Firewire - Is it necessary?

[Bona Fide]

I was looking into eVGA's free motherboard deal, but their mobo doesn't come with any IEEE1394 ports or headers. Is that really going to present a problem? How many electronics actually run exclusively off of Firewire? I've been looking through all the electronics in my house, and I can only find a few.

- iPod (also supports USB 2.0)
- Sony Cybershot (I have the Memorystick-USB input)
- Sony Digital Camcorder

Are there any vital components that require Firewire? AFAIK it's a Mac-only thing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Bona Fide
- Sony Digital Camcorder.

If you plan to transfer DV tapes to DVD you'll need to add firewire someday, but a PCI card will work fine.

 

[AmberClad]

Some external enclosures use firewire, the advantage being slightly better data transfer rates You wouldn't automatically think that, because USB's nominal bps rate is higher, but firewire does tend to work better than USB2.0 for external enclosure devices. Also, with firewire, you don't need a separate power block for external enclosures, which you would with USB. Still, since most PCs don't support firewire, you'd still have to get a dual USB/firewire one, and if you needed to transfer to a computer without firewire, you'd need the USB power block. Anyways, I have a USB2.0 enclosure, and it works fine for me.

 

[phisrow]

The entire world of DV kit, pretty much, is a firewire only club(unless you count ghastly webcams and things, we're talking DV the standard, here); but that is pretty much the end of it. And the firewire PCI cards are cheap and probably getting cheaper.

 

[Cerb]

An Agere FW400 card can be had for under $13 shipped, and under $20 retail.
It ain't no biggie .