Hi Tomer,
Funny, in the US, the poco firewire is $1499.. and you are wrong about the processor speeds and ram. True, they both carry 4 motorola DSP's and a Power PC processor, but the amount of memory for each processor is 4 times bigger on the firewire version. In addition, the motorola chips run at 150mhz as compared to 100 mhz for the powercore PCI. Plus, the Power PC runs at 266 mhz in comparison to 200 mhz. Check out the comparison chart at
www.tcelectronic.com.
However, the element goes for around $499 so it's really a bargain if you will only use it to run the virus on! And since (from what I've heard) the powercore firewire has approx. twice the processing power as the element, it is three times more expensive so the powercore element is more value for your money.
For me, however, PCI-slots are rare since I am running a Creamware Powerpulsar and a Pulsar II soundcard that already occupy two slots.. therefore I chose the firewire version.
I chose the powercore virus in favor of the virus c for it's excellent patch management system. It is also easier to swap between projects if the amount of hardware synths is reduced to a minimum. I only run software apart from the virus, JV 2080, MS2000r and a triton..
Good luck,
Micke