anyone can recommend a decent pci firewire card? with ext. usb 2.0 a bonus.

I'd recommend searching on ebay for one. Any decent card runs above $50. I've searched for one a while ago for the HD camera.

Be sure to get one that also has at least 1 inetranl firewire and 1 usb port. Comes in handy ;)

I found some for ~17 with both usb and firewire, are those any good? dual via chipsets.

The VIA ones will work, just not very high performance. From what I've seen the TI chipsets seem to perform better.

which cards use the TI chipset?

This one does http://cooldrives.com/pcitoi13firc.html
Many others out there as well, although it can be heard to figure out, many card vendors dont list what chipset they use.