Modem Question/Recommend

[moosey]

Looking for a good v.92 modem for winXP.

What is the diff between the diamond SpuraMax PCI LE and PCI Pro?

http://www.diamondmm.com/suprapcile.html
http://www.diamondmm.com/suprapcipro.html

Also, would you recommend any other modems over these. I'm looking to spend under $30 preferably.

 

[Cerb]

I don't know, but I wouldn't buy a Diamond product...they've been through too many ownership changes.
You get a winmodem either way, so if you don't want to pay $42 for a real modem, you might as well get an Archtek or AOpen.
The current Diamond modems are actually Best Data, BTW.

 

[applesseed]

Hmmm... I can't tell the difference for the Diamond but I've been using a brand AirLink+ for my XP and it works great. I got mine for $9. It was brand new, never opened, original price was like $17. Not sure if they still have the promotion but you might want to check it out from Fry's Electronic

 

[Erasmus-X]

If I remember correctly, the "PCI Pro" model has a hardware DSP, whereas the vanilla model does not. These features don't matter on any modern Windows PC that's less than say, 4 years old. Controllerless modems are often called "WinModems", which emulate these missing chips through drivers. On today's fast CPUs, their alleged resource usage is almost negligible.

Long story short: hardware-based modems are a waste of money, unless of course, you need to something that's guaranteed to work on several different platforms.

 

[LED]

Look for one (hard or soft) with the Conexant chip.

 

[lenjack]

Winmodems with the following chips are preferred by modemsite.com.
LT
lucent
agere

These are variants on the original LT chip.

 

[Cerb]

Originally posted by: Erasmus-X
If I remember correctly, the "PCI Pro" model has a hardware DSP, whereas the vanilla model does not. These features don't matter on any modern Windows PC that's less than say, 4 years old. Controllerless modems are often called "WinModems", which emulate these missing chips through drivers. On today's fast CPUs, their alleged resource usage is almost negligible.

Long story short: hardware-based modems are a waste of money, unless of course, you need to something that's guaranteed to work on several different platforms.

...or if you're a gamer still stuck on dial-up.

 

[knighthawkaz]

I would go with a U.S. robotics. I have owned several Supra modems (back in the day Diamond), and was not to impressed with it. Drivers were always released in a beta stage and I had nothing but instability problems with them.

1 U.S. robotics v.90 later. I couldn't be happier. If I was still on dial up, thats what I'd do.