what's the difference between gigabit lan and 10/100 ?
would i see and speed/latency difference on one computer on a dsl modem?
would i see and speed/latency difference on one computer on a dsl modem?
what's the difference between gigabit lan and 10/100 ?
- Thread starter whistleclient
- Start date
MichaelD
Lifer
- Jan 16, 2001
- 31,528
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10 mbps
100 mbps
1,000 mbps (or one billion bits per second)
Refers to the theoretical maximum transfer rate acheivable by the network.
For a home user connected to the internet via a cable or DSL connection, a gibabit network is useless b/c you're always going to be limited by your connection speed to the internet, which is probably less than 1.5 mbps.
Gigabit networking requires ALL pieces of the network be Gigabit-rated. I.E. ALL the cabling, connectors, jacks, patch panels, switches, NICs, etc.
It's very useful to a large company with many, many users that transfer huge amounts of data around internally, constantly. Or to an ISP that is serving out huge amounts of bandwith.
For you and I, it's a very unnecesary expense.
100 mbps
1,000 mbps (or one billion bits per second)
Refers to the theoretical maximum transfer rate acheivable by the network.
For a home user connected to the internet via a cable or DSL connection, a gibabit network is useless b/c you're always going to be limited by your connection speed to the internet, which is probably less than 1.5 mbps.
Gigabit networking requires ALL pieces of the network be Gigabit-rated. I.E. ALL the cabling, connectors, jacks, patch panels, switches, NICs, etc.
It's very useful to a large company with many, many users that transfer huge amounts of data around internally, constantly. Or to an ISP that is serving out huge amounts of bandwith.
For you and I, it's a very unnecesary expense.
Yea i don't think gigabit networks are real practical for any casual home users. More geared towards the corporate networks that need a fair amount of bandwidth to work with. Stick with good ol' 10/100 card, CAT5e cable, and the appropriate network hardware. You should be good for a while.
Just a quick clarification...gigabit ethernet moves data at 1000 megabits/sec. There is no theoretical to it. Same as 10 moves 10 megabits/sec and 100 transfers 100 megabit.
If hosts can't keep up with the network then that's their problem.
With today's proecessors and PCI bus options gigabit ethernet is very attractive if you have loads of data you want to move between hosts. Just like back in 1995 we thought "WOW, there is no need for a single host to have a 100 megabit connection" in 3 years most PCs will have gigabit ethernet.
Moore's law applies here as well.
I agree with spidey07.
100Mb NIC can only handle 7-10MB/sec throughput, which is less than
most IDE disks can provide today (20-40MB/sec)
---- it's becoming a real bottleneck now, when sharing data between hosts.
100Mb NIC can only handle 7-10MB/sec throughput, which is less than
most IDE disks can provide today (20-40MB/sec)
---- it's becoming a real bottleneck now, when sharing data between hosts.
That's why I'm thinking about 'crossover' in this thread :
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=1032063
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.cfm?catid=36&threadid=1032063
Gigabit into a cable modem won't help a bit for WAN performance. The cable modem is likely 10Mb/s into it, and less than that over the WAN.
Intel Pro/1000MT adapters are $41 at Newegg last I checked. If you're buying a new NIC and not very very price sensitive, I'd say go ahead and buy one of these. Even at 100Mb/s it should perform better in terms of CPU load and maybe even in terms of network throughput (though even brain-dead adapters can push close to 100Mb/s on a fast CPU). You will likely someday want gigE in your home network, though it's probably still a few years coming and arguably you could just buy new NICs when that time comes. It will make a difference in PC to PC communication in the future (you have to have a pretty high end system right now for it to matter in real usage, but today's pretty high end system is tomorrow's entry level...).
Fant, I bought a Hawking HGS-4T 4x10/10/100 switch for $80ish shipped from Amazon. Cheap enough for you?
Oh, and GigE equipment is auto-crossover. That relieves a ton of Ethernet headaches and may alone be worth the delta cost! (I like to plug stuff in and have it Just Work)
Intel Pro/1000MT adapters are $41 at Newegg last I checked. If you're buying a new NIC and not very very price sensitive, I'd say go ahead and buy one of these. Even at 100Mb/s it should perform better in terms of CPU load and maybe even in terms of network throughput (though even brain-dead adapters can push close to 100Mb/s on a fast CPU). You will likely someday want gigE in your home network, though it's probably still a few years coming and arguably you could just buy new NICs when that time comes. It will make a difference in PC to PC communication in the future (you have to have a pretty high end system right now for it to matter in real usage, but today's pretty high end system is tomorrow's entry level...).
