Importance of USB 2.0?

[montego]

Im considering buying a P4 2.0a & an Epox 4BDA2+

But the Epox board doesnt support USB 2.0

I have a MOMO wheel, USB mouse & USB Kodak DVC325 webcam & all work fine now.

So why should I care about USB 2.0 support?
Any good reason?

 

[Jizzler]

If you don't have any USB 2.0 devices, don't worry about it.

 

[Mday]

speeeeed...

shrug.

That's about it.

<--- has a 24x burner on usb2.0 =D

 

[Derango]

The only reason to get USB2.0 is if you're going to purchase some USB 2.0 devices. I just got it for the extra USB ports at this point

 

[Eug]

USB 2 will bring high speed external devices to the masses. Too bad it's still a somewhat buggy and mediocrely implemented technology at this point. At best it will become pretty good, but it will never be as good as Firewire IMO. If you like the motherboard, don't consider the absence of USB 2 a deal breaker.

I wouldn't worry too much if you've got extra PCI slots. I'd much rather have an excellent board with no USB 2 than a mediocre (cough *** Abit *** cough) one with USB 2. You can always just buy a Firewire card or a USB 2 card later. Generic ones are about $20 and name brand ones are about $35. (However, if you get an external hard drive, I'd recommend Firewire, since the real life (not theoretical) speeds are faster. For CD/DVD the speed differences are irrelevant though.)

 

[NFS4]

<< USB 2 will bring high speed external devices to the masses. Too bad it's still a somewhat buggy and mediocrely implemented technology at this point. At best it will become pretty good, but it will never be as good as Firewire IMO. If you like the motherboard, don't consider the absence of USB 2 a deal breaker. >>


Buggy??
Mediocrely implemented??

Care to back up your claims? All the current USB 2.0 cards out there use the NEC chipset. Drivers (Win9x/WinMe/Win2000) are provided from the manufacturer (NEC based) and they work fine. Windows XP has full support via Windows Update for USB 2.0.

All the benchmarks from Tom's Hardware, USB Workshop, GamePC, etc. show USB 2.0 to be a competent, speedy alternative to Firewire. I don't see what the problem is. Firewire has failed to make any kind of immediate impact on the PC market. USB 2.0 has been around for a relatively short time and it's already taking over motherboards as standard equipment (Intel even has USB 2.0 implemented in the SB of their new 533MHz FSB chipsets).

http://www.tomshardware.com/storage/02q2/020410/usb2-10.html
http://www.gamepc.com/reviews/hardware_review.asp?review=diskinterfaces&page=1&mscssid=&tp=

 

[McCarthy]

If you do get any USB 2.0 devices you can use them with USB 1.1 ports. Or that's what I took from reading about it. Won't go full speed, but will sloth along until your next motherboard buy. Or get a PCI addon if you need it of course.

My friend NFS4 and I seem to have different levels of trust in the reliability of USB from our unique experiences. While I've had some rather poor luck, there are some factors to keep in mind with my experience - these were USB 1.0 devices on 1.0 ports; 1.1 and just some time for manufacturers to gain experience with USB seem to have lead to people having fewer problems over time. Hopefully 2.0 is flawless.

That said, if you trust USB then relying on the backwards compatability seems reasonable.
If you don't trust it then why would you want more USB? Just some oversimplified rationalizations for you to consider if they make you feel better about your board choice.

If you like the Epox4BDA2+ other than this then it's for you.

--Mc

 

[Eug]

NFS4, well, first of the the drivers are relatively new, and I've read about some problems with mobo conflicts etc. OTOH, with Firewire there are NO drivers in XP to install. The problems that people report as similar to reports in the early days of Firewire so I have no doubt that USB 2 support will get better.

Second, the reviews you've posted are extremely misleading:
A) It's irrelevant whether you use USB 2 or Firewire for CD or DVD drive, in terms of speed. Compatibility is more of an issue. Fortunately, the reviews got their USB 2 drives working properly so that's a non-issue in this case.
B) If you pick lousy Firewire hardware, like the one in the GamePC review, you're going to get lousy speeds. Some of the Maxtor-branded external Firewire drives are well known to be the slowest out there. Just about everyone I know who wants a Firewire hard drive would demand a Oxford 911 chipset, which has been repeatedly shown to go well over 30 MB/s, and in some cases peak over 40 MB/s, whereas the NEC USB 2 chipset can barely even hit 15 MB/s.



