Do built in LAN controllers perform worse than NIC cards?

[Ganryu]

 

[John]

no

 

[zephyrprime]

I think that if you want to get top notch performance you have to get a server nic card. They have coprocessors on them that somehow offload some of the processing burden. I don't know exactly what it is that they do though. I remember reading benchmarks in PC magazine long ago that there used to be a difference between brands of network cards but who knows if that's still true now?

 

[Booster]

I'm sure they perform the same. They even use exact same chips.

 

[Derango]

My onboard LAN controller (Intel) performs better than my realtec based NIC actually.

 

[Lord Evermore]

77Mbps throughput steady, up to 90Mbps bursts, using the built-in controller on ECS K7S5A going to another machine using the same.

50 to 70Mbps using a Netgear FA311 controller before, but on a different board. Something like 25Mbps using a NIC with a SiS900 chipset on it (noname card, but that chipset is the same used by the SiS735 motherboard chipset). Implementation makes a big difference.

Performance all depends on the exact platforms you're working with, on both ends of the connection. It's hard to judge whether the onboard controller is really performing as well as an external because the external has to pass over the PCI bus, which may make a difference (of course a controller that's just mounted on the motherboard and not actually part of the chipset would too). And a better chipset could perform better externally than a lesser onboard chipset (like Intel versus Realtek).

 

[spanky]

a little OT here... i remember seeing an article about overclocking nics once. anyone know what thats all about?

 

[Superwormy]

Avoid Realtec NICs, whether they be PCI / ISA or built-in.

Intel and 3Com NICs will perform similar whether they be integrated or PCI

 

[John]

Originally posted by: Superwormy
Avoid Realtec NICs, whether they be PCI / ISA or built-in.

Intel and 3Com NICs will perform similar whether they be integrated or PCI

I disagree with your comment on Realtek. I have used hundreds of them and they work fine. Not to mention they are widely supported in various OS'es.

 

[NTB]

I went from using a 3Com NIC that I've had for years to using the built in NIC on my K7S5A board recently (have 3 pcs in the house and only two cards - since I don't need two NICs in the same box, I took the 3COM out of mine and put it in my dad's) and haven't noticed any appreciable difference.

Nate

 

[Brian48]

He may have based his comments regarding Realteks on a recent article that pitted various NICs against each other. Here is the link:

http://www.dslwebserver.com/main/fr_index.html?/main/nictest.html

The Realtek based NICs had a very noticable poor showing throughout. I was able to reproduce the tests myself and came up with similiar results (as did a few other folks over at the site's disscusion forum).

One thing I have to add about on-board LANs, I've heard that for some designs, having the LAN component directly connect to the motherboard chipset does increase the efficiency of the dataflow over the standard method of piping it through the PCI bus. I can't vouch for that, however what I can tell you from personal experience is that SiS900 on-board LAN that comes with my K7S5A is one of the best performing NICs I've ever used.

 

[John]

That review is extremely old. Not to mention is it one reviewers experiences with various NICs.

 

[flyerI]

I have used the Realtek on the ECS K7SEM and cannot tell any difference in them and the pci nic cards. Some of the more expensive cards (3 COM for instance) co have coprocessors that don't require as many cpu cycles as the inexpensive nic cards. Its like the difference between a winmodem and a hardware modem.

 

[Kingofcomputer]

Nvidia claims Nforce's built-in lan is faster than nic.

 

[yakko]

Originally posted by: Superwormy
Avoid Realtec NICs, whether they be PCI / ISA or built-in.

Intel and 3Com NICs will perform similar whether they be integrated or PCI

I have only used Realtek NICs on all my systems I have built in the last three years and I have had zero problems with them. Intel and 3Com NICs usually perform better but usually on a level that most home users will never notice.

 

[Maggotry]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime They have coprocessors on them that somehow offload some of the processing burden

I think the OS has to support the processor, right? I remember about a year ago I was going to buy a 3Com card that had a processor on it, but the place I bought it from said the processor was only supported under NT 4.0 or 2000. Win 98 or ME wouldn't use the processor. Maybe that was just for the particular card I was going to buy. I was running ME at the time so I didn't buy it.