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The ever-uber FireWire!

  • Thread starter Deleted member 79192
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I'd like to know what FireWire is used for, and how important it is for a casual computer user, and heavy gamer. A noticed quite a few of DFI's newer mobos, like the nForce II Infinity, have build in FireWire ports (internal). Worth the money, or just a waste of space?
 
Well if you have a need for fast devices, like external hard drives and video editing/camera stuff, then yes it is very worth it. For the casual computer user or even the gamer it's probablly not too important.
 
You use it to transfer video from you're video camcorder to your computer, it's like USB2.0 but I think it's faster, and puts less load on the CPU.
 
Firewire, like USB 2.0, is a device interface with a high transfer rate.

In practice, fire wire and USB 2.0 are about the same for performance. In theory I think USB 2.0 edges firewire out a bit, but I'd have to double-check things.

It's nice to have both, however, because there are plenty of things you might wish to buy that will use only one or the other (digital camcorders, for example).

Erik
 
It is mainly used for digital video cameras and external drives. I think you can even link computers with firewire. Not a whole lot else, though. Generally if you don't know you need it then you don't need it. A casual gamer won't have much use for it unless you want to use an external hard drive.
 
Originally posted by Dem
Firewire, like USB 2.0, is a device interface with a high transfer rate.

In practice, fire wire and USB 2.0 are about the same for performance. In theory I think USB 2.0 edges firewire out a bit, but I'd have to double-check things.

It's nice to have both, however, because there are plenty of things you might wish to buy that will use only one or the other (digital camcorders, for example).

Erik
Click to expand...


USB 2.0 is faster..by how much I cant remember...but i do know its faster
 
USB 2.0 is 480mb/s, firewire is 400. USB uses more CPU to function than firewire, so who wins? Dunno.

I have a firewire external hard drive but plenty of USB peripherals. Neither works perfectly though, as devices can fail to initialize or decide to not be plug-and-play. I've seen both and have never succeeded in getting some of the issues to go away with certain devices. (different problems on different machines, including OS' in many cases, Macs are not excluded)
 
the firewire that most people have is firewire400, which goes along at 400mbps, while usb 2 is 440mbps. barely making it faster. however the upcoming firewire800 will surely own usb 2 once it gets its act together

EDIT: late... and i thought usb was 440.. maybe im wrong. swore it was 440
 
your right, its 480...

http://www.everythingusb.com/usb2/faq.htm
Originally, USB 2.0 was intended to go only as fast as 240Mbps, but then, USB 2.0 Promoter Group increased the speed to 480Mbps in October 1999.
Click to expand...

i guess i got the 40 and the 80 mixed up...
 
Originally posted by fallsincluded
the firewire that most people have is firewire400, which goes along at 400mbps, while usb 2 is 440mbps. barely making it faster. however the upcoming firewire800 will surely own usb 2 once it gets its act together

EDIT: late... and i thought usb was 440.. maybe im wrong. swore it was 440
Click to expand...

Yes, there's firewire 800, there will also be USB 3.0 I'm sure.

And it continues. There's nothing to see here, go on about your work folks. :p
 
Those of you saying that USB 2.0 is even close in performance to IEEE-1394 in hard drive performance should open their eyes for a second. It's not as easy as comparing theoretical transfer limits. By examining the hard numbers, you will see that FireWire has a huge advantage in performance. Case in point:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewire/?65477

Notice that in most benchmarks the FireWire configuration is 30-100% faster than the USB 2.0 setup.
 
Originally posted by xonik
Those of you saying that USB 2.0 is even close in performance to IEEE-1394 in hard drive performance should open their eyes for a second. It's not as easy as comparing theoretical transfer limits. By examining the hard numbers, you will see that FireWire has a huge advantage in performance. Case in point:

http://www.digit-life.com/articles/usb20vsfirewire/?65477

Notice that in most benchmarks the FireWire configuration is 30-100% faster than the USB 2.0 setup.
Click to expand...

Hence the reason I don't mind my external hard drive being Firewire only :D. USB would be nice but when I got the thing the external drives weren't that popular yet.
 
I've got a USB 2.0 hard drive, and while it's nice it's not quick enough that I'd want to use it as an application drive. Works great for data though, and it's an invaluable tool for tech support (since it's backwards compatible with USB 1.0 and doesn't require drivers on 2000+)

I've only worked with a few firewire drives (all on Mac's), but those seemed pretty zippy. I hear you can even run them in RAID arrays.

Erik
 
Firewire is a GODSEND at LAN parties. I can't stress enough how important they are when sharing the latest demo you've downloaded with others, among other possible files you've created.

The transfer rate is realistically better at the moment over USB 2.0, for reasons unknown. Weird, but true. I've dealt with both.

Dark Assassin
 
<3<3<3 Firewire

Massive external Firewire 800 disks are very nice, since they can actually be FASTER than an internal IDE drive. It's also popular to use in cameras.
 
USB2.0 is rated faster and bursts higher, but sustained transfer is higher on FireWire 400. Firewire is just a better solution but is not used enough. The sustained transfer and lower CPU utilization are two reasons it is used for transferring video.
 
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