Date: Thu, 01 Jun 2006 16:15:49 +0200 From: Heinrich Rebehn <rebehn@ant.uni-bremen.de> To: danial_thom@yahoo.com Cc: questions@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Recommendation for 1000BASE-SX card? Message-ID: <447EF695.6090506@ant.uni-bremen.de> In-Reply-To: <20060601133823.1743.qmail@web33311.mail.mud.yahoo.com> References: <20060601133823.1743.qmail@web33311.mail.mud.yahoo.com>
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Danial Thom wrote: > > --- Heinrich Rebehn <rebehn@ant.uni-bremen.de> > wrote: > >> Danial Thom wrote: >>> The intel cards that use the EM driver are >> the >>> best performing cards in FreeBSD that we've >>> tested. We've test cards made by the same >> company >>> that use the broadcom controllers and the >> intel >>> cards are substantially better (ie use less >> CPU >>> passing the same amount of traffic). >>> >>> Be careful using on-board controllers. >> Usually >>> vendors, for some reason, don't wire them to >> the >>> pci-x bus. Most supermicro boards wire the em >>> controllers to the 32bit/33mhz bus and the >> tyan >>> and supermicro opteron boards we've tested >> wire >>> the broadcoms to a shared 1x PCI-E, both of >> which >>> will not only give you poor performance, but >> are >>> not capable of running full gigabit rates. >>> >>> DT >>> >> The Intel card would be an INTEL Pro1000MF, >> right? This would be quite >> expensive (~ EUR 430), but good performance and >> stability would warrant >> that. >> ATM, we are using the onboard controller >> (Broadcom BCM5704C wired to the >> pci-x bus). I did not have opportunity to do >> performance measurements, >> but we do have problems with our Linkpro >> 1000SX/1000TX converters, the >> 3rd of which has already died. >> That's why i want to give a PCI-X card with >> fiber interface a try. > > No, that would be the 1000MT, the MF is a fiber > card I believe. They are about US$120. in the US. Our building has fiber cabling, that's why i am looking for a fiber card. The 1000SX/1000TX converters that we use are just to unreliable. > > How do you know its wired to the PCI-X bus, since > I don't believe that the controller has a way of > reporting the way that the intel controller does? > What MB do you have? It is a Tyan Thunder K8SD Pro S2882-D http://www.tyan.com/products/html/thunderk8sdpro_spec.html The spec says that the BCM5704C is connected to PCI-X Bridge A (64Bit,100MHz). > > Also keep in mind that the bge driver is a piece > of crap; driver quality is a much more telling > factor in these free OS's than the card in many > cases. The EM and FXP are the only drivers worth > anything (mainly because neither were written by > mass-driver mill man Bill Paul). That really sounds bad. I wonder if others can confirm that. --Heinrich
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