Skip to main content

The Echo Layla3g Audio Interface is at least $100 less then their new
Firewire version (AudioFire8).

I dont have a portable need for Firewire. Is there some technical reason to
stay with PCI?. Does the PCI version use less CPU overhead then a Firewire
would?

Any thoughts?

Topic Tags

Comments

anonymous Tue, 04/26/2005 - 16:46

It seems to me that as far as CPU overhead is concerned, there should be no difference. With a PCI interface, the audio card is communicating directly with the Chipset on the motherboard. With a Firewire interface, the firewire card (whether built in or not) is the one talking to the motherboard. Again, not much difference. Generally with computers, external devices like the firewire box are more expensive than internal cards. For example, an internal Hard Drive can often cost $100 or more less than an external. Hope this helps! Get the interface that's most convenient for you to use...

Brooks

Randyman... Thu, 04/28/2005 - 19:10

I may be off base, but I thought there was a certain (small) amount of PACKET CONVERSION that must be done to/from Firewire in the Audio domain? This conversion needs a host, and I believe the CPU is used for these packet conversions? I dunno...

I do know that Firewire talks through the PCI bus, so FW seems like another step to me.

:cool: