How fast are PCI and AGP?

[ShawnD1]

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

 

[Terranboy]

PCI bus speed is 33mhz. In mb/s I don't know. But that might help.

AGP is 66mhz for 1X. So 8X AGP is 66mhz * 8.

 

[ShawnD1]

Yeah........ that means absolutely nothing.

 

[Terranboy]

Well it does, just not to you.

 

[OverVolt]

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

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: OverVolt i don't like USB

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.

 

[MDE]

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.

 

[dexvx]

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.

 

[OverVolt]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: OverVolt i don't like USB

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.

Power issues...

 

[ShawnD1]

What do you mean power issues?

 

[OverVolt]

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.

 

[ShawnD1]

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.

 

[RedDog75]

USB doesn't provide anypower.

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!

 

[ShawnD1]

USB powered hub? You're crazy! When I think network, I think of standard networking cables: coax, cat5, cat6 and fiber.

 

[MDE]

USB hubs let you hook up more than one device to a single USB port. It's not for networking.

 

[ShawnD1]

Oh.... why would anybody do that? Those USB switches cost like $50 but 3 port PCI connected USB controllers only cost like $20

 

[modedepe]

USB hubs are only about $15 or so. And maybe you wouldn't want to take up another pci slot?

 

[MDE]

Also, there's no such thing as a USB switch .