Does a network card make a big difference?

[Atchnek]

HI,

I am building a fast computer with a Pen 4 2.2 GHz, and I will get going to college this fall. The school has a fast connection to the internet via the network.

I want to know if having a right network card would make a difference in speed while I am online.

Please recommend a good network card I should consider for my computer.

Thx for all the help.

 

[nord1899]

Any PCI based card that does 10/100 will work. If you want to ensure 100% functionality and reliability you could pay extra for a name brand (3com, Intel, SMC) but you don't really need those. Pretty much any card will do. Newegg has a bunch of cards. I'd say go with the first D-Link on the page for $9 or $10 if you want the OEM (just the card) or Retail (card, drivers disk, etc...).

 

[Bartman39]

My first preference is for the Intels based nic`s...

But even my el cheapo Belkin`s are great...

 

[ScottMac]

Yes.

Certainly the hardware is of some importance, but (IMO) probably the drivers are even more important. Intel, 3COM are pretty hard to beat, and not that much more expensive. The El-Cheapo NICs are cheap for a reason. Intel and 3COM suck WAAAAAAAAAY less than your average El-Cheapo card.

FWIW

Scott

 

[HeinekinMan]

I've been using a Linksys LNE100 10/100 BT NIC in all three of my machines and have never run into any problems with any of them (Win95OSR2, Win98SE, and Win2K); Linksys driver support is excellent. I have numerous co-workers who all use the same card without any problems or issues (not sure what kind of support is available in UNIX or LINUX).

I paid $9.00 a piece retail, for my NICs and I've seen them go on sale for even less online; they are by no means "el-cheapo" but as good performance wise as any Intel or 3Com card.

I've read several reviews talking about problems with NICs based on Realtek chipsets so I've tried to avoid using them (I had problems with an older 10BT D-Link Realtek-based NIC that was very crappy).

NIC review #1

NIC review #2

But as the previous posters have suggested, you can never go wrong with Intel or 3Com!!!

 

[manko]

I've had a bunch of D-Link 530TX+ 10/100 cards in various machines and they work fine with Windows or Linux.

 

[tokamak]

i've always used the cheapo ones. usually netgear or d-link. they seem to work just fine.

 

[CrazySaint]

Just out of curiosity, would a brand new NIC be noticably better than the old realtek that came in my P233?

 

[bozo1]

Originally posted by: CrazySaint
Just out of curiosity, would a brand new NIC be noticably better than the old realtek that came in my P233?

In my experience, what you gain with a more expensive NIC is not used by most people. Many more expensive NIC's do IPSec decoding via hardware instead of having your computer's CPU do it. Do you use IPSec? Probably not. Even if you do, any current system has more than enough CPU cycles that even if it had to do the decoding, you wouldn't notice. The other advantages, again, are probably not used by most people - load balancing, fail-over, etc.

 

[Jeff H]

Atchnek, a word to the wise, check out what your school might require re specific brand and model of network card. My daughter is going to college this fall and her school requires a 3Com 905TX card, or they will not support the connection. I had a Linksys card sitting around, but put picked up the 3Com card from Newegg, so she won't have any problems during the year.

 

[Heifetz]

Jeff H. Theres no reason why any other nic will not work with your daughter's computer. With the newer oses...win xp, everything is detected automatically, so you won't even have to input any settings to setup the network connection.


Heifetz

 

[Jeff H]

Heifetz, I know you're right, but w/ her in Boston and me in Minnesota I don't want a $36 NIC to be an issue, so I'll go w/ the flow, re the college's requirement.

 

[SteelCityFan]

Here you go...


Linksys LNE100TX for $5 after $10 MIR with FREE shipping. Not as good as the $5 out the door cost that CompUSA had a couple weeks ago, but still a great deal.

buy.com

 

[SteelCityFan]

Originally posted by: Jeff H
Heifetz, I know you're right, but w/ her in Boston and me in Minnesota I don't want a $36 NIC to be an issue, so I'll go w/ the flow, re the college's requirement.

I wonder if the School is getting kick-back's from 3Com hehe..

I assume though that they want to make it easier on the people doing the support. For example, they only need to carry one driver disk around campus .

 

[Kingofcomputer]

http://www.dslwebserver.com/main/nictest.html
here is an pretty old NIC comparison article, but you can see there is difference between NIC even some use the same chipset.

 

[TheWart]

two Linksys LNE100TX cards doing swell here. driver support is excellent.