Interface Overkill: Table Details
This blog post references my cover story 'Interface Overkill? Is eSATA Necessary For Your Next System Design?' in EDN's May 10, 2007 edition. It's one of a series of web addendums to the print writeup.
Four tables I submitted for the print article didn't make the final cut due to pagecount limitations. They're in the article's online version as PDFs, but I I've also reproduced them below in easier-to-access ASCII form.
Peak bandwidth capabilities of various system expansion bus options.
|
Interface |
Peak bandwidth (post-8B/10B decoding for eSATA) |
|
IEEE 1394a (i.e. FireWire 400) |
393.216 Mbps (49.152 MBytes/sec) |
|
USB 2.0 |
480 Mbps (60 MBytes/sec) |
|
IEEE 1394b (i.e. FireWire 800) |
786.432 Mbps (98.3 MBytes/sec) |
|
eSATA (1.5 Gbps) |
1.2 Gbps (150 MBytes/sec) |
|
eSATA (3 Gbps) |
2.4 Gbps (300 MBytes/sec) |
Key test system specifications.
|
CPU |
Two 3 GHz AMD FX-74 processors, each containing two CPU cores with dedicated per-core 1 Myte L2 cache |
|
Core logic |
Nvidia nForce 680a chipset |
|
DRAM |
4 GBytes Corsair CM2X1024-8500C5D DDR2-1066 (PC8500) |
|
HDD |
Two Western Digital WD1500ADFD 150 GByte Raptor |
|
Graphics |
Two XFX GeForce 7900 GTX PCI Express AIBs |
|
Motherboard FireWire |
Via Technologies 6308P |
|
Motherboard eSATA |
Silicon Image Sil3531 |
|
Enclosure |
Thermaltake VA8003BWS |
|
Power supply |
PC Power & Cooling Turbo-Cool 1000W |
Peak bandwidth capabilities of various system external interface options.
|
Bus |
Peak bandwidth (post-8B/10B decoding, and assuming full duplex operation for PCI Express) |
|
PCI (32-bit, 33 MHz) |
1.066 Gbps (133 MBytes/sec) |
|
PCI (64-bit, 33 Mhz) |
2.133 Gbps (266 MBytes/sec) |
|
PCI (32-bit, 66 MHz) |
2.133 Gbps (266 MBytes/sec) |
|
PCI (64-bit, 66 MHz) |
4.266 Gbps (533 MBytes/sec) |
|
PCI-X (64-bit, 100 MHz) |
6.4 Gbps (800 MBytes/sec) |
|
PCI-X (64-bit, 133 MHz) |
8.533 Gbps (1.066 GBytes/sec) |
|
x1 PCI Express v1 |
4 Gbps (500 MBytes/sec) |
|
x4 PCI Express v1 |
16 Gbps (2 GBytes/sec) |
|
x8 PCI Express v1 |
32 Gbps (4 GBytes/sec) |
|
x16 PCI Express v1 |
64 Gbps (8 GBytes/sec) |
|
x1 PCI Express v2 |
8 Gbps (1 GByte/sec) |
|
x4 PCI Express v2 |
32 Gbps (4 GBytes/sec) |
|
x8 PCI Express v2 |
64 Gbps (8 GBytes/sec) |
|
x16 PCI Express v2 |
128 Gbps (16 GBytes/sec) |
Key external storage peripheral specifications.
|
Product |
Interface(s) |
HDD(s) |
|
Seagate ST3500601XS-RK |
3 Gbps eSATA |
One 500GB, 7200 RPM, 16 MByte cache |
|
Maxtor OneTouch III Turbo Edition |
USB2, FireWire 400, FireWire 800 |
Two 500 GByte, 7200 RPM, 16 MByte cache |
|
Silicon Image SteelVine SV2000 |
3 Gbps eSATA |
Five 160 GByte, 7200 RPM, 8 MByte cache |
|
AMCC 3ware Sidecar |
xSATA (quad-lane 3 Gbps eSATA) |
Four 160 GByte, 7200 RPM, 8 MByte cache |