<< Firewire has failed to make any kind of immediate impact on the PC market. >>

Firewire is de facto standard in PC Multimedia. eg. Sony iLink, miniDV cameras, several "multimedia" latptops.

 

[nortexoid]

just stay away from USB 2.0 boards for now, since u most likely won't be getting any USB 2.0 devices for some time...

also, NEC just released an updated version of their USB controller which significantly boosts throughput performance....meaning, pick up an add-in PCI card utilizing this controller when it comes out..

what the hell, from everythingusb.com:


<< NEC that brings out the first Hi-Speed USB 2.0 controller has just announced a new enhanced controller that reportedly can "... deliver 20 percent more bandwidth ..." than its predecessor. Designated uPD720101, the controller is the first to adopt the new EHCI 1.0 specification, and also uses up to three-fifths less power than the previous model. Volume production is expected to begin in July 2002. NEC plans to produce 10 million units of its two host controller LSI products by the end of 2002. >>

 

[IndyJaws]

Don't board manufacturers have to pay a royalty to Apple whenever they install a Firewire interface? If that's the case, I would expect that USB 2.0 will become popular very quickly!

 

[ElFenix]

<----- should have paid the $25 more for the pro2 - RU version

 

[McCarthy]

IndyJaws - yup, a royalty. I read a few links provided in other threads, but am not sure where the final price ended up. Apple wanted $1 per port, someone said they agreed on 25c per. Not much expense per board, though every penny does count. While you or I may not care if a board costs $2 more, to Abit $2 a board is significant.

Guess there's no royalty to anyone for USB?

NFS4, thanks for the link. The gamepc.com one showed part of what I've read before. USB 2.0 has faster burst speeds, but in sustained transfers it's 480Mbit spec and 1394's 400Mbit come to the same real world speed. I'm disappointed he stopped at 1024kb when he said his test would go up to 32mb though. Also, CPU utilization wasn't listed with either. I'm not sure how you mean speedy alternative to firewire though as they run about the same speed where it counts, in sustained transfers. Saving 16kb files over USB 1.1 is fast enough you'd miss it if you blinked, only for larger files that the numbers mean much.

Just out of curiousity it'd be nice to see what the speed would be comparing transfers between an external CD and HD with the two, though this isn't something many of us will be doing. Simply to see how each performs with two significant devices in use at once would be the point.

Just be glad we have such nice stuff to argue over. For example, wasn't too long ago people with laptops were stuck with parallel port CDroms, even some unfortunate home users went that route not wanting to open their computer case.

--Mc

 

[NFS4]

<< Firewire is de facto standard in PC Multimedia. eg. Sony iLink, miniDV cameras, several "multimedia" latptops. >>


ROTF, you're calling support from a couple of laptops the "de facto" standard? LOL Firewire has made no inroads in the desktop PC market as far as integration goes, and that's the key difference here between USB 2.0 and Firewire. USB 2.0 has been out for a short while, but there is already tons of support for it from motherboard manufacturers. There is native support from VIA, SiS, NVIDIA, and Intel in the near future. Since no additional ports/add-in cards will be need for USB 2.0 support added on the chipset level (USB 2.0 ports can take the place of the current 1.1 port location on mobos), there is no problem for the motherboard manufacturers.

Ohh, Abit does have Firewire on their new AT7, but you say that Abit is mediocre so we'll let that pass


<< NFS4, well, first of the the drivers are relatively new, and I've read about some problems with mobo conflicts etc. OTOH, with Firewire there are NO drivers in XP to install. The problems that people report as similar to reports in the early days of Firewire so I have no doubt that USB 2 support will get better. >>


1) Mobo conflicts, haven't heard of 'em. There shouldn't be, it's just a simple USB bridge chip. I have an NEC based USB 2.0 card and it works great. Motherboards that have the NEC chip onboard wouldn't have conflicts so I don't see your point...

