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Iogear Cards Double FireWire Throughput

Pioneering FireWire 800 cards debut sans device support.

Lincoln Spector, special to PCWorld.com

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Iogear is looking to the future with support for faster FireWire, introducing FireWire 800 expansion cards that purport to provide up to twice the throughput speed of existing FireWire 400 ports.

The catch? You'll need to find FireWire 800 devices to plug into them. Iogear says its PCI cards are the first of their type, and are available in versions for both the Macintosh and the PC, each priced at $100. Editor's Note: LaCie sells an $89 Firewire 800 card for both Mac and PC systems.

Fast, Far-Flung

Apple Computers' FireWire 800 standard, also known by the geekier name IEEE 1394b, can push data through its wires at a rate of 800 megabits per second. It leapfrogs over both FireWire 400 (400 mbps) and USB 2.0, which can handle up to 480 mbps.

The doubled top speed is expected to prove especially useful for digital video work, where massive amounts of information must move between devices, and for the performance of external hard drives. A speed of 800 mbps equals 100 megabytes per second, which is the current main parallel ATA standard. Maxtor drives support 133-MBps parallel ATA interfaces, and today's Serial ATA drives offer a 150-MBps interface.

The new standard also works at greater distances, so you can safely put 100 feet or more of cable between devices (FireWire 400 can reliably go up to 60 feet). This should be good news for anyone hoping to set up a FireWire network; and FireWire's ability to daisy chain up to 63 devices makes the goal practical. (Unlike USB, FireWire devices can work independently of a PC.)

The new specification is backward-compatible with FireWire 400, though it will need a special adapter to connect. (It uses a nine-pin connector instead of the old standard's six-pin connector.) Once connected, the FireWire 400 devices should work fine.

Plug In What?

That's important, because at the moment FireWire 400 devices are nearly all that's available. EZQuest is selling a FireWire 800 hard drive (the Cobra FireWire 800/USBII HD), but little else is on the market as yet. FireWire 800 digital video cameras will ship within a year, says John Patakas, assistant product manager for the Iogear cards.

In the meantime, Iogear is selling the cards. The Mac-intended model GIC3800 comes with three FireWire 800 ports, while the PC-targeted GIC2814 has only two 800 ports and one FireWire 400 port. Why the difference? Macs have come with FireWire 400 ports for years, so users probably don't need another, but FireWire ports of any kind remain uncommon on PCs.

Microsoft has supported FireWire 400 since Windows 98 SE, but Windows support of FireWire 800 is still a question mark.

Patakas says that he doubts Microsoft will add new device support to versions of Windows older than XP. But as for Windows XP, Patakas says that he has "found [unofficial] beta support...in Service Pack 1. Service Pack 2, I'm told, will have [official] support." Microsoft has not yet confirmed FireWire 800 support.

Iogear ships the PC version of its card with its own drivers, making the need for Microsoft support less drastic.

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