From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 21 18:12:45 2010 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:4f8:fff6::34]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A5BD61065676 for ; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:12:45 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from asmtpout030.mac.com (asmtpout030.mac.com [17.148.16.105]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 906018FC14 for ; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:12:45 +0000 (UTC) MIME-version: 1.0 Content-transfer-encoding: 7BIT Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Received: from cswiger1.apple.com ([17.227.140.124]) by asmtp030.mac.com (Sun Java(tm) System Messaging Server 6.3-8.01 (built Dec 16 2008; 32bit)) with ESMTPSA id <0KWL00LKUZWT8E80@asmtp030.mac.com> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:12:30 -0800 (PST) X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx engine=5.0.0-0908210000 definitions=main-1001210150 From: Chuck Swiger In-reply-to: <20100121112757.A11858@starfire.mn.org> Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 10:12:29 -0800 Message-id: <9F075D36-72FF-4B40-B9AD-918808369D3D@mac.com> References: <20100121112757.A11858@starfire.mn.org> To: John X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1077) Cc: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Recommendations for NICs? X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:12:45 -0000 Hi-- On Jan 21, 2010, at 9:27 AM, John wrote: > This used to be a hot topic long ago, but now seems to have become > rather dormant. Does that mean that all NICs are pretty much > commodity with all the good features (unaligned scatter/gather, > etc), or does it just mean that machine performance has grown to > the point where we don't care anymore? The hardware.html page > tells me what may owrk, but not what may work WELL. The on-board > NIC uses the fxp driver. Should I look for another card that uses > the same driver? Intel (fxp, em) and Broadcom (bce, bge) make fine NICs, and the older DEC/Intel 21x4x Tulip series (dc/de) was quite good as well. The Marvel Yukon (msk) and nVidia MCP (nfe/nve) seem to be OK (although older nVidia hardware had bugs); the Realtek (re/rl) and VIA (vr/vge) are at the bottom of the heap, especially the older pre-gigabit hardware. Regards, -- -Chuck