Best NIC for home user & tweaks for Gaming & general Net useage..

[Conundrum]

I'm hoping this post will get a good response. I've personally had a great time using This Site to tweak out my settings. They have a speed test, line quality test, etc... with forums you can check and FAQs on what you might want to tweak out to get more out of your connection.

What I'm curious to know though.. is information about specific NICs (Network Interface Cards) that the people who post here on Anandtech possess the knowledge about. I've got Linksys, D-Link, Netgear, 3-Com, and Intel NICs myself in my various rigs.. and honestly the BEST performance overall that I've gotten from any of them was from the Intel NIC.... with the 3Com coming in a close second. This came after trying a bunch of tweaks I ran across from different sites on the web.

I personally just hope to hear a bit of what I haven't run across concerning NICs that anyone here might be privvy to. I know some friends of mine that work in the field in a much broader sense than I probably ever will told me that Linksys and D-Link can sell their cards so cheap because of how they make them. One of them even said that 3-Com has been slipping ever since the 905 series of NICs they sold. Etc...

Let's see what everyone else has to say. Whether it's based on personal experiences with the product, or even more detailed information that they might pass on to the rest of us to help us tweak out stuff out more... or simply buy a better NIC that we'll get more performance out of because it's a better QUALITY product. 😀

 

[Tallgeese]

Intel is the shiznit for desktops & servers...all the way.

Xircom was always my preferred brand for laptop cards.
Intel bought them, so now I'm a fully Intel kinda guy...for NICs anyway.

I've always understood that Intel is just about the only company who understands not only the buffering needs for good data-comm performance, but also the importance of solid, stable drivers to deliver this performance.

3Com's cards have been severely lacking at a hardware level since some of their early PCI cards.

Compare the average CPU utilization of an Intel card with any equivalent card from anyone else, and it's absolutely no contest...Intel beats the pants off them.

Anyone else wonder if it has to do with Intel's influence on the PCI specs?

 

[Mucman]

30 odd servers here and nothing but Intel NICS. For some reason the Cisco equipment occasionaly has auto-negotiation problems with 3Com equipment.

 

[h0vic]

I definitely agree with TallGeese that Intel makes the best NICs for workstations and servers, but you most likely will not notice any difference if you're using it on a small network.

As for laptops, you will most likely notice a difference. From experience and testing, Xircom NICs perform generally better than Linksys, etc. even on small network.

 

[Conundrum]

Ok, it looks like there's a real consensus here for Intel as the NIC of choice.

The questions then move to:
A: Where's the best place to buy a good Intel NIC for a decent price?
B: Are there any available tweaks out there for them... or are they just THAT good where you shouldn't have to do a thing to them because their driver development rocks that hard?

With gaming and such... if you're playing over a cable modem wouldn't it help to set it at half-duplex 10mb to deal with possible issues such as choke in games such as Counterstrike? I seem to recall running across documentation regarding things such as that somewhere. Although transferring files over the LAN full-duplex 100 mb is best etc...

I think all the NICs I've ever installed defaulted to auto for line speed. I think this is a very interesting and quite important topic for as often as all of us like to get online.. and what settings are best for what you use your computer for the most. 😀

 

[Tiger]

Speedguide

 

[A5]

My whole home network (6 NICs) are all Linksys 10/100 cards(5 different version even 🙂); 20-25 dollars each, and they work fine for me.

 

[Woodchuck2000]

<< My whole home network (6 NICs) are all Linksys 10/100 cards(5 different version even ); 20-25 dollars each, and they work fine for me. >>


Pretty much any 100mbit card I've ever gotten my grubby little paws on has worked fine and gone quite fast. There really isnt a difference in normal everyday use.

Every server I've ever used has had intel NICs (as in fact does the PC I'm using) - They seem to have lower CPU overhead, better drivers and more advanced hardware (buffering etc. as someone mentioned)

 

[Conundrum]

I also recently had a situation where a friend of mine came over to game with me using my cable modem. We have the EXACT same hardware configuration. The only difference is, I'm running Win2k and he's running XP. Now, he gets pings in Counterstrike reported as as much as HALF of what I get. In the process of my frustration I checked every cvar that has anything to do with data packets being transferred. I even heightened his and lowered mine in some cases and it had no effect.

Does Windows XP have a more efficient net code? Is it the better OS for people that want to game online? If so... I might have to dual-boot with XP and Win2k!

 

[JackMDS]

A lot of energy is spend on the search of the non-existing ?Holy NIC Grail?.

Most of the activities done by Home user, i.e. Internet, gaming, etc. use small amount of the capacity of any 100/10 NIC. (Actually 10 Mb/sec NIC will suffice a lot of times).

The differences between cards kick in when the Network consists of many computers, doing heavy network exchange. In other words it does not matter which card you are using for small home Network.

Tom's hardware compared three NICs. (Aug. 2001)
I used Pricewatch.com to find the best price for these NICs.

1. 3Com 3CR990-TX-97 - $80
2. 3Com 3C905C-TX $30
3. SMC 1211TX $13

Quote from: http://www6.tomshardware.com/network/01q3/010820/nic-11.html#conclusion

"Well, there is some difference between Network cards. The difference was not that great. Some cards did have better performance than others, but over all most of the cards performed within acceptable ranges. "

If you read the rest, you can infer that if there is a difference it will impact high volume cooperate Network, not three computers sharing the Internet at home.

However, if it will make you ?feel good.?

Follow TallGeese advice as posted above.

On the issue of OS!
I never saw a numerical review concerning this issue, but a lot of people (including myself), feel that Win XP is zestier when it comes to Internet activities. Hardware may be the same, but who knows about the numerous amounts of registry entries that involve network settings, as well as DLL versions MS patches etc.

 

[Tallgeese]

<< A lot of energy is spend on the search of the non-existing ?Holy NIC Grail?. >>

Jack's post is entirely correct.
Most NICs nowadays are just fine for average SOHO usage, which tends to be light.
Contrary to most people's beliefs, it is darn difficult to saturate a 100 Mbps connection without a major problem (haywire NIC) or using some app that makes a PC well nigh unusable.

But, like most things, the story changes at a server or core level.
Putting SOHO quality equipment (be it NIC, switch, router, etc. etc.) in a more central area of a network is asking for trouble, IMHO.

I have a pal who heads up central networking for a major university and he has always sworn by SMC cards, but NOT in production servers.

So, maybe the moral of this story is: Put your money where you NEED it, not where you WANT it.

BTW: In a larger environment, another factor that can matter is Intel's unified drivers, which are much easier to deploy than some other vendors' separate driver releases.
More a sysadmin thing, but I didn't fully pick up a SOHO bent to this thread until Jack's post.