Mesa card comparison table

I put together this overview, or feature comparison table, over some of the available Mesa cards. Maybe it's useful to someone.


Corrections and suggestions are welcome! Did I miss some common card?

the 7i96 also has a high speed encoder interface

You missed a few, here is a few screenshots of my Mesa Configuration Tool which has a wealth of information as well as flashing cards and making complete configurations. I'd like to include the info you collected into it.

 

 

 

JT

Thanks JT! I think I will skip the 50-pin cards as well as the DB25/IDC26 cards with more than two channels - I'm under the (perhaps mistaken?) impression that those cards are seldom used by beginners, for whom my table might be useful.

Nice to see that the info found its way into your configurator!

Everyone is a beginner when they start no matter what board they use... for example they might only be able to get a 7i80 and a couple of daughter cards right now.

JT

BigJohnT wrote:

... for example they might only be able to get a 7i80 and a couple of daughter cards right now.
 

Nope , they are currently ALL out of stock too
Humpfff... I hate chips shortage ...
 

There are 3 of 7i80 on www.mesaus.com
mesaus.com/product/7i80hd-25/
Those are 50 pin ones with ethernet.

I went through the remaining DB25 cards that I missed above. They all feel rather esoteric in that they lack general purpose IO (probably mostly useful for the more advanced user?), so I won't add them to the table above. But for completeness:

arvidb wrote:

Thanks JT! I think I will skip the 50-pin cards as well as the DB25/IDC26 cards with more than two channels - I'm under the (perhaps mistaken?) impression that those cards are seldom used by beginners, for whom my table might be useful.

I think that the 5i24 is a very useful and cost-effective card. It i especially useful if you need to interface with Resolvers via the 7i49. 

I would think all of the cards not in my comparison are useful given the right circumstances. I was aiming to give a quick overview for someone migrating from Mach 3, or someone with a machine of similar complexity. A beginner's introduction, if you will.

Am I just confusing things by not including all Mesa cards?

Edit: BTW, I just noted that the 7i96 has been removed from Mesa's homepage. The 7i96S is still there, but not the 7i96...