Evergreen intros FireWire PC card

Updated Pretty soon now, The Register will be attending the Intel Developer Forum, this time round held not in the desert but in San Jose.

At such gigs, as regular readers will be aware, there is an exhibition area where you can spot the latest trends in fans and also stop by the IEEE 1394 booth, where the lads and lasses are usually disconsolate because Pat 'Kicking' Gelsinger has once again extolled the virtues of USB over FireWire.

Intel is so committed to pushing USB, soon to be seen in its 2.0 revision, that its reference recommendations for PCs occlude FireWire from a place at the table.

But now Evergreen, a third-party manufacturer, seems to have decided that despite Intel's wishes, some consumers at least wish to and will have FireWire in their machines.

Over at PC Stats, there is a review of a $60 PC FireWire card that the firm has pushed through the doors of its manufacturing plant.

But if you live in the UK and want to buy one of these marvels, you can forget it. The UK office and Web site has this item on sale for £119, and a representative said, Evergreen US will not ship direct to the UK.

She explained: "There's a once only $30 rebate on the price of the card in the US. We don't have the same rebate." She said overheads here were far higher. And, she confirmed, Evergreen US will not ship to UK addresses at these prices.

"This is obviously a big issue," she added. The company is looking to address the big price delta between the US and the UK.

Despite this obvious discrepancy in pricing across the pond, some PC companies, notably Compaq, will provide FireWire capability in their PCs, so it seems that despite Intel's wishes in the matter, the 400Mbps interface has got a future. And presumably Compaq will ship its machines at a similar price to the Stateside price. ®