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Firewire or USB?
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 6:54 pm
by gh02
Today, I was just about to buy a Firewire Focusrite Saffire pro 24 audio interface, when the bloke in the shop told me there was no difference in speed (or latency) between Firewire and USB 2. He said I should go for a Saffire 6 USB and save £100 .....is he right?
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 7:04 pm
by deadly_habit
it's negligible, and also depends on what standard your firewire port is, also usb3 is going to be the new standard soon enough as it's being included on all mobos worth a damn
if possible get a pci or pcie card unless you're laptop based
personally i don't know why he was trying to downsell you though as the 24 has more ins/outs and more features to my knowledge
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 7:17 pm
by gh02
I thought it was odd too but I think he was being genuine about it... all I need it for is midi 5 pin connectors for Roland Vdrums, and to plug my Rokits in too. I don't really need any other ins or outs
As for ports, I'm on a macbook pro i5, so I think it's a FW 800 (?)
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 7:19 pm
by deadly_habit
well if you plan on doing more later go for the 24 otherwise the 6 will be fine
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Mon Sep 20, 2010 8:00 pm
by FSTZ
usb 2 is actually a little faster
I still want that damn liquid saffire pro 56
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:32 pm
by jsills
gh02 wrote:Today, I was just about to buy a Firewire Focusrite Saffire pro 24 audio interface, when the bloke in the shop told me there was no difference in speed (or latency) between Firewire and USB 2. He said I should go for a Saffire 6 USB and save £100 .....is he right?
sapphire 6 is usb1.1.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:35 pm
by shaneynclan
i was under the impression that the speed of usb and firewire are the same, just firewire is more intelligent in effect.
firewire can allocate bandwidth to a higher bandwidth device, while usb uses the same amount regardless of the device.
someone correct me if i am wrong here.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 8:37 pm
by symmetricalsounds
maybe the inate speed might not be different, but usb will put a load on the cpu and firewire won't. in a live situation i know which one i'd rather have, and i have a pretty good usb interface.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:03 pm
by deadly_habit
yea firewire does use less cpu, but honestly if a usb device is taxing your cpu that much...
Comparison with USB
The newest USB 3.0 has now come to the market. It has a theoretical transfer rate of up to 5.0 Gbit/s.[30] It should be noted that with anything, adoption may take some time. USB 3.0 is currently only available on a very limited amount of consumer devices and a smaller amount of motherboards.
Although current high-speed USB 2.0 (introduced in 2001) is quoted as running at a higher signaling rate (480Mbit/s) than legacy FireWire 400 (400 Mbit/s, available since 1995), data transfers over S400 FireWire interfaces generally outperform similar transfers over USB 2.0 interfaces. Few if any USB 2.0 device implementations are able to saturate the entire 480 Mbit/s, but this can be achieved with multiple devices on the same bus. Typical USB PC hosts rarely can sustain transfers exceeding 280 Mbit/s, with 240 Mbit/s being more typical. This is likely due to USB's reliance on the host processor to manage low-level USB protocol, whereas FireWire delegates the same tasks to the interface hardware (requiring less or no CPU usage). For example, the FireWire host interface supports memory-mapped devices, allowing high-level protocols to run without loading the host CPU with interrupts and buffer-copy operations.[5]
Besides throughput, other differences are that FireWire uses simpler bus networking, provides more power over the chain and more reliable data transfer, and is less taxing on a CPU.[31]
FireWire 800 is substantially faster than Hi-Speed USB.[32] Even so, not all personal computers utilize the FireWire protocol. Apple includes FireWire on some of its computers, not including the ultra-portable MacBook Air and consumer-branded MacBook. It is included on some HP portables (2540p and 2740p) as well as most Sony VAIOs and Lenovo ThinkPads.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewire
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:30 pm
by symmetricalsounds
it's not only the fact of how much it taxes the cpu but that it gets put in the cue of everything else that needs to be done by the cpu. do you want your cpu solely dealing with daw+o/s tasks or that stuff plus the interface tasks. like i said i do have a decent usb interface but would definitely rather have a FW device but seeing as i didn't pay for my usb desk i can't really complain.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:33 pm
by Depone
The great thing i love aboiut firewire is that your able to chain 2 or more devices together using just one firewire port.
I have 3 firewire external HD's all running from the same 800 port.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:40 pm
by deadly_habit
the only problem i have with firewire is the problems that arise when you aren't using the right chipset time to time, that and they should just stick to one pin configuration standard for all implementations
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:50 pm
by symmetricalsounds
deadly habit wrote:the only problem i have with firewire is the problems that arise when you aren't using the right chipset time to time
yeah that has been a problem with laptop firewire chipsets and is definitely something to be aware of.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:52 pm
by deadly_habit
heh i like my cabling and electronic protocols to have a set standard to em /nerd
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:54 pm
by symmetricalsounds
deadly habit wrote:heh i like my cabling and electronic protocols to have a set standard to em /nerd
yeah i feel that, if only there was a fully standard cable that connected anything to everything else.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 9:58 pm
by jobbanaught
In my experience too much usb traffic tends to clog up the cpu, where firewire runs much more smoothly
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 10:06 pm
by DLOGREZYRB
I am really glade I came across this. I was just looking to making a change from my Yamaha Audiogram6 to a M-Audio ProFire 610.
Any thoughts on this switch or perhaps a better recommendation?
http://www.google.com/products/catalog? ... DkQ8wIwAg#
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 10:10 pm
by deadly_habit
in the sameish price range i'd look at the focusrite pro 24 dsp
not a fan of m audio's stuff
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Tue Sep 21, 2010 10:24 pm
by DJ Crackle
Jesus, I hadn't even heard about USB 3. I'm kinda disgusted with myself. I need to hop back up on my nerd shit.
Re: Firewire or USB?
Posted: Wed Sep 22, 2010 10:28 am
by symmetricalsounds
i'd go with deadly and say focusrite too, never heard anyone complain about their stuff. m-audio is alright but if it's a similar price then go with the focusrite.