1 Topic by bleeder (edited by bleeder 2008-05-26 09:12:42)

  • Registered: 2007-05-10
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Topic: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

1. I'm building a new system for my Fireface 800. Can anyone recommend me a good PCI or PCIe 1394b card? (I guess good = TI chipset, bad = Agere or other.  )

2. PCI is 132 MB/s parallel. PCIe is 250MB/s serial. 1394b is 100MB/sec. Looks to me it would be better to choose the PCI express since it can the full 100MB/sec but in both directions at the same time. Am I right here, or is there a limitation in firewire that it wouldn't matter?

Cards I've found so far that say what their chipset is:

Startech.com PCI card PCI1394B_3 uses TI 3AA651W
Startech.com PCIe card PEX1394B3 uses Agere System FW643 sad

also it says:
PEX1394B3 is built with a native PCI Express chipset and does not use a PCI Express bridge chip resulting in faster, reliable, and cost effective performance.

..which sounds good

So if I'm looking for PCI-Express this Startech is no good. But the bit about a native PCI Express chipset sounds like something to look for.

Any recommendations would be appreciated. Cheers



Edit: adding to my confusion now is this review from someone on Newegg.com for this Koutech 4-Port FireWire 1394a/1394b PCI Express (x1) Card (link http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a … 6815201014 )

Pros: You get Firewire 800 ports but at slower write speed comparable to Firewire 400 and USB 2.0.
Cons: Slow writes ~ 15-20 MB/s due to Texas Instrument chipset (TI XIO2000?). All PCI Express x1 card which uses the same chip will have the same problem. This card is slower than my regular PCI Firewire 800 card which gets ~30MB/s writes, which also uses a TI chipset, albeit a different one.
Other Thoughts: Going to return it. Wish there are other chipsets to choose from instead just Texas Instruments.

ummmm... thoughts??



Edit #2: Here I go adding edits as I go...

This SIIG PCIe card NN-E38012-S2 uses a TI chipset
but again, mixed reviews: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe … 6815150094
eg "Cons: Didn't work with my firewire audio card."

This SYBA PCIe card SD-PEX-FWB uses TI chipset as well (TI TSB82AA2)
more reviews here: http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductRe … 6815124050
Looks like it could work.. but some are saying you need unibrain drivers (my experience is that the Fireface 800 doesn't work with unibrain drivers), others are saying it works without them! Not sure about it...

That's all I've found so far.

What are the RME experts using for their firewire 800?

  • crypto
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

bleeder,

I am still waiting for administrative input on the following:

http://www.rme-audio.de/forum/viewtopic.php?id=2967

3 Reply by bleeder (edited by bleeder 2008-05-26 19:34:18)

  • Registered: 2007-05-10
  • Posts: 29

Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

looks like an interesting card. Wonder if it would work well

http://www.unibrain.com/Products/p1394/ … 00e_V2.htm

Fireboard800-e™ is the first one-chip, native 1394b to PCI express firewire adapter. The adapter is based on the brand new LSI [aka Agere] FW643 PCI Express 1394b Host Controller.

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

Timur wrote:

Texas Instruments Inc.'s 1394 (Firewire) portfolio has been expanded with the XIO2213A, a flexible PCIe to 1394b open host controller that claims a throughput exceeding 87MBps, which makes it the fastest 1394b controller out on the market. The XIO2213A's architecture creates a one-chip 1394b solution for ExpressCards, PC add-in cards and motherboards or docking stations.

The XIO2213A provides interoperability by supporting three bilingual 1394 A/B cable ports at 100Mbit/s, 200Mbit/s, 400Mbit/s and 800Mbit/s. The device's internal dedicated PCI bus operates at 32bit, 66MHz and includes a pre-fetch agent to optimize PCIe packets for maximum 1394 performance.

This chip still uses a PCIe to PCI brigde internally, but obviously the performance is good. TI offers its own reference implementation PCIe board for 299$. No idea if this thing works with Windows and MAC OS right away (there's a CD-ROM provided).

http://www.ti-estore.com/Merchant2/merc … IO2213AEVM

Btw, LSI = AGERE! wink

  • Registered: 2007-05-10
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

Yes, I was editing that LSI=Agere bit in my post but I got distracted reading the Sticky post Hardware Alert: FireWire solutions with Agere FW chip

So that unibrain card is no good --

We got our hands on a PCIe FireWire 800 card from Unibrain using this chip, and found the exact (!) same problems under Windows as under Mac OS X using this card.

  • Registered: 2007-05-10
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

Uhhg. Well, looks like if I want best performance on my FF800 I should just use windoze XP with a 1394b PCI card with TI chipset. Too bad Vista can't handle 1394b. I was interested in trying Windows Server 2008 too. Can't believe all this trouble with firewire!!

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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

The unibrain is a new revision.

Timur, anyone care to comment?

8 Reply by MC

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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

LSI = Agere. We tested the former version of this card, it had the commonly known problems.

Regards
Matthias Carstens
RME

MC's Website

  • Registered: 2008-01-01
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

crypto wrote:

The unibrain is a new revision.

Timur, anyone care to comment?

It still uses the same FW643 chip. So unless there has been some revision of this chip that fixes the problems with Firewire Audio it most likely wont make much of a difference. But you can never tell until you try. The card comes with an external power plug (12V) for better voltage stability, maybe that fixes the reset issues?! No idea.

10 Reply by crypto (edited by crypto 2008-05-27 12:36:48)

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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

Hi Timur,

The FW643 chip has been revised to revision 6, hence V2. of the Unibrain Fireboard 800e.

http://www.unibrain.com/Products/p1394/ … B800-e.htm

  • Registered: 2010-09-07
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

Anyone have experience on this 1394 card?

http://www.era-adapter.com/pcix-64-bit- … -p-74.html

12 Reply by ksw1983 (edited by ksw1983 2010-09-08 17:50:12)

  • Registered: 2010-08-23
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Re: 1.Which firewire 800 PCIe or PCI card has TI chipset? 2. PCI vs PCIe

Same issue!!


So can someone confirm - Should I go for a TI Chipset? Can anyone recommend a compatible 400 card?