Fant, I bought a Hawking HGS-4T 4x10/10/100 switch for $80ish shipped from Amazon. Cheap enough for you?
Oh, and GigE equipment is auto-crossover. That relieves a ton of Ethernet headaches and may alone be worth the delta cost! (I like to plug stuff in and have it Just Work)
Your wait is over.
If your systems don't have GLAN capability, that can be rectified rather inexpensively as well.
-DAK-
The HGS-4T is $80-$90 if you search, 4 port 10/100/1000 switch.
The Intel Pro/1000MT is $41-$46 OEM (less on eval) if you search.
The Linksys switch is probably a good switch, just 8 port - if folks here are super cost sensitive, then a 4 port for half the cost would be more appealing. I would push people to get the Intel board over the Netgear based on what controller chip's on it - maybe better performance, and definitely wider driver and test support (that is to say, there are enough Intel NICs out there that OS folks make sure they really work with their software).
The Intel Pro/1000MT is $41-$46 OEM (less on eval) if you search.
The Linksys switch is probably a good switch, just 8 port - if folks here are super cost sensitive, then a 4 port for half the cost would be more appealing. I would push people to get the Intel board over the Netgear based on what controller chip's on it - maybe better performance, and definitely wider driver and test support (that is to say, there are enough Intel NICs out there that OS folks make sure they really work with their software).
Everything on a Lan does not have to be gigabit. Often a gigabit lan is connected to a gigabit Switch which has a whole lot of 10/100 ports (24,48,etc). It uses the speed to increase the bandwidth of the all of the combined ports.
skyking
Lifer
- Nov 21, 2001
- 22,811
- 5,975
- 146
Gig at home sounds nice, but I can wait a few minutes for a few gig ghost or transfer over 100 segments. It is not like you do it all the time. You can even stream DVD over 100, a fairly big bunch of data.
I liken this to my older friend, who surfs and does email, and plays with a few photos. He is about to upgrade from a P4 2.2 with 768 MB of ram, just because it is no longer "state of the art". If 99% of your network usage is to connect to a 1.5 Mb/sec broadband, is it worth any amount of money to go to 1000?
I liken this to my older friend, who surfs and does email, and plays with a few photos. He is about to upgrade from a P4 2.2 with 768 MB of ram, just because it is no longer "state of the art". If 99% of your network usage is to connect to a 1.5 Mb/sec broadband, is it worth any amount of money to go to 1000?
SaigonK
Diamond Member
It certainly isnt of any use to go to Gigabyte if you dont intend to use, just sit and think if you REALLY transfer that much data at any given time.
Most people do not..
Now on the other had..for prices these days you can go Gig for cheap money.
If you intend to serve a bunch of data inside your home then have at it.
I backup my systems over my wireless network, at the 11mb (5mb or so real output) it is plenty fast to back up the 2-3 gig each night i care about.
Besides that no one is really using it at night.
Most people do not..
Now on the other had..for prices these days you can go Gig for cheap money.
If you intend to serve a bunch of data inside your home then have at it.
I backup my systems over my wireless network, at the 11mb (5mb or so real output) it is plenty fast to back up the 2-3 gig each night i care about.
Besides that no one is really using it at night.
The aforementioned Netgear NIC is inexpensive and is based on a Broadcom chipset that has more throughput than the low end Intel based Pro 1000T NICs.
Most people don't need this since it will be faster than their pci bus especially if other devices are competing. If you MB has this built in, it's a nice added bonus.
We're actually looking at 10 Gbps adapters that run on PCI-X 133 or PCI Express in the near future!
You can never have enough speed!
-DAK-
Most people don't need this since it will be faster than their pci bus especially if other devices are competing. If you MB has this built in, it's a nice added bonus.
We're actually looking at 10 Gbps adapters that run on PCI-X 133 or PCI Express in the near future!
