Ethernet?

JamieLee2k · Post by **JamieLee2k** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 4:07 am

I have a cheep 10/100 ethernet card and I was wondering if anyone knows what the difference is between a cheep 10/100 and a expensive one? I have seen the Prices range from £15 - £80 each

[ 04-09-2001: Message edited by: JLR ]

EvilAjax · Post by **EvilAjax** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 5:21 am

ethernet cards dont have many features.. it's just an.. ethernet card.. the only difference between a cheap one and an expensive one would be the price, and the company that makes it. I don't think it will affect your speed or anything like that. There isn't a turbo booster ethernet card out there. Well, I'm not much help, I've only experienced my $20 Linksys LNE100TX Fast Ethernet Adapter. It seems to work fine.

Again, same product, different name brand, no difference.

Andrew · Post by **Andrew** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 5:50 am

Actually there's a Big difference between a cheap ethernet card and a good and expensive one.

And yes they do effect on your speed. Like for example playing Online games with a Cheap card will suck. If you put a expensive one in and play you will see a big difference.

But it also effects the download and upload time too.
Trust me a 80$ card to a 12$ card will preform much better.

-Andrew

Post by **YeOldeStonecat** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 6:50 am

Yes there is a big different, just like anything else. Good NICs, and I only use 3COM or Intel NICs, well, good NICs have much better hardware controllers on them, which take more of a load off of your CPU, deal with multitasking better, throughput speed, everything.

Compare it to say a modem back in the dial up days. Was any modem the same? No. Which would you rather have for performance, a crappy Winmodem? Or a nice hardware controlled USR modem?

The difference between an El-Cheapo NIC and a top notch NIC isn't too apparent to most users if you're just websurfing, basic downloading, etc, on a broad bandwidth connection. Because you're not maxing out the abilities of a cheap NIC. But say you do lots of downloading of huge files, or online gaming all the time, you'd notice a difference. Say you run a server out of your house for 6 - 8 people to play Unreal Tournament or Rune, you'll see a bigger difference. Or say you build a nice gaming server for LAN parties, or to host at your ISP's data center that runs lots of games for lots of people (say 3X Unreal Tournament games, 16 people each), then you'll really notice a HUGE difference.

Also durability. I work in the field, can't begine to count how many networks I've worked on, or how many computers over the years (thousands). When someone calls me to come troubleshoot a computer on their network, say a storm rolled through, power surge, whatever. Guess which NIC's I don't have to replace because they didn't blow.....3COM or Intel NICs.

I'm not knocking on Linksys, I think they make decent mid range stuff.

ghost · Post by **ghost** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 7:11 am

Most of the performance gain by a high-quality NIC is due to the buffer size. Some cheap cards have no buffer at all. Under high-load conditions, generally speaking, the expensive card will perform better.

ghost

EvilAjax · Post by **EvilAjax** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 7:16 am

yeah, that's what I said, the expensive ones perform better... Well, like I said.. my advice would be no help..

all it did was make me feel stupid... well.. I dont play games that much, and I'm getting 550kbps on a 640kbps dsl package.. I'd say my $20 Linksys Ethernet Card is pretty good.. it was probably half price or something.. Buy an expensive one, wait, I can e-mail you mine...

oh god, I must be tired

JamieLee2k · Post by **JamieLee2k** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 7:35 am

Email me yours from NY ok looking forward to recieving it.

EvilAjax · Post by **EvilAjax** » Mon Apr 09, 2001 7:52 am

lol