USB modem performance

[Mr Evil]

How do USB modems compare to other types? Are they hardware or software modems? Gaming performance is important, but not critical to my decision.

At the moment I have an external serial modem, which I purchased specifically because it was a hardware modem, and also because I don't want to have any PCI devices that could potentially not work because of my very high PCI bus speed (50MHz).

[mackerel]

I believe that it wont be a "soft" modem, as USB doesn't have enough bandwidth to let the CPU do a lot of work (about 100 times less than PCI). USB itself is supposed to be CPU intensive, but as the data rates of a modem are low, I doubt the impact will be significant. I was using a USB cable modem for a while, and didn't observe any difference in performance in general use.

[Dewill]

Hi
I have tested a few modem's and at my home the usb is no faster.
I would stick with the one you have,
The fastest one I have come across was an ISA modem software,
when I say faster, ie connect speed.
Regards
Jed;)

[Mr Evil]

Good. As long as they are at least as good as what I have now then I will get one.

I don't actually needd a new modem, as I am happy with the one I have, but my sister needs one, so I thought I would give her mine and take the opportunity to move completely over to USB.