I bought an el cheapo noname brand with the Lucent chipset and my mobo wouldn't recognize it. So I returned it for an
Iwill SIDE-eLink1394 which cost me US$32, and it came with some Ulead video editing software. It's based on the VIA chipset and it works great with XP, which autoinstalled it with my BX mobo. I have it running with a Firewire hard drive (Oxford 911 chipset) and a Lexar Firewire CompactFlash reader. Most cards are based on the TI chipset though. All things being equal I'd get a TI chipset one simply because it's the most common, although I have no complaints about the VIA one, and it seems lately that around here the VIA cards are becoming quite common.
The Creative card comes with a usable Firewire port, but it's only one port. Most other cards come with either 2 or 3 external ports. In my case it was 2 external ports and 1 internal port (which is useless for most people). You can always daisychain devices on the Audigy's single port, but you should remember that if one device is shut off the rest of the chain goes down. (Well, that happens at least for non-powered devices - If I daisychain the Lexar to the hard drive, the Lexar disappears when I shut off the hard drive. Haven't tried a second powered device though.)
By the way, XP installs networking drivers for the Firewire card. Haven't been able to test it though, since only other available Firewire computer is a Mac, and Mac's don't have native Firewire networking drivers. Apple keeps its Firewire port strictly for peripherals. Too bad, since 100 Mbps Ethernet is seeming a bit slow these days.