I bought a SIIG FireWire 2-Port PCIe (NN-E20012-S2) a while back.  It is a TI chipset, and it worked very well.  Actually for my application, it worked exactly the same as my motherboard Firewire port, which is a non-TI chipset.  So I took the card out and saved for a rainy day.  I paid $39 for it.
 
The back story to my problem was that 95% of my woes were caused by my nVidia graphics card.  A non-TI chipset had nothing to do with it.

2:43AM
I bought a SIIG FireWire 2-Port PCIe (NN-E20012-S2) a while back.  It is a TI chipset, and it worked very well.  Actually for my application, it worked exactly the same as my motherboard Firewire port, which is a non-TI chipset.  So I took the card out and saved for a rainy day.  I paid $39 for it.
 
The back story to my problem was that 95% of my woes were caused by my nVidia graphics card.  A non-TI chipset had nothing to do with it.

that's good info to know.

2:43AM
I bought a SIIG FireWire 2-Port PCIe (NN-E20012-S2) a while back.  It is a TI chipset, and it worked very well.  Actually for my application, it worked exactly the same as my motherboard Firewire port, which is a non-TI chipset.  So I took the card out and saved for a rainy day.  I paid $39 for it.
 
The back story to my problem was that 95% of my woes were caused by my nVidia graphics card.  A non-TI chipset had nothing to do with it.

 I'm running a Presonus 1394 on a onboard VIA chipset. Never had any problems.  Same with my FW410. I've read FW devices and W8 don't get along too well. I wonder if that will change with W10.    

FWIW, MOTU and RME Firewire units work just fine under Win8.1
 
Some audio interfaces work fine with VIA Firewire controllers.
Depends on the specific combination...
 
MOTU typically works well with most VIA FW controllers.
RME units are also pretty "forgiving"(work with most FW controllers).
 
 

 If I could do it over again, I would buy RME.