Adding functionality to the old motherboard.

[Perd Hapley]

Actually, a fairly new motherboard. It's an el cheapo Gigabyte motherboard I bought last fall. Cheapest model they had. I need to add a few USB ports to the back side of the case (mid-tower type), but I figured I could add something else at the same time. I was thinking of a card with USB 2.0 and Firewire, since I don't currently have any Firewire ports at all. I don't have anything that uses Firewire, but I just figured I'd add the capability. Then I found out that USB 3.0 is faster than either one of them. (At least according to Wikipedia.)

So apparently, with a $20 card, I can add 3.0 ports to pretty much any computer with a PCI-Express slot. Something like this:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815133005

Oh, wait, some bad reviews. Maybe this one, instead:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=15-124-110&SortField=0&SummaryType=0&Pagesize=10&PurchaseMark=&SelectedRating=-1&VideoOnlyMark=False&VendorMark=&IsFeedbackTab=true&Page=2#scrollFullInfo


The only hang-up seems to be the complications with needing some other power source, if one wants to charge phones or power a hard drive or something. But I'll still have 2.0 ports for that purpose, so I don't think I'll worry about that.

Am I on the right track, here?


(Also, I would add the specifications for the mo-board, but I can't lay my hands on them right now.)

[lee n. field]

since I don't currently have any Firewire ports at all. I don't have anything that uses Firewire, but I just figured I'd add the capability.

Firewire's a once in a blue moon thing, anyway, unless you have a specific need.

I think I've used it twice, ever.  Once to recover a partition on a Mac formatted ext. hd that only a firewire connection.  Once to demonstrate that an ancient Mac with firewire beat the whoo-pee, speedwise, out of a Pee Cee with firewire card, for video purposes.

[Gewehr98]

Firewire external sound cards are a very nice thing. 

I have an older M-Audio Firewire 410 that I plug my guitars into, using Digidesign Pro-Tools software for mixing duties on my 8-cpu IBM workstation. 

They all boast zero latency, at least 4 inputs, 10 outputs, excellent capabilities:

http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=products.family&ID=FWinterfaces