CF cards can write/read data alot faster, which are normly more expensive, by alot more expensive. google around about cf speeds, not for sure where to get info or learn more about them. Most cases, like on sandisk it tells you how many mb/s the card is. As for upload the card to the pc, there are a ton of factors to say really its the card or something else. Its no joke, from the card, the card reader speed, the type of cable, the type of port(usb 2.0, 3.0 ect), the speed of the board of the pc has, the ram of the pc, the OS of the pc, and then what are you sending it to. Pc hard drive, external, if external, then repeat the list backwards again. Thats pretty much a summory of it. What type of CF are you using btw? check out B&H CF card selection to see some with higher speeds. So pretty much, a high speed card is pointless if you have a slow cable setup, or outputing it to a slow device. In your case sence your using a firewire, with a new board, it sounds like a Card issue. Check to see about getting a CF card that's 30mb/s or 45mb/s. Hope it helps, sorry i jumble around some stuff alot. Also, for the 1100 images you had, where you shooting jpeg/raw and how big was your card, and what kind was it? As well, SD cards write/read speed are pretty slow comparded to CF cards, and the same for others, thats why they are still used by high end DSLs, but even some are going to SD cards, they are getting better about the speed of them