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Is this a good NIC for my needs?

901 Views 14 Replies 3 Participants Last post by  Tator Tot, 
Tator Tot
Intel EXPI9301CTBLK 10/ 100/ 1000Mbps PCI-Express Network Adapter

I just need a Windows 7/Vista 64bit compatible card, that will hold up with large network data transfers.

And it being 10/100/1000 card.

PCI-e 1x was a choice, but not a necessity. And I'd like any suggestions to be PCI-e.
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That's a Intel PRO/1000 CT which is the newer version of the PRO/1000 PT. It has a few newer minor features and lower power consumption. Both cards do partial TOE.
http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?p=1033810723

If you want to be a guinea pig, you might want to check out the netXtreme II 5708. It is a PCIe x4 card that offers full TOE and I've seen it for refurb for ~$40.
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tubesaddict
Totally inadequate! You need this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833342001 lol. That should do you just fine, can't see why that would cause any conflicts or wouldn't meet your needs.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by tubesaddict View Post
Totally inadequate! You need this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833342001 lol. That should do you just fine, can't see why that would cause any conflicts or wouldn't meet your needs.
Before you knock it.... know about what it can do. It can do TCP and UDP offloading. A $240 can be considered cheap for a NIC when there are server NICs that cost over $1000.
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Tator Tot
Quote:

Originally Posted by DuckieHo View Post
That's a Intel PRO/1000 CT which is the newer version of the PRO/1000 GT. It has a few newer minor features and lower power consumption. Both cards do partial TOE.

If you want to be a guinea pig, you might want to check out the netXtreme II 5708. It is a PCIe x4 card that offers full TOE and I've seen it for refurb for ~$40.
Do you have a link Duckie?
I've never heard of a netXtreme? New, old, unknown?

What supposedly makes that card so nice?

And what is TOE? TCP Offload Engine?
What is the difference in the "Partial TOE" of the Intel card, and the "Full TOE" of the netXtreme card?

Quote:

Originally Posted by tubesaddict View Post
Totally inadequate! You need this - http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16833342001 lol. That should do you just fine, can't see why that would cause any conflicts or wouldn't meet your needs.
Needs to be gold plated K, then I'll buy it.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Tator Tot View Post
Do you have a link Duckie?
I've never heard of a netXtreme? New, old, unknown?

What supposedly makes that card so nice?

And what is TOE? TCP Offload Engine?
What is the difference in the "Partial TOE" of the Intel card, and the "Full TOE" of the netXtreme card?
Needs to be gold plated K, then I'll buy it.

I edited my orginal post with differences between the CT and PT.

TOE basically has the NIC process the packets instead of interrupting your CPU for every packet. Since you are doing large network data transfers, this may improve your performance.

I'll have a Killer NIC, Pro/1000 PT, and onboard NIC testing up later this week. Subjective testing has the Pro/1000 PT load webpages faster than onboard when opening 12+ pages at once.
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Tator Tot
Quote:

Originally Posted by DuckieHo View Post
I edited my orginal post with differences between the CT and PT.

TOE basically has the NIC process the packets instead of interrupting your CPU for every packet. Since you are doing large network data transfers, this may improve your performance.

I'll have a Killer NIC, Pro/1000 PT, and onboard NIC testing up later this week. Subjective testing has the Pro/1000 PT load webpages faster than onboard when opening 12+ pages at once.
Alright...so basically what you are saying is the TOE acts like the Killer NICs NPU.
And instead of using my CPU to manage network traffic.

So should I look for that netXtreme NIC, or should I look at picking up one of the Killer NICs?

As I normally do have a large amount in internal network traffic, and FTP traffic going through my NIC, so would this drastically improve my performance on both levels, or just be a small performance boost?

Also, the Killer NICs, being two, the only difference I can note between the two is the heatspreader and the 230$ model has a 400mhz clock, instead of 333mhz.
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Tator Tot View Post
Alright...so basically what you are saying is the TOE acts like the Killer NICs NPU.
And instead of using my CPU to manage network traffic.

So should I look for that netXtreme NIC, or should I look at picking up one of the Killer NICs?

As I normally do have a large amount in internal network traffic, and FTP traffic going through my NIC, so would this drastically improve my performance on both levels, or just be a small performance boost?

Also, the Killer NICs, being two, the only difference I can note between the two is the heatspreader and the 230$ model has a 400mhz clock, instead of 333mhz.
TOE improves TCP/IP performance only. I believe FTP utilizes the TCP/IP protocols.

The Killer NIC adds the support of UDP processing which is used in gaming, stream media, and VOIP. It does not support teaming (in case you want to upgrade your connection) nor is it a server card (which means more limited support).

The Intel PRO/1000 CT or netXtreme II 5708 would better meet your requirements. I have not used the netXtreme II so I can't guarantee its compatibility. However, it is a workstation/server card and drivers for most OS are available. Unfortunately, there is not much information or benchmarking of NICs. On paper, the netXtreme II looks noticeably better.
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Tator Tot
Do you have a link as to where I can get the NXE II?
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Quote:

Originally Posted by Tator Tot View Post
Do you have a link as to where I can get the NXE II?
This site had them for a few weeks for like $40 but are currently OOS... you might want to email them: http://www.txcesssurplus.com/servlet...reme-II/Detail

Here it is on eBay for $50 currently: http://cgi.ebay.com/Broadcom-NetXtre...QQcmdZViewItem
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Tator Tot
Alright thank you.

I'll be looking forward to your NIC benchmarks.

I see that the NXE II is a Brodcom NIC.
Are you going to be testing the NXE II?
What NICs are you testing?
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Quote:


Originally Posted by Tator Tot
View Post

Alright thank you.

I'll be looking forward to your NIC benchmarks.

I see that the NXE II is a Brodcom NIC.
Are you going to be testing the NXE II?
What NICs are you testing?

Killer NIC, Pro/1000 PT, and onboard NIC.... I don't have a network to really really test them though.

I plan to do simutaneous page loading and running the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit against my file server. These tests are very limited in scope.
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Tator Tot
Quote:


Originally Posted by DuckieHo
View Post

Killer NIC, Pro/1000 PT, and onboard NIC.... I don't have a network to really really test them though.

I plan to do simutaneous page loading and running the Intel NAS Performance Toolkit against my file server. These tests are very limited in scope.

Just think of it as more of a "real world" test.


As I doubt many people have that high of traffic on their home networks.

Internet traffic on the other hand. I know plenty of OCN users have alot of that.
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Oh.... what OS will you be running?

Nevermind... Vista/W7 have TOE support.

I have clan member who has a 10Gb network... at home.
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Tator Tot
Quote:


Originally Posted by DuckieHo
View Post

I have clan member who has a 10Gb network... at home.
I just crapped my pants in jealousy.

....
and I felt so good when I got my Gigabit & Wireless N network setup with NAS & media server. Along with Fileserver.
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