Re: Network card recommendation

["Daniel L. Miller" <dmiller@amfes.com>]

Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:

> On Tue, Aug 16, 2005 at 01:27:21AM +0200, Anders Breindahl wrote:
>  
>
> > On Monday 15 August 2005 23:48, Roberto C. Sanchez wrote:
> >    
> >
> > > On Mon, Aug 15, 2005 at 10:54:40PM +0200, Jan Schledermann wrote:
> > >      
> > >
> > > > A safe bet is a card with a realtek chip. It works well and is not
> > > > expensive.
> > > >        
> > > Yeah.  It's safe in the same way that a Pinto was safe in a rear end
> > > collision.  Seriously, Realtek are the *cheapest* and *worst* possible
> > > chips.  If you want anything approaching reliable, then don't get them.
> > > If you want something that will not hog your CPU under heavy load, then
> > > don't get a realtek.  Really, 3COM is the way to go.  Failing that,
> > > maybe Intel, though I am not as familiar with their newer hardware.
> > >
> > > -Roberto
> > >      
> > Please educate me: What exactly determines a NIC's reliability? What defines 
> > its effectiveness?
> >
> >    
>
> Among other things, its load on the CPU when under heavy traffic load.
> Certain cards implement a minimal hardware set and do most of their
> processing in the driver software.  The size of the buffers also plays a
> role in how heavy loads are handled, e.g., when packets are dropped.
>
> -Roberto
>
>  
Thank you, this was the kind of info I was looking for.  I take it the 
3COM does a better job of off-loading processing than the Intel does?

Daniel