Date: Mon, 02 Feb 2004 12:29:34 -0600 From: Felix Arrazolo <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Hello. Does anyone know if a combo card is supposed to work with a Mac even if
it does not mention Mac compatibilty. In particular, there is one that has two
onboard chipsets which is supposed to give better performace than ones with
only a single chipset. It's a Firewire/USB 2.0 card and can be cound here:
Here is the long description:
And here's the URL: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=3456937503&category=44933
Thanks for any input.
-Felix
Long Description of Product:
NEW! 4 Port USB 2.0 / Firewire IEEE 1394 PCI Card Adapter !
What sets our card apart from the rest on ebay and most store brands? Unlike
other USB/Firewire combo cards such as OrangeMicro, VST, and BELKIN, our
cards use two different onboard chipsets to operate the USB 2.0 and Firewire
functions. Now what does this mean to you? Basically it means the card will not
have any conflicts with itself or share bandwidth between the USB and Firewire
ports. Other cards only use one chipset and hope you wont notice if some of
your firewire speed drop slightly while a USB device is plugged in.
I'm running a bit behind this week, so I hope noone will mind if I'm answering old questions. I couldn't let this one go.
The stuff written by this Ebay seller is complete BS. Either through ignorance or through intent to deceive he's feeding his customers a load of trail patties.
*Every* combo card is built with multiple chip sets. It works like this. The clever chip designers design single chip systems which will support USB and single chip systems which will support Firewire. These chips have the PCI interface on one side and the intended function on the other side. There's really not much more to those types of cards.
A combo card puts two or more of these chips on a single card. However, in order to make one PCI slot support two or three or four chips each of which want their own PCI slot, the combo card also has what is called a PCI-PCI Bridge chip on board. All of the devices on one of those cards is communicating through that PCI-PCI Bridge and through the single PCI slot in which the card is plugged. How could it be otherwise? Do his cards magically get more bandwidth some how? They're still plugged into just one slot.
Now if he claimed to be using a better PCI--PCI Bridge or a special USB or special Firewire chipset that would be something. But the volume on those items must be so high, that there is no way that just one company is selling all of a single model. Just a few chip makers develop and sell those chipsets and then sell them to as many card sellers as they possibly can.
Jeff Walther
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