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How fast are PCI and AGP?

S

ShawnD1

Lifer
I was eyeballing an external hard drive which takes either firewire or USB. I know firewire 800 is hella fast compared to USB 2.0 but I don't actually have a firewire connection on my motherboard. At Staples they sell PCI connected firewire adapters....the problem is that I don't know if PCI is even that fast. Would PCI firewire even be faster than PCI USB 2.0? How fast is PCI (in Mb/s)?

I'm asking the AGP speed just because I'm curious 🙂
 
hahaha OK! Dont hold me up for this but i think this is it.

PCI = 133Mb/s (way faster than any single HD out there)
4x AGP = 1Gb/s
8x AGP = 2Gb/s


If i were you i'd go with firewire for an external drive. i don't like USB 😀
 
Originally posted by: OverVolt i don't like USB 😀
Click to expand...

Be gone with you, Satan! :Q

Thanks for the info man. Why don't you like USB? It's very.........universal. So universal that they might even call it universal serial bus lol.
 
USB has more operating overhead than FireWire and is engineered for external hard drives and DV cameras that need a dedicated uninterrupted connection to the host computer.
 
PCI (32bit/33Mhz)

33 Mhz * 32 bit = 33 Hz * 1e6 * 4 bytes = 132 *1e6 bytes/sec = 132 MB/sec * 1e6 MB/ 1.049 MiB = 125.83 MiB/sec

AGP 8X

basically above number * 16 = 2013.28 MiB/sec

We're all talking theoritical numbers of course, but nevertheless close enough. IIRC, USB 2.0 and Firewire operate between 400-500 Mib/sec. Thats approximately 50 - 60 MiB/sec, which no single IDE HDD can sustain.
 
Originally posted by: ShawnD1
Originally posted by: OverVolt i don't like USB 😀
Click to expand...

Be gone with you, Satan! :Q

Thanks for the info man. Why don't you like USB? It's very.........universal. So universal that they might even call it universal serial bus lol.
Click to expand...
Power issues...

 
Firewire should be able to power the drive w/o an taking up an extra outlet for a AC-DC adapter that u'd need for USB since USB doesn't provide anypower.

Not sure if a PCI Firewire would privide any power though.
 
I don't think I would even want my computer powering my scanner, printer and external hard drive. Instead of just plugging them into the power bar, I would have to go out and buy a massive power supply...... big dollars wasted just on power supply.
 
USB doesn't provide anypower.
Click to expand...


Um... pardon my ignorance here - but did you just say that USB doesn't provide ANY power? I guess I can see what you mean as far as external hard drives (not enough to power it), but to say that it doesn't provide ANY power is a little absurd, don't you think? I guess my USB hub is running off of solar power or something, 'cause I don't have it plugged into anything other than my PC. I know, I know... I'm being fasicious... sorry about that!😀
 
USB powered hub? You're crazy! When I think network, I think of standard networking cables: coax, cat5, cat6 and fiber.
 
USB hubs let you hook up more than one device to a single USB port. It's not for networking.
 
Oh.... why would anybody do that? Those USB switches cost like $50 but 3 port PCI connected USB controllers only cost like $20
 
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