You can never have enough speed!
-DAK-
shuttleteam, neither your comment nor your screenshot are science, and "the Netgear just flat out owns the Intel!" is an interesting analysis, but I can't find how you're supporting it. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but please try to be as constructive as possible.
I admit that I'm a BSD & Linux person mostly, and the Netgear 302 delivers ZERO Mb/s on my systems, not being supported at all, so that's a big "thanks for playing, guys" from me. The Pro/1000MT is very well supported in contrast, including there being a Linux driver written by Intel. The Intel gig boards have a similar architecture and it's likely that Intel gig boards made several years from now will still have a similar architecture, while Netgear uses the chip of the month. From a perspective of being well supported and Just Working, Intel simply wins. I don't know about you all, but I like it when hardware Just Works.
In my personal lab testing, the Nat Semi chipset (which powers many low end gig boards) was a poor performer and didn't even sustain 100Mb/s on a gig link (my 21140 boards can do that. NOTE - I've been told that there were driver performance improvements in Linux and BSD that have since helped a lot), the Intel Pro/1000MT (Intel's chipset) were solid, and the 3c996BT (BCM5701) was neck and neck with the Intel until you hit max jumbo MTU, where the 3Com pulled ahead. The 3Com boards are substantially more expensive than the Intel (more than double the cost), and so their price/performance just isn't as attractive. The Intel boards can be had in the $41-$46 range OEM, or $35 through Intel's eval program, which would be great price for an Intel 10/100 board IMO, and you're getting a gig board. They seem to me to be the current best choice.
The Netgear 302 board has a new chipset that I don't know. It's NOT supported by the OSs I really use, so I have no useful performance data and no driver source to read (Windows performance is a non issue, not to mention an oxymoron). My gut, however, is to say this: designing a gigE chipset that performs really well is not an easy task. Most of the no-name NIC controller vendors who have designed 10/100 chips have designed chips that are pretty lousy (and some can hardly handle 100Mb/s), so any of those vendors designing a gig chip strikes me as likely to result in a chip that's just not as good as the other players. Certainly that's the case with the NatSemi chips - I know of several important hardware things they screwed up that directly impacts performance. In contrast, Intel's been doing Ethernet controllers for a VERY long time and their 82557/8/9 10/100 chip is known to have very good 100Mb/s performance. And the BCM5701 chip on the 3Com board is a third generation version of the Alteon Tigon core, which was an early gigE NIC chipset with very good performance (for a long, long time, the Tigon II - found on the 3c985SX and the Netgear GA620/620T - was the gigE NIC core to get for PCs).
skyking, today, do you need gig at home? No. But if you're buying NICs today to build systems today, it is worthwhile to think about what you're going to want to have a few years from now. My personal philosophy is that I try to buy stuff that I think is going to last, technologically and reliability wise. I've got a closet full of obosolete gear, and I'd like to be able to get as much out of boards as possible before they take the death march into the closet. I would not buy a 10/100 NIC anymore unless I was super ultra cost sensitive for a job. The cost of a gig NIC is just soooo cheap now, and it has a longer obsolescence lifetime. And in a few years, when you buy your new Athlon 64 and want to connect it fast to your current PC, you'll be able to make better use of that gig link.
And yeah, I want the coolest home network I can get! Now, if only I could figure out how to get some 10Gb/s Ethernet gear into my basement. I'll put that next to the 40lambda x OC192 SONET ring
I admit that I'm a BSD & Linux person mostly, and the Netgear 302 delivers ZERO Mb/s on my systems, not being supported at all, so that's a big "thanks for playing, guys" from me. The Pro/1000MT is very well supported in contrast, including there being a Linux driver written by Intel. The Intel gig boards have a similar architecture and it's likely that Intel gig boards made several years from now will still have a similar architecture, while Netgear uses the chip of the month. From a perspective of being well supported and Just Working, Intel simply wins. I don't know about you all, but I like it when hardware Just Works.
