Conclusion

There are two ways to look at this IEEE1394 card from Evergreen. The first way would be to compare it to the reference card and say that while it comes up a bit short, it puts up a good fight and still beats out internal drive-to-drive transfers. The second way would be to look at the entire package Evergreen has assembled and rate it on that level.

Since the difference in performance of the two cards is based mainly on the differing chipsets, comparing them head to head is not entirely effective, but does point out the small majority the single chip design holds. In contrast, if we were to compare the entire package with that of the reference card, we would see that Evergreen puts out a superior box from the consumer standpoint. With the addition of the basic, but well known ULead video editing software, and most importantly in our opinion, a standard Fire Wire cable and separate digital device adapter it allows for more flexibility. Finally, the Evergreen IEEE1394 adapter card is one of the only cards we've seen so far to include 4 IEEE1394 ports (3 external and 1 internal).

With slightly lower performance, and an abundance of extras, this IEEE1394 card is well worth consideration in what will soon be the interface that may kill-off USB.