Express Card Firewire 800 adapter no faster than Firewire 400

I have the original edition macbook pro that only has one firewire 400 port. I was looking to speed up my work so I bought a Belkin firewire 800 ExpressCard expecting it to improve my speed. I tested it against the firewire 400 and it downloaded from my external drive at the exact same speed. Have I wasted my money on the ExpressCard? Does the express card max out at the fw400 speed. Or do I need to make some adjustment to make it perform at the fw800 level? I though I could cure my firewire envy issue with this but it seems I'm stuck with what I got. lol. Thanks in advance for the help.