onboard LAN vs. PCI LAN card

[dderolph]

I have my CAT5 cable from my router connected to the onboard LAN connector in my computer but I have two LAN cards that are not being used. I've wondered whether there's any advantage to installing one of the PCI cards and using it instead of the onboard LAN connector.

The two PCI cards I have are: 1) Linksys LNE100TX (ver 5.1) and 2) D-Link DFE-530TX. My OS is Win XP Pro SP2.

System: Athlon XP 2200, 512MB RAM. My router is a D-Link DI-524.

 

[Bluestealth]

Unless your integrated 10/100 is CPU intensive or unreliable there is really no advantage to use a PCI card, especially since the onboard is usually connected to the northbridge/southbridge, instead of the PCI bus which has a fixed bandwidth of 133 MB/s(?).

 

[phisrow]

In almost all instances the onboard LAN is a PCI device, just permanently wired in(in certain situations, mostly gigabit adapters, the onboard device will be PCI-E or a proprietary connection to the chipset).

Some ethernet adapters are better than others; but in this case I doubt that you'll notice a difference.

 

[SpunkyJones]

I've used both, haven't noticed any difference.

 

[dderolph]

Thanks, everyone. Maybe I'll try selling the two cards on ebay. Neither of them has been used for quite a long time and I do not foresee a future need for them.

 

[kylef]

Originally posted by: phisrow
In almost all instances the onboard LAN is a PCI device, just permanently wired in(in certain situations, mostly gigabit adapters, the onboard device will be PCI-E or a proprietary connection to the chipset).

Actually, starting with the Sis 735 and nVidia nForce, most modern motherboard chipsets now implement one 802.3u/z MAC layer directly on the system chipset, in order to reduce PCI bus congestion. I/O to these on-chipset devices never traverses the PCI bus and therefore is not subject to PCI bus bandwidth limitations. This statement holds true for on-chipset IDE/SATA controllers as well, but not for "extra" controllers like the common Silicon Image 311x series.

For older system chipsets (pre-2002), or motherboards with "extra" network/SATA/audio chipsets (like the Marvell gig-E chipsets or Silicon Image 311x SATA controllers) which are integrated onto the motherboard, you are absolutely correct: these are just physically wired into the PCI bus and behave just like add-in PCI cards. (In the case of gig-E, this is usually a bad idea due to limited PCI bus bandwidth.)

In any case, the basic idea that everyone is saying here is that your motherboard's built-in network controller will be at least as good, if not better than, any add-on PCI card. So you can safely ditch your old PCI NICs.

Edit: for clarity