Intel Gigabit LAN adapter for $52

[Kennyshin]

Intel Gigabit Ethernet card for $52

1000Mbps LAN is still a lot faster and easier to use than 400Mbps IEEE 1394a and 480Mbps USB 2.0 for transferring GBs of data between networked PCs.

http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproduct.asp?description=33-106-105

[jeex]

i'm not sure how much benefit a gigabyte ethernet network would have for any regular users... i actually conducted a test earlier this week, to see how fast i could transfer data from one pc to another. i'm on a 100mbps network.. i installed ramdisk xp on both of the pc's.. ramdisk is a program that will make temporary harddrives from the ram on your pc's.. the drives are extraordinarily fast.. so i created a 50mb drive on each pc, and copied a 50mb file from one pc to the other.. i only got up to 48% network usage, meaning that i was transferring at about 48mbps.. it doesnt seem like a gigabyte network would be too useful for anyone not serving a vast amount of data to many computers from a server..

[KingJohn]

I want 3, My local network machines all download gigabits of data, and its my machine that has to convert all the movies they download.

[jeex]

screw that i want a 10gigabit ethernet network, a 400ghz pentium 12, 100gigs of ddddddram, a 10 petabyte harddrive, and my fmd-rw drive.. grahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!




http://www.10gea.org/

[Faustus]

one problem, the cards can be gotten for around 50 dollars each, however try to price the actual switch you need for a network based on these... last I saw they were still around $600.

There are some that say Gigabit on them that are cheaper, however if you look most of these have only 1 gigbit port on them for an serverlink or uplink from another hub.

[d4n13l]

Another problem: dont think a standard PCI bus will do a gigabit ethernet card justice.

[Kennyshin]

Another problem: dont think a standard PCI bus will do a gigabit ethernet card justice.

Pardon? Hm... There are two kinds actually. 64-bit Gigabit Ethernet PCI cards are a little more expensive.

I use 64-bit Adaptec SCSI 160 card but since I have only 32-bit slots, I use it connected to the 32-bit PCI. I was planning to buy Asus AMD 760MPX board or Supermicro Intel E7500 board but decided to wait for cheaper boards with onboard S-ATA and USB 2.0.

Even then, I think the current PCI bus is enough for handling Gigabit transmission. Maybe enough is not the correct word but it is still many times faster than 10/100Mbps LAN used to move GBs of data between networked PCs at home.

Intel and SiS are going to make Gigabit LAN standard in their south bridge chips later this year.

[Kennyshin]

Intel 1000Mbps PCI card in bulk. $47

Retail box. $49 from $52 now.

[d4n13l]

Kennyshin,
Gigabit cards on "standard" PCI buses have the potential to swamp the bandwidth of the PCI bus. Exactly the reason why they had to create the AGP slot for fast graphics cards. It may "work", but it is far from a perfect solution is all I am saying. What would you rather put a fast graphics card in; an AGP slot or PCI slot? I also am sure that you would rather have both a SCSI 160 card and a gigabit ethernet card in 64-bit slots too.

[d4n13l]

Double post.

[d4n13l]

Treble post(!!!)
(I thought there were safeguards against double posting?)

[Kennyshin]

64-bit PCI slots are a lot better than 32-bit ones.

However, I use 32-bit Promise ATA-133 controller PCI card and Adaptec 29160w 64-bit SCSI 160 card together in Asus A7V motherboard. Simply because there were no cheap motherboard with 64-bit PCI then. Even now, none.

The more important thing I think is that changing from 100Mbps LAN PCI card to 1000Mbps LAN PCI card does improve transfer rate between networked systems. I have several systems at home and they are all connected with 100Mbps LAN, mostly based on Realtek 8139A/B/C chips.

The more practical and cost-effective solution would be Gigabit LAN integrated into the south bridge controller chip and either SiS or Intel will be the first to do it with inexpensive chipsets.