Firewire vs. GPIB vs. MXI-2 vs. VXI Embedded PC

Application: Configure Agilent E1411B DMM and Agilent E1460A multiplexer as a scanning multimeter.

Results: The system using MXI-2 was fastest - 1% faster than the Agilent E6235A embedded PC, 11% faster than the Agilent E8491B, and twice as fast as the Agilent E1406A.

Conclusion from this application:
The MXI-2 configuration is fastest in this application - 1% faster than embedded PC, 11% faster than the Agilent E8491B and twice as fast as the Agilent E1406A.

Agilent E8491B IEEE 1394 (FireWire) PC to VXI Link

Agilent E8491A IEEE 1394 (FireWire) PC to VXI Link

Agilent E1406A GPIB Command Module

NI VME-PCI8015 MXI-2

Agilent E6235A Embedded VXI PC 200 MHz

Configure E1411B DMM (ms)

28.09

32.64

40.79

24.84

26.07

Scan 64 channels and (ms) output data

81.13

157.18

157.55

73.62

73.75

Total Time (ms)

109.22

189.82

198.34

98.46

99.82