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Date:      Mon, 2 Apr 2001 23:20:59 +0200 (CEST)
From:      Bert Driehuis <driehuis@playbeing.org>
To:        Virtual Bob <hey9811@yahoo.com>
Cc:        "David W. Chapman Jr." <dwcjr@inethouston.net>, FreeBSD-STABLE list <freebsd-stable@freebsd.org>
Subject:   Re: Network performance question
Message-ID:  <Pine.BSI.4.21.0104022306340.5679-100000@c1111.nl.compuware.com>
In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.33.0104021558330.5885-100000@kristen.shadowdale.net>

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On Mon, 2 Apr 2001, Virtual Bob wrote:

> > This is why 3com and intel cards are more expensive, I would try an intel
> > 10/100, I hear its got very good support.
> 
> So what's exactly different about these cards? I never figured it out.
> They're priced around $60 to $90 each vs. no-name ones for $10 to $20. I
> sure like to know if there's any good reason to buy those...

The more expensive ones receive more attention from engineering and from
marketing. The latter is wasted money, the first is not.

For example, the really cheap ones are based on the Realtek chipset. It
looks good on paper, even the specs unless you read them with a mind
towards actually implementing a driver. The Realtek chipset is so bad
that the chip would probably have been faster if they used polled I/O
rather than DMA to receive packets.

The expensive ones differ in how many hardware bugs are in them (they're
unavoidable, so they really only differ in how many are found during
engineering vs after shipping).

Cheers,

				-- Bert

-- 
Bert Driehuis -- driehuis@playbeing.org -- +31-20-3116119
If the only tool you've got is an axe, every problem looks like fun!


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