onboard nic vs. pci nic

[TdB]

im about to buy a p4 2ghz with an intel d850mv motherboard, and one of the configurations comes with an integrated pro/100 nic, however i already have a pci intel pro/100 S nic.

is it a good idea to keep my current nic or should i buy the mobo with onboard nic???

will integrated hardware eat up the mobo/cpu performance?

[cbman]

It doesn't make too much difference... especially with the 2Ghz CPU... but if you already have an NIC and don't have another system to put it in, you may as well go for the NICLESS one.. the onboard NIC is fairly good if you take that route though.

[Jorden]

Hypothetical:
If however you ever want to use this PC as a server with adsl, then it might be usefull to have a NIC onboard plus an extra NIC for your network.

If you want to use the server with 2 NICs, that is. If your adsl supports direct link through a router or hub, then go for option 1

Jord.

[TdB]

TdB

thanks guys!

my adsl is router/hub compaible so i will probably take the nicless mobo and use my pci nic.

the reason why i aked about performance decrease is because my dad had an p3 866 with 815 mobo and onboard video, which had an bad impact on the overall mobo performance.

[MultimediaMan]

Onboard NICs ARE hardware solutions...

They usually are "attached" as a busmaster on one of the PCI Slots (Slots 3 or 4)...so don't worry about using one if you think it will hit you on performance.

There is one downside of an onboard NIC...if it ever fails, the whole mobo can be taken down with it.