FirewireDirect.com has introduces their FireWire 800 1394b PCI Host Adapter Card. As the name implies, it’s a new expansion card with FireWire 800 on board. It features a single FireWire 400 port, too.
FireWire 800 is the high-speed peripheral interface introduced with Apple’s 17 inch PowerBook G4 this past January. The interface has since made it onto new Power Mac G4 designs.
FireWire 800, also known by its industry moniker IEEE 1394b, sports twice the available bandwidth as the original FireWire interface. Now, several vendors including FirewireDirect.com offer FireWire 800-based PCI expansion cards for older Power Macs and other systems whose users want to add the capability to their machines.
The new card sports two bilingual 9-pin FireWire 800 interfaces. While FireWire 800 is downwardly compatible with the original FireWire specifications, it requires a cable adapter in order to work. What’s more, FireWire 800 performance can be impacted by the presence of peripherals using the slower interface, according to FirewireDirect.
FirewireDirect.com’s new card features a third, 400Mbs port that uses the original FireWire 6-pin interface and speed, for users who wish to eschew such cable converters and performance issues to get their legacy Firewire hardware to work.
The FireWire 800 1394b PCI Host Adapter Card ships in mid-May, according to FirewireDirect.com. The card is priced at US$79.95.
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