From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 21 18:20:37 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 17C44106566B for ; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:20:37 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from john@dexter.starfire.mn.org) Received: from dexter.starfire.mn.org (starfire.skypoint.net [173.8.102.29]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AC9C68FC14 for ; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 18:20:36 +0000 (UTC) Received: (from john@localhost) by dexter.starfire.mn.org (8.11.3/8.11.3) id o0LIKYm13120; Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:20:34 -0600 (CST) (envelope-from john) Date: Thu, 21 Jan 2010 12:20:34 -0600 From: John To: Chuck Swiger Message-ID: <20100121122034.A13042@starfire.mn.org> References: <20100121112757.A11858@starfire.mn.org> <9F075D36-72FF-4B40-B9AD-918808369D3D@mac.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5.1i In-Reply-To: <9F075D36-72FF-4B40-B9AD-918808369D3D@mac.com>; from cswiger@mac.com on Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:12:29AM -0800 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 18:20:37 -0000 On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 10:12:29AM -0800, Chuck Swiger wrote: > 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. Thanks! That's perfect. I have a chance to buy a few Intel Pro 10/100 (fxp) cards. I guess I'll take it! Just curious, though - you don't mention 3Com cards one way or the other, yet there's a lot of them out there. Any comment on those? > Regards, > -- > -Chuck > > _______________________________________________ > freebsd-questions@freebsd.org mailing list > http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-questions > To unsubscribe, send any mail to "freebsd-questions-unsubscribe@freebsd.org" -- John Lind john@starfire.MN.ORG