Should i upgrade my @home NIC?

[Looney]

Been meaning to do this for awhile, but just never got around to it... but should i upgrade the default NIC that came with my @home service? which is a DLink DE-528CT NIC? I've got a 3com one laying around i could use, but i want to know if it'll make a difference, such as in pings?

 

[JackMDS]

If you don?t have a Network, it is probably does not matter.

Cable service is at best 2 ?3 Mb/sec., which is well within the capacity of 10Mb/sec NIC, and well well within the capacity of 100Mb/sec

 

[Looney]

Hm, i actually do have a home network... 5 computers are connected to it, but why should that affect the cable modem NIC?

But yeah, i wasn't concern about the DLink not being able to handle the bandwidth, i was just curious as if it'll make a difference in pings or stability wise (not that i think the DLink has a problem with stability... although at times i get periods of about 10 sec where i can't send or receive data, and the problem isn't the cable modem, but i believe those are @home network problems).

 

[JackMDS]

For Internet, browsing it will not make a difference.

The reason I mentioned Network?
Many people report that with better NICs (from your posting it seems that you assume that the 3Com is better then the D-link?) they get better performance from their Network.

 

[Looney]

What kind of better performance are we talking about here though?

And yes, I am assuming the 3Com is better because the DLink that came with the @home cable modem looks like legacy hardware (it's got a BNC connector!). It's not the top of my worries, like i said, i've had this cable modem for about 5 years now, and never bothered with it... but i've got a few NICs laying around here, and was just wondering if it's worth it to swap in a nice NIC for it.

I would have done it awhile ago, but @home gets anal when you lose their hardware, no matter how crappy it is, and with all my other junk, i'll probalby misplace the Dlink NIC sooner or later, that's why i've yet to swap it. But if somebody can conclusively tell me that i will get better performance, i'll do it... hm, any ways for me to benchmark such a thing?

 

[Eug]

??? If I understand you correctly, your cable modem is hooked up to your @Home NIC, and you have a second NIC is hooked up to the network? If that is the case, since the @Home NIC isn't hooked up the network, it really shouldn't make much difference.

However, if you're using a 10/100 router, and the NIC is being used both for cable and for the network, then of course it will make a difference, since the D-Link 528CT is a 10 Mbps NIC.

As for the overhead issue, all I can say is that of the several NICs I've tried (including the D-Link 528 vs. 10/100 NICs) there is no difference in frame rates in Unreal Tournament and ping times between all of them. For this reason, I refuse to spend more than $20 on an average NIC now.