What are the benefits to 2 ethernet ports on mobo?

[Vidarious]

I have the Asus Formula Rampage. Just wondering what benefit I have by having 2xethernet ports on the board?

 

[aigomorla]

Originally posted by: Vidarious
I have the Asus Formula Rampage. Just wondering what benefit I have by having 2xethernet ports on the board?

only thing i can see is bridging at this point.

I would like to hear other people's thoughts too.
I know nvidia chipsets offer teaming.
How effective it is, i dont know.

Personally i would love to see some form of load balancing option on these dual ethernet boards. :\

However you need to do it software wise, wish it was implimented via bios tho.

 

[ShadowFlareX]

I had a use for 2 Ethernet ports in the past. It was when I needed to limit the internet bandwidth for each computer in the network, and the only way it would work is if my computer is sharing the internet connection. So my ADSL modem/router will plug into one of my PC's ports, and the other port will be connected to a switch.

 

[garikfox]

FYI: nVidia's DualNet from nForce 5 - 7 series, Utilizes the 2 ports to double the effective bandwidth. (I.E: Teaming.)

 

[heyheybooboo]

^^^^ What he said.

In a LAN, the two ports can be paired together to create a 2-Gbit dual port for I/O traffic. Very handy in a workstation environment where massive files are flying around between nodes.

And if you were too cheap to by a switch you could always do the old 'peer to peer' network...

 

[Foxery]

I doubled up my bandwidth years ago using an nForce2 board, but damned if I can remember how any more. It was a thing of beauty while it lasted.

A more common use might be using your computer as a router; i.e. connection sharing, where PC1 connects to a modem and PC2 connects straight to PC1 through Ethernet.

 

[seemingly random]

Originally posted by: heyheybooboo
...
And if you were too cheap to by a switch you could always do the old 'peer to peer' network.

I've done this - works nicely in a pinch. The only problem with this setup is that this pc must always be on and not in power save mode.

 

[BoboKatt]

Stupid question but can you have the two Ethernet connect to 2 different sources that have two totally differ rent networks? I mean if I set the subnet and IP strings totally different?

 

[tr1kstanc3]

Originally posted by: BoboKatt
Stupid question but can you have the two Ethernet connect to 2 different sources that have two totally differ rent networks? I mean if I set the subnet and IP strings totally different?

Yes absolutely. The 2 ethernet ports can be assigned independently from one another. The pc will be able to communicate on 2 different networks.

 

[seemingly random]

So from a browser, how is the particular network specified?

 

[JonnyBlaze]

i have 1 onboard and 1 pci nic. the onboard is connected directly to comcast and the pci is my home network.