I mean, my motherboard should be crapping it's pants with all of the PCI devices (6) and USB devices I have hooked up, but it has NO problem whatsoever. If I can have a perfectly working setup with all of these devices, then anybody can:

USB Devices:
Audiovox Maestro PocketPC
PQI SmartMedia/CompactFlash Reader
Planar 18.1" LCD (4-ports on back)
USB 2.0 PCI card (4 ports external, 1 intenal)
Microsoft Intellimouse Explorer
Microsoft Natural Keyboard Pro
Gravis Xterminator Gamepad
Epson C60 Printer
HP Scanjet 3300C
USB Headset

PCI devices:
LSI SYM21002 UW2 Controller
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
Best Data 56k PCI Winmodem
Netgear FA310TC 10/100 NIC
Hauppage WinTV Model 401 TV Tuner
Generic USB 2.0 PCI Card

2) OH PUHLEASE!!!!!! You go to Windows Update, hit scan for updates, and click download. How hard is that? I have to install drivers for my GeForce3 Ti200 in Windows XP. Do you think that I care?

 

[Mem]

<< So why should I care about USB 2.0 support?
Any good reason? >>



It really is down to what USB hardware you`ve,in my case USB 2.0 is not needed at the moment,don`t forget you can always add a PCI USB 2.0 controller card in the future.

 

[rickn]

<< Firewire has made no inroads in the desktop PC market as far as integration goes >>



Except is on the back every SB Audigy that gets sold, which in the end will be millions upon millions of users. But you're right, Firewire has really failed to capture the attention of the IBM PC compatible world. It's one of those, "it's there, now what the heck do I do with it?" sorta things.

Epson announced the new 2200 7 color photo printer that has both USB 2.0 and Firewire.

 

[McCarthy]

Don't forget USB's been sitting around on motherboards since the mid Pentium days. Even if just by way of a bios option to enable the USB headers, which were bare pins on the motherboard nobody had the right connectors for.

Firewire's been around less time, in terms of startup momentum I'd say it's matched USB's if not surprassed it.

Why don't we ever stay on topic in threads?

--Mc

 

[Eug]

<< NFS4, thanks for the link. The gamepc.com one showed part of what I've read before. USB 2.0 has faster burst speeds, but in sustained transfers it's 480Mbit spec and 1394's 400Mbit come to the same real world speed. >>

Incorrect. In the real world, the Oxford 911 Firewire chipset is MUCH faster than USB 2.0 for sustained transfers, by a factor of 2-3X. Indeed, even with my relatively slow IBM 75GXP I can get sustained WRITE transfer rates of ~30% faster than they get with their READ transfer rates. And this is with real life timed transfers of Gigabytes worth of MP3 files, not benchmark programs.

Here is a more meaningful review from digit-life.com which puts good quality Firewire up against USB 2. Even if USB 2 were 20% faster than it is now, Firewire would still blow it out of the water, and more importantly, USB 2 would still significantly hold back (in terms of speed) most of the higher end 7200 rpm drives on the market. Whereas Firewire is "only" rated at 400 Mbps, these tests show that current bridge chipsets can get nearly 80% of that bandwidth. OTOH, USB 2 chipsets can probably get only in the range of 30% of the claimed 480 Mbps, at least for now.

Actually one of my pet peeves with USB 2 is its inability to deliver significant power. It can deliver a max of 2.5 W, whereas Firewire can deliver 15 W. This is significant, because it means that Firewire can power a 5400 rpm laptop hard drive without a separate AC adapter, whereas USB 2 cannot even power a 4200 rpm drive.

Also, one issue I have no experience with but which I've seen posted is that some people have problems with speeds and compatibility of their USB 2.0 devices when on the same chain as their USB 1.1 devices. Thus, if you're going to get USB 2, just in case I'd advise going for a setup which has BOTH USB 1.1 and USB 2 ports separately. These are quite common fortunately perhaps for this reason.

P.S. Windows XP also includes built-in network drivers for Firewire. I'm not sure of real world maximum speeds though and I'm not sure how useful it is since you generally need to keep the cable runs below 15 feet. It'd be useful for a small LAN though, rivalling Gigabit Ethernet over Cat 5e (but not Cat 6, which hasn't been released yet).