Integrated network, or pci card?

[rugger]

Lots of versions syndrome, makes using linux a real bastard.

Thats why I choose Intel NICs instead. Almost as fast, but the drivers always work.

(And I can get old intel PCI NIC's cheaply secondhand)

[WyWyWyWy]

Yes, Intel ones are really "enterprise" quality.
100% recommended.

[rylan]

Thanks everyone. I'm not interested in gigabit ethernet.. 100Mbit is fine for me, as its for a fast home system.
Sounds like the external nic is generally better than integrated/onboard. I have one already and won't be short on pci slots, so might as well save the 20 bucks on the motherboard and use the card. hehehe

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Az
Get a mainboard with Gigabit ethernet. MUCH cheaper than a separate card, and doesn't hog the PCI bus

AZ

A PCI GbE NIC will definitely hog the PCI bus as its theoretical peak bandwith is +/- 125MBps, which is more than the usual 90MBps you get on the PCI bus. Even if you get only 60% theoretical max for GbE, it still is about 75MBps.

The Intel CSA connection won't hog the PCI bus for GbE. The trouble is that many manufactures include a GbE NIC which is _not_ using the CSA port (usually some 3com/Broadcom GbE NIC). I think you'll find it only on the 865 and 875 series chipsets fom Intel.

Originally posted by Ribbit
Sure, but the motherboard chipset needs to support something else for it to be connected through

For Gb-Ethernet, that something else is normally PCI-X. I don't know of any Athlon chipsets with PCI-X support. Theoretically you could build the Gb-Ethernet into the southbridge and then it could use the NB-SB connection, but I don't know of any chipsets which do that either.

BTW rylan, it appears that the nForce2 ethernet is a built-in 3Com.

The Nforce2 chipset has actually 2 NICs. One is Nvidia, the other is 3com. You can only get the 3com one with the higher-end version of the chipset, in a two NICs configuration -otherwise you just get the nvidia NIC.

I'm not sure whether you're saying that the nvidia chip is actually licensed from 3com...

[Ribbit]

OK thanks for clearing that up Kurt.

[Evildead666]

Originally posted by Ribbit
As I said before, the nForce2 ethernet is apparently actually a built-in 3Com.

I think they are talking about the integrated 3COM on the mobo, not the integrated one in the North/Southbridge.
That one was developped by Nvidia.....i'm not sure they would have accepted the fee that 3COM would have inflicted for using their design.....

[Jammrock]

Originally posted by rylan
Thanks everyone. I'm not interested in gigabit ethernet.. 100Mbit is fine for me, as its for a fast home system.
Sounds like the external nic is generally better than integrated/onboard. I have one already and won't be short on pci slots, so might as well save the 20 bucks on the motherboard and use the card. hehehe

You may not be interesting in Gb now, but you never know what will happen in the future. 8-port Gb switches are already down to $160

The one that dZeus mentioned is a new technique in putting the NIC on the board. The NIC will still run at 100 Mb/s, or even 10 Mb/s, but with the 82547EI NIC chipset yo uare 1) future proof for 1 Gb ethernet and 2) vastly increase system performance, by lowering PCI overhead, in heavy network operations (LAN or broadband gaming) by bypassing the PCI/PCI-X bus.

I say if you have the cash, grab a 82547EI enabled board with a nice P4. Otherwise grab an nForce 2 board with an AMD Athlon. You get the NIC built-in and the board is still very affordable, comparible in price to other solutions without NICs. That and dual channel DDR rocks, and the chipset is fast.

Jammrock

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Evildead666
I think they are talking about the integrated 3COM on the mobo, not the integrated one in the North/Southbridge.
That one was developped by Nvidia.....i'm not sure they would have accepted the fee that 3COM would have inflicted for using their design.....

The 3com NIC I'm referring to is integrated on the Nforce2 southbridge, alongside the Nvidia NIC.

[Evildead666]

As i look on the Mobo, there is clearly an external, on the mobo, 3COM chip, right behind the second LAN port.
The only NIC integrated into any of their north/southbridges is the single Nvidia one.
If they had the space, i think they would rather put a SATA controller in there...

Some of the Nforce2's have non-3Com controllers....

[Kurt]

Originally posted by Evildead666
As i look on the Mobo, there is clearly an external, on the mobo, 3COM chip, right behind the second LAN port.
The only NIC integrated into any of their north/southbridges is the single Nvidia one.
If they had the space, i think they would rather put a SATA controller in there...

Some of the Nforce2's have non-3Com controllers....

http://www.smartcomputing.com/editorial/article.asp?article=articles%2Farchive%2Fc0212%2F27c12%2F27c12%2Easp

"With that said, NVIDIA’s nForce2 is shaping up to be the Athlon XP chipset to get. Let’s take a look at what it offers: integrated GeForce4 MX core, very high-speed memory controller (dual-channel DDR), optional dual integrated Ethernet controllers (one from 3Com, one from NVIDIA), integrated FireWire and USB 2.0, and NVIDIA’s nForce APU (Audio Processing Unit), unchanged from the original nForce."

https://www.nvidia.com/glossary.asp

"DualNet
Part of the nForce2 Digital Media Gateway. DualNet is integrated support for an NVIDIA Ethernet Mac and for a 3Com® Ethernet Mac—allowing a PC to serve as a home gateway, managing traffic between two separate networks and ensuring rapid transfer of data from WAN to LAN without any added arbitration or latency"


Which doesn't mean you can't use sth else than 3com to save a few bucks...

[xyzzy]

Realteks vs the rest of the world

As the comment in the NetBSD's driver for Realtek says

<QUOTE>redefines the meaning of 'low end.' This is probably the worst PCI ethernet controller ever made
</QUOTE>

See this URL for more gory details:

http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cgi/src/sys/dev/ic/rtl81x9.c?rev=1.45&content-type=text/x-cvsweb-markup&cvsroot=netbsd

[Kurt]

Re: Realteks vs the rest of the world

Originally posted by xyzzy
As the comment in the NetBSD's driver for Realtek says

<QUOTE>redefines the meaning of 'low end.' This is probably the worst PCI ethernet controller ever made
</QUOTE>

See this URL for more gory details:
http://www.freebsd.org/cgi/cvsweb.cg...cvsroot=netbsd

you get your 5 bucks money worth