (one each) to route ports to your Front Panel

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: myocardia
This one is made by the same company, but has two external ports, along with an internal port, and costs ~1/2 as much: SYBA SD-VIA-3F

I thought he wanted an "Internal header", not a port...

This one has an "Internal port".

 

[ViRGE]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

Originally posted by: myocardia
This one is made by the same company, but has two external ports, along with an internal port, and costs ~1/2 as much: SYBA SD-VIA-3F

I thought he wanted an "Internal header", not a port...

This one has an "Internal port".

An internal port is fine. Several companies make internal firewire cables that are a 6pin cable on one end and header pins on the other; I'm using such a cable right now with a variant of that firewire card. It's much cheaper than the Belkin card.

 

[bruceb]

It may be cheaper and it may be a good product. Myself, I stick with the name
brands for add on cards, as they usually the least troublesome in all respects.

 

[JustaGeek]

Originally posted by: ViRGE

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

Originally posted by: myocardia
This one is made by the same company, but has two external ports, along with an internal port, and costs ~1/2 as much: SYBA SD-VIA-3F

I thought he wanted an "Internal header", not a port...

This one has an "Internal port".

An internal port is fine. Several companies make internal firewire cables that are a 6pin cable on one end and header pins on the other; I'm using such a cable right now with a variant of that firewire card. It's much cheaper than the Belkin card.

Thanks.

Good to know - it makes it a much more flexible choice.

 

[Modelworks]

Firewire is actually faster than usb 2.0 .
Firewires spec of 400Mbit is sustained rate, while the usb spec of 480Mbit is burst.
firewire is peer to peer transfer while usb 2.0 is master slave.
There is also a newer 800Mbit firewire spec.

I know that in the pro world the only chipset we use for firewire is by ti.
We had problems with avid liquid with some other brands, in the end the ti was a bit more but it works without issue.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
1394 is not a must have item, unless your hardware only support firewire. Actual real-world speed is only 10% faster than USB 2.0.

I thought it was actually slower.

USB 2.0 up to 480MB/s.

Firewire up to 400 MB/s.

Specs can be very misleading. 1394 is always faster the USB 2.0 by a small margin under ideal condition.

 

[JustaGeek]

Well, even the Seagate Support Technician told me that the USB 2.0 is slightly faster in Windows.

I was calling about the 750GB External hard drive, asking if the 1394 port would provide a power for the drive, or if I would have to use the inluded Power Adapter (of course, the answer was Power Adapter).

I guess the opinions differ, but in the end the differences are minimal anyway.

Thanks, guys.

 

[RebateMonger]

The Texas Instruments chipset is considered "the gold standard" in FW chipsets. I don't know of any current issues, though, with any of the other chipsets.

 

[esquared]

I was just going to post what Rebate Monger said. The TI chipset is the one to get but it is more expensive. In response to USB 2.0 vs Firewire 400. I have an external hard drive drive with both connections. I've benched the drive with both connections and the firewire was 25% faster in data transfer than the USB 2.0 connect.

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: JustaGeek
Well, even the Seagate Support Technician told me that the USB 2.0 is slightly faster in Windows.

I was calling about the 750GB External hard drive, asking if the 1394 port would provide a power for the drive, or if I would have to use the inluded Power Adapter (of course, the answer was Power Adapter).

I guess the opinions differ, but in the end the differences are minimal anyway.

Thanks, guys.

Phone monkey can speak with forked tongue. Again, all my tests shows around 8 to 12% improvement with 1394.

http://www.bit-tech.net/hardwa.../07/12/abit_ip35_pro/7

http://www.usb-ware.com/firewire-vs-usb.htm

http://www.cwol.com/firewire/firewire-vs-usb.htm

 

[kuba]

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
1394 is not a must have item, unless your hardware only support firewire. Actual real-world speed is only 10% faster than USB 2.0.

Interesting, but I was told to get firewire to transfer video onto my desktop from my video camera and that may help some of the problems I'm having. In my case, not everything from the dv-tape is being captured onto my computer.
I told them I was doing it via USB and they said, do it via firewire. *shrug*

 

[Modelworks]

Firewire is the way to transfer video.
It pretty much started that way in 1999.
firewire was the fastest way to transfer video at the time and so it got all the support from the software makers and camera makers.


I use programs like avid that is used by tv stations, etc.
Using it with firewire its perfect, using it with usb its a nightmare.

Its not so much that usb isn't capable of doing video transfers, but more that the software is designed with firewire in mind, with usb an afterthought.

Heres one of the cards I have used without any problems:
http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/...Wire_400_PCI_Host.html

 

[SerpentRoyal]

Originally posted by: kuba

Originally posted by: SerpentRoyal
1394 is not a must have item, unless your hardware only support firewire. Actual real-world speed is only 10% faster than USB 2.0.

Interesting, but I was told to get firewire to transfer video onto my desktop from my video camera and that may help some of the problems I'm having. In my case, not everything from the dv-tape is being captured onto my computer.
I told them I was doing it via USB and they said, do it via firewire. *shrug*

Again, lame excuse used by phone monkeys. The root cause of the problem is poor software coding that is not fully compatible with the USB 2.0 format.

 

[Arcanedeath]

NEC, Via, and TI tend to make good Firewire chipsets for add in cards. try and stay away from other makers, I too have a USB2 / Firewire 400 hard drive and it tends to be slightly faster on firewire.