How is the onboard Realtek RTL8100BL on the 7vrxp?

[RedRooster]

I just order the Gigabyte 7vrxp board today, and was wondering if I should prepare to use it's onboard NIC as opposed to my Intel Pro/100+? I'm giving up my Live Platinum 5.1 for the onboard sound, as money is tight, and if that onboard NIC is any good, I might just use that too.
Does anyone have first hand experience or a comparison somewhere that shows the differences between the Realtek and the Intel? From my experience, Realtek NICs absolutely stink, however perhaps these new onboard ones are much better.
Hope someone can help. Every little bit of the onboard stuff I can use, will make it easier for me to get a better videocard.

 

[Peter]

What? Realtek's LAN chips are very OK, they have a 70 percent market share after all ... the 8100 is the LAN-on-Motherboard flavor of their usual 8139 chip.

The expensive Intel chip has more buffer memory, so under high load you'll notice that the Realtek creates somewhat higher CPU load. This is no good in a server, but In a workstation, you'll never notice.

regards, Peter

 

[Insane3D]

Works like a charm....no slower or faster than any PCI NIC.

 

[Peter]

Well of course not - there's no performance difference in whether you're connecting a given PCI device in a slot or directly on the mainboard.

There are device inherent performance differences though - like when you use the Realtek 8139C+ over an 8139C or 8100B, you get larger buffers, thus more effective PCI bus usage and fewer interrupts to the main CPU.

And then there's chipset integrated LAN that connects to a chipset internal bus faster than PCI - as seen on SiS chipsets mostly. Oddly enough, the VIA 8233(A) south bridge has an integrated LAN unit, but Gigabyte puts a PCI LAN chip on ...

regards, Peter

 

[RedRooster]

Originally posted by: Peter
What? Realtek's LAN chips are very OK, they have a 70 percent market share after all ... the 8100 is the LAN-on-Motherboard flavor of their usual 8139 chip.

The expensive Intel chip has more buffer memory, so under high load you'll notice that the Realtek creates somewhat higher CPU load. This is no good in a server, but In a workstation, you'll never notice.

regards, Peter

The reason I ask is, that there's that everdaunting review that shows the Realtek card to be a horendous card, as compared to others. However, you're correct, I will only be using the NIC in a workstation, so I wouldn't think there'd be a hugely noticeable difference between it and my Intel.

 

[mastabog]

Well whether the new VIA southbridge has build in LAN support or not, do you know of any other KT333 chipset mobo than the 7VRXP that has build in LAN feature ?

 

[RedRooster]

Originally posted by: mastabog
Well whether the new VIA southbridge has build in LAN support or not, do you know of any other KT333 chipset mobo than the 7VRXP that has build in LAN feature ?

The Soyo boards do. K7V Dragon Ultra and KT333 Dragon Lite.

 

[Peter]

That review looks a lot like the Realtek chip card wasn't quite OK - I have one in the system right here next to me, and I don't see such poor throughput ... and I've used quite a few more of them elsewhere too. Normally performance is right where it belongs (in the 8-9 MB/s bracket), with a tad more CPU load than with a higher end card with Intel, AMD, SMC chips (or a Realtek 8139C+ for that matter).

Remember there is no "the" Realtek card - there are various chips, and of course anyone is free to make cards using them. Lots of ways to mess up a 100TX signal on the way from the chip to the connector ...

regards, Peter

 

[Zap]

Actually there were three Realtek chipset based cards in that review, and on the basis of ONE of them testing bad, the reviewer gave an overall recommendation to avoid the Realtek chipset based cards. Something else strange... the single Realtek chipset based card that performed below par also had a lower CPU usage than all other cards (including the other ones based on the same chipset). What is really going on here? We're talking about 50% cpu utilization versus 100%.

 

[Thalasi]

The Soyo boards do. K7V Dragon Ultra and KT333 Dragon Lite.

The Soyo KT333 Dragon Ultra uses the Realtec chip, the KT333 Dragon Lite uses the VIA southbridge though, as the Dragon Plus! does.

 

[Peter]

Zap, like I said - a card that has a signalling problem on the LAN side of things won't get much traffic shovelled to and fro - and thus will not create much traffic on the PCI/CPU side.

regards, Peter

 

[Zap]

Peter, I wasn't disagreeing with you, my post just happened to be under yours I do wonder, however, about the 8139C+ chipset... I've actually never knew it existed. Oh yeah, though the article that was linked mentioned three cards using Realtek chipsets, it doesn't mention WHICH Reatek chipset. Like you, I have used Realtek chipset based cards all over the place. I've never noticed any performance problems compared to NICs using other chipsets, though I've only done "real-world" work with these, not synthetic testing from RAMdrive to RAMdrive.