Date: Thu, 26 Aug 1999 09:58:36 -0600 (MDT) From: "Kenneth D. Merry" <ken@plutotech.com> To: mjacob@feral.com Cc: freebsd-hardware@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: what's the best working gigabit ether card... Message-ID: <199908261558.JAA83092@panzer.kdm.org> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.4.05.9908252258370.217-100000@semuta.feral.com> from Matthew Jacob at "Aug 25, 1999 10:59:32 pm"
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Matthew Jacob wrote... > > for FreeBSD these days? Well, the most tested boards are the Alteon-based boards. I've had pretty good success with them. The only other alternative are SysKonnect boards, and I haven't heard of anyone other than Bill Paul using them. You'll have to ask him how they work. As for the Alteon boards, they work pretty well, and the driver works pretty well. I would suggest getting the Netgear GA620, as it is based on the Tigon 2 chipset. I think the 3Com 3c985 may be based on the Tigon 1 chipset. If so, you'd probably rather have the Netgear. You can also get Alteon-branded boards, but you can only get them from Alteon and I think you'll end up paying a lot for them. The Netgear boards are essentially identical to the Alteon-branded boards, with the possible exception of a different transceiver. The Netgear boards only have 512K of SRAM. I think the 3Com boards have 1MB of SRAM, and you can get Alteon boards with either 512K or 1MB. Obviously, 1MB is preferrable, but I would choose a Tigon 2 board over a Tigon 1 board. You can still get very good performance with 512K of SRAM, it mainly just affects the TCP window size you can use effectively. Although it depends on your application, you'll probably want to run jumbo frames (9000 byte MTU) on whatever board you get. You'll get relatively poor performance with the standard 1500 byte ethernet MTU at gigabit speeds. My guess is that you will have difficulty getting past 350 or 400Mbps, depending on what sort of hardware you have. Another thing to keep in mind, if you're going to be connecting more than two machines, is that the Alteon switches are the only ones that I've seen that currently claim to do jumbo frames. They cost a bundle, but they're more or less the only game in town. My guess is that will change eventually. Ken -- Kenneth Merry ken@plutotech.com To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hardware" in the body of the message
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