In my personal lab testing, the Nat Semi chipset (which powers many low end gig boards) was a poor performer and didn't even sustain 100Mb/s on a gig link (my 21140 boards can do that. NOTE - I've been told that there were driver performance improvements in Linux and BSD that have since helped a lot), the Intel Pro/1000MT (Intel's chipset) were solid, and the 3c996BT (BCM5701) was neck and neck with the Intel until you hit max jumbo MTU, where the 3Com pulled ahead. The 3Com boards are substantially more expensive than the Intel (more than double the cost), and so their price/performance just isn't as attractive. The Intel boards can be had in the $41-$46 range OEM, or $35 through Intel's eval program, which would be great price for an Intel 10/100 board IMO, and you're getting a gig board. They seem to me to be the current best choice.
The Netgear 302 board has a new chipset that I don't know. It's NOT supported by the OSs I really use, so I have no useful performance data and no driver source to read (Windows performance is a non issue, not to mention an oxymoron). My gut, however, is to say this: designing a gigE chipset that performs really well is not an easy task. Most of the no-name NIC controller vendors who have designed 10/100 chips have designed chips that are pretty lousy (and some can hardly handle 100Mb/s), so any of those vendors designing a gig chip strikes me as likely to result in a chip that's just not as good as the other players. Certainly that's the case with the NatSemi chips - I know of several important hardware things they screwed up that directly impacts performance. In contrast, Intel's been doing Ethernet controllers for a VERY long time and their 82557/8/9 10/100 chip is known to have very good 100Mb/s performance. And the BCM5701 chip on the 3Com board is a third generation version of the Alteon Tigon core, which was an early gigE NIC chipset with very good performance (for a long, long time, the Tigon II - found on the 3c985SX and the Netgear GA620/620T - was the gigE NIC core to get for PCs).
skyking, today, do you need gig at home? No. But if you're buying NICs today to build systems today, it is worthwhile to think about what you're going to want to have a few years from now. My personal philosophy is that I try to buy stuff that I think is going to last, technologically and reliability wise. I've got a closet full of obosolete gear, and I'd like to be able to get as much out of boards as possible before they take the death march into the closet. I would not buy a 10/100 NIC anymore unless I was super ultra cost sensitive for a job. The cost of a gig NIC is just soooo cheap now, and it has a longer obsolescence lifetime. And in a few years, when you buy your new Athlon 64 and want to connect it fast to your current PC, you'll be able to make better use of that gig link.
And yeah, I want the coolest home network I can get! Now, if only I could figure out how to get some 10Gb/s Ethernet gear into my basement. I'll put that next to the 40lambda x OC192 SONET ring
skyking
Lifer
- Nov 21, 2001
- 22,811
- 5,975
- 146
I'm with you on the purchase of 10/100 gear, but as long as I can get it free after rebate.......
I sold a 10baseT 16 port hub to a fellow, and he had 7 to 9 players using it for a Lan party the other day. All the folks were happy with the quality of gameplay, and that is what counts
I sold a 10baseT 16 port hub to a fellow, and he had 7 to 9 players using it for a Lan party the other day. All the folks were happy with the quality of gameplay, and that is what counts
Netgear's solution is Broadcom based. (Enough said!) Tested throughput is better (nearly 200% in real use!) at 32/33 PCI which 95% of the user base has. Same with OS. Most are using x86 based WinNT.
I'm a subcontractor and my clients have $B budgets. I do not, so I tend to go with a cost/performance solution. I prefer not to buy junk as well. If these products fit into the later category, I wouldn't recommend them even if they were free.
-DAK-
I'm a subcontractor and my clients have $B budgets. I do not, so I tend to go with a cost/performance solution. I prefer not to buy junk as well. If these products fit into the later category, I wouldn't recommend them even if they were free.
-DAK-
SaigonK
Diamond Member
I have seen the differecne bewteen the Intel and Broadcomm nics, some of our dell servers have both, and i am constantly suprised at the difference between the two.
it does seem like the Broadcomm is pishig more data.
it does seem like the Broadcomm is pishig more data.
shuttleteam, hmm. I periodically check drivers for things to see what controller's really on it, and didn't think that the current Netgear offerrings are BCM57xx based. If they are, then they're good boards. It's the same chip as the 3c996BT, only the 3Com board has 64 bit / 66MHz / PCI-X capabilities. Unless you have one of those fancy flavors of PCI, they'd be the same thing, and I'm sure the Netgear-branded board would be cheaper than the 3Com-branded board.
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