Looking for a cheap, good, working, gig-E PCI card.

[VirtualLarry]

Can anyone suggest? Is there a good reason to go with, say, an Intel chipset, versus a realtek gigabit chipset?

What about having a heatsink on the chip? Is that important?

What about TCP/IP/UDP offload functions?

Warranty?

I just want some good, cheap, working Gig-E cards, for file-sharing on the local LAN, as well as LAN gaming.
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http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833166002 $10+5

Supports Full Duplex flow control (IEEE 802.3x)? Four LED indicators- Auto-Negotiation with Next page capability- Supports pair swap/polarity/skew correction- Crossover Detection & Auto-Correction- Wake-on-LAN and remote wake-up support- Microsoft® NDIS5 Checksum Offload (IP, TCP, UDP) and largesend offload support- Supports IEEE 802.1Q VLAN tagging- 8K Transmit FIFO and 64K Receive FIFO support- Supports power down/link down power saving- Truly 4 layers PCB- Metal & durable LAN connector,RTL8169S chipset with independence heatsink

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833180026 $8+5

5 year warranty
realtek chipset
jumbo frame support
boot rom socket

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833106123 $33+5

Intel 82541PI Gigabit Controller
Compatible with Fast Ethernet and Ethernet
Peripheral Component Interconnect (PCI) 2.3 32-bit 33/66 MHz
Category-5 Cabling
Interrupt Moderation
Advanced Configuration and Power Interface (ACPI),Preboot Execution Environment (PXE)
Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP)/Desktop
Management Interface (DMI), Wired for Management (WfM)
Meets IEEE 802.3ab Technology
Advanced Cable Diagnostics
Support for Many Network Operating Systems (NOSs)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16833156139 $16

realtek chipset
jumbo frame support
5-year warranty

(Already own a couple of these, but haven't installed them yet.)

Edit: For a switch, I have a Netgear 5-port desktop gigabit, and was thinking of adding this one: http://www.newegg.com/Product/...p?Item=N82E16817111479

 

[cmetz]

Intel Pro/1000MT or GT or whatever flavor suits you. You can occasionally find them cheaper - try Google. It's not as cheap as the $10 ones... in all senses of the word.

Heatsink should not be necessary for modern chips - older ones on older processes (e.g. tg3) needed it.

Checksum offload is common even I think for the cheapies, though the cheapies often have bugs or poor designs that make it unusable.

Warranty... *shrug* this stuff mostly doesn't break and admittedly I just replace these things with another from the pile and move on. When a NIC is like $25 (Intel) the cost and headache of negotiating with "support," shipping it back and waiting for a replacement isn't even worth it. I expect that these NICs all have some reasonable warranty though.

 

[mxnerd]

I wouldn't trust Realtek based NIC. I have seen a lot of bad cards died in a few months. Not the chip itself is bad quality, the problem is that too many small vendors, and the quality control in these vendors is problematic, and you don't know which vendor to trust.

I would go with Intel.

 

[spyordie007]

another :thumbsup: for the Intel Pro 1000, some of the Broadcoms are okay also.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Assuming that both the Intel and the Realtek-based NICs are non-defective, then is there a real, tangible reason to go with the Intel, other than the fact that it's an intel?
Is there a performance improvement, or some other factor? It lists "interrupt mitigation" as a performance feature, but wouldn't a modern Realtek NIC also have some similar feature?

I guess what I'm asking is, is there a performance feature that can justify the price increase? Otherwise I'll just go with the $16 realtek NICs with the 5-year